r i p virgil gibbs

well, we lost a friend last week.  when i came to town in 1971 after traveling around for a couple of years, michael and meg were running a small business called virgil gibbs boots and leather in the center of what was then a funky little town of a couple thousand people. kit and i also lived in the center of that town,

and since vgb&l became sort of a hangout place, we hung out there.  time went on and in 1973, we all bought some land in towns nearby, got married, and built some houses.  none of us really had much of a clue what we were doing regarding building houses at the time.  one friend bought an old backhoe and an old john deere bulldozer.   i bought a book and read up on carpentry ... rim joist, rafter tail, header ....we all worked together on each others houses.  it was, in hindsight, a kind of a magical time in vermont.  land was cheapish. our first building lot was $7000., our first mortgage $25,000.  we were bartenders and there was no tax on tips .... anyway, we all go way back.

michael and i went on to become full time carpenters after we moved into our houses, and went on to have kids and raise our families.  there were, in 1974, five of us who built houses that year, we worked together, and were all still friends today.  michael went on later to become a builder and i went on to build furniture.   above, in 1976, we are raising the frame of my first wood shop/garage at our house in arlington.  

mikes easy to spot in the photos above as the only bald guy. 

later, after his divorce, michael built a house next door to ours on goodwood lane in dorset, and was our neighbor for a couple of years there before moving to california and remarrying.  as one friend said recently, he added the spice to the stew.  an excellent observation ..

open studio, 2003 with kit and mike and friends at the shop.  the tall guy there on the right in the blue shirt was one of the five 1974 house builders, as was the shorter women in the white shirt standing with him ..

so, we made a box ... with some reclaimed wood from a project michael did in downtown dorset that miraculously ended up in my garage when i needed it for the box.  it had come to me when we did some work on that house a couple years ago.

 .

i only hit a few hand wrought nails when i resawed it for the box wood.

i put a little leather inside for virgil gibbs

r.i.p. mike

yall enjoy your friends and every healthy moment ... onward ...

from this weeks manchester journal ...click to read it ...

added this to the leather inside in the end

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r i p ethan

well its not often you lose two friends in a span of a week or so, but sometimes, i guess, it just happens.

we attended a memorial service last sunday for a former employee who started to work for us as a senior in high school.  he and will both took part in the target program, an alternative program in our local high school, burr and burton.  he continued with us for about 6 years after he graduated, and became our first employee cnc enthusiast, and its main operator.  will also did the target program where kids do academics in the morning and go out into the community to work in the afternoons.  wills journey took him to vew-do the balance board company where he learned about computers, photoshop, marketing and customer service.  ethan and will were friends from the time we moved to dorset in 1996.  i could go on and on here, and i did mumble for a bit at the service, but will actually summed it up perfectly in a post he wrote on facebook ... so, ill just say here what will said ...

click the photo to read it .... its a heartfelt one.

here are a few photos of pieces ethan worked on that will found in the archives ... 

he was really good with turning, upholstery, and with the inlays ...

 early days ... about 2002 ... with mark and david rasmussen

                                                           R.I.P. ethan .. were gonna miss you ....

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painting class

please bear with me a bit here as i digress from my normal writings on woodworking.  there is so much more to life, and with the recent death of two close friends, the fact that time is finite and slipping by daily is on my mind ... for the moment, for what remains of summer at least, i am trying a new regimen:  into the shop by 9:00, out by 4:00, with an hour for lunch, (and sometimes, a nap).  more time with friends and family and other interests ... 

well see how long that lasts.  the checkbook is still, and always will be, in charge ...

click the photos to enlarge them ... 

so here is horst, my painting instructor, a few years back, with his painting, calligraphy.  actually the image says 2006.  ive known horst well since the early 70s.  hes an old master now, at 91, and is still painting away in nearby arlington.  i went for a visit a few weeks back, asked for some lessons and now were at it more or less weekly.  today was my third lesson.  so far, his advice has been mostly try that bigger brush. try that palette knife .... use that whisk broom some ... stop! ... stuff like that.  its a challenge ... the top photo is the results of todays lesson, and one of those paintings was a duet where we passed the brush back and forth a bit without saying much ... at first i was a bit, hmmm, miffed? he was painting over my stuff !!!  in the end, when i got home, kit and i agreed it was the strongest of the bunch.  see if you can figure out which painting that was, and ill post it at the end.
the other two classes are below ..

8/5

8/11 .. paint something representational was the task ... in this case he cropped off more than half of what i painted after i finished .. much improved, it was, by the chopping ...

next week, i get to use white with the black ... with the black for now, i think im channeling robert motherwell, learning about volume, form, power .. etc.  working my way up to color.  no rush .

 you can read more about horst in this blog post, the artist in his studio, from 2010 ...

 to get a good sense of horsts style you can see more of his paintings on my website.

a few of my clients have bought paintings, and you can too!

as promised, this image is the duet ... power, form, space ..

on another subject, i took some new pottery out of the kiln monday ...

 go out and play!

pottery close up ...
update 10 17

9/10/15

9/17/15

9/24/15

10/9/15

1016/15

this week i told horst i wanted tot do something maybe a little more representational.  i didnt get far with that but ... i can try that at home.  i like this guys style, which should work well with my drawings
but for now with horst im enjoying learning how to handle color with a palette knife.  heres one he painted in 2014 .. we bought that from him at christmas and thats how the painting class thing started.

about 30" x 40"  sort of a hans hoffman guy

stay tuned

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