Week 14 - From Sketch to Sentiment

This week's project is a vase from reclaimed barn wood with an inner acrylic liner. And you were expecting something with goat parts weren't you? Naaaaaaaaaaaaah, not this week.

I've had this idea rattling around in my head and sketchbook for over two years. The acrylic for the liner was actually purchased last Spring and finally got my attention from its stored nook in the shop. In college, I built tide pool aquariums with my brother and buddy, which proved to be helpful with the mixed bag of acrylic and wood this week. Trust me it's leakproof!

The joinery along the edges of the vase is a box joint. Simple, straightforward, unpretentious design. It's clever and solid like the dovetail but has much more humility.

And once again I gravitated towards the weathered, greying wood for this project. Rustic is definitely on trend, but to me it's much more than that. It reminds me of what my Nana used to say... "I am so blessed to have lived long enough to have my hair turn grey and my youthful laughs be forever etched into deep grooves on my face." Creating this vase is almost like tracing her laugh lines with my fingers.

From sketch to sentiment.  

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Week 13 - Spice-y

Happy Hearts. 

This week's project is a new pepper grinder for my wife. This has been in the queue for over three years since she broke up with her last grinder. With Valentine's falling on this weekend, this felt like the right project. Love is the spice of life. Spice and a new pepper grinder, makes sense to me. Not to mention, my wife loves to cook, and well, we love to eat in the Micek household.  

Callie and I don't really celebrate Valentine's Day. It is a decision we made while we were dating. It just seems like a manufactured holiday to us. So we try (TRY being the operative word) to live everyday with a dash of love. This little gift seems like a good way to remember each other everyday. I on the other hand received a decaying goat carcass. We love each other so very much. Nothing says love like a goat carcass, I've always said that. 

It comes to this... we know exactly what tickles the other. I can't wait to incorporate the horns and perhaps even the bones into a piece. Stay tuned and you just might see them in a future blog post. Until then, may there always be spice in your life. Savor today.    

Week 12 - Dedicated Spaces

This week's theme was refinements and efficiencies. Say hello to my new assembly table. This baby replaces a sheet of plywood atop a couple of sawhorses.  The old set-up served me well for a number of years, but it was time to move on and upgrade. With more and more commissions coming in this will allow me a dedicated space to assemble them wholly.

I am so excited for this new table and perfectly flat surface. The tortious box technology, basically it's like a hollow core door but much stronger. I could go on and on about just this one feature, but I'm guessing my readership would drop dramatically at this point so I'm going to skip the details.   

Another function is the added storage. Not to mention that all of the stuff needed to assemble a new creation is in one place. I know it's a novel concept. The clamps and glue and everything else are all together. I took my time in planning this out to accommodate a wide variety of tools, customizing each drawer and cabinet to house specific items. No more running from one side of the shop to the other. Ok, ok... the shop is quite small, but when you only have a few minutes to get everything together before the glue sets, every minute counts.  

Sigh... oh how I love to have things in their places. It brings a sense of order and purpose to the creative process. Over the years I have upgraded several of the tools in the shop, and where this is not a mechanical machine, it is every bit a tool. The shop as a whole is one big tool. The more organized and well laid out, the more efficient and easier it is to produce and create.  

The space in which we live, create, produce should be for the person we are becoming.

Week 11 - Uncaged

It's funny where inspiration comes from and when it strikes. A couple of weeks ago when I was building the bird house for my week 8 blog story, I happened upon a dead bird in the driveway. The bird caught my attention because of its beauty and the vibrant flashes of color on its wingtips.  

At the time, I did not draw any correlation between the deceased bird and the house I was building for the birds. I confess that the bird found its grave in the trash can, and it seemed like a very unfitting way to go. Before the un-ceremonial funeral, I plucked a few feathers with the intent to use creatively and to pay homage to the feathered fella.

The urn is made of mahogany with puffed chest and capped with striking feathers.

With the death of Glenn Frey, The Eagles guitarist, and David Bowie, the Goblin King, death has been prominent and ironically with some relation to birds. Iman captured the feeling so tenderly... "Sometimes you never know the true value of a moment until it becomes a memory."

Be present, love, soar.  

Week 10 - Gatherings

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Cheese glorious cheese. Coming out of the shop this week is a cheese plate + knife. Those of you that know my wife know how much she (and I) loves to entertain. She has this philosophy that there's nothing that makes people feel celebrated quite like a home-cooked meal. Good friends, amazing food, sippy spirits and guttural laughter are an intermingled part of our life and gathering them all together brings us so much joy. I can't wait to put this to use and since it's already edible-worthy now seems like the perfect time.  

This weekend we also made a trip to Houston to help Callie's brother move into his new law office and hang with family. While there, I had a chance to take photos of the entertainment center I made for him about four years ago. I love the sound of the ice clinking in my scotch as I reminisce with this old buddy.

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I also joined Instagram this past week and thanks to my millennial friend, Garrett, am having fun sharing my work and hashtagging the hell out of things. I even received a "beautiful" comment on one of my bowls from HGTV's 'Design on a Dime' host David Sheinkopf. Shameless self promotion, but it felt so good I just had to mention it. If you're on Instagram and want to check out what's happening in the shop, you can discover me at MicekMade. I'm becoming so socially savvy. Most of the photos posted at this point are ones you can already see on my website, but stay tuned for future projects and candid works.   

To end this week, I give a nod and a glass raise to one of my dad's favorite quotes from the movie Robin Hood... "We waste good celebration time!" So pull up a chair and prepare to be entertained! Cheers.

Week 9 - Spheres

This week I started a larger project for a friend but still had time to play and do a little futzin'. Not that building the upcoming kitchen bench is not playing, but there is a little more math and planning involved in that project. More on that later... 

The theme for this week involved spheres. The bench is all straight lines so maybe there needs to be a yin to the yang and the spheres balance that out. Or maybe that is just where the creative muse wanted to play this week. Either way there were two projects coming out of the shop this week.

First is a baseball and accompanying stand created by Jack. I had the pleasure of spending time with this talented, spunky young man in the shop this week. I loved showing him the shop and sharing a geek out moment over all the tools. I then asked if he wanted to build anything and he asked if it was possible to build a sphere, his words. I explained that we could do that on the lathe. What went through my head right at that moment was "oh darn, please don't throw me in the briar patch" - a little reference from one of my favorite books. Translated for those of you not familiar with Uncle Remus nursery rhymes, it means "oh darn, I have to use my favorite tool in the shop". I'm so excited. 

So a little back story, a sphere or ball is something that is very hard to master freehand. There are countless jigs and tools sold to make this a possibility or it takes years to master, both of which we did not have. But in talking with him, we knew the fun would come from just trying. So we chucked up a block of wood and let it spin.  

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I have to say that the project came out really well. I, and I hope Jack, was completely impressed. It was so much fun teaching and seeing the look on his face with the finished project. I think he might of even had as much fun as I did.  

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The second sphere inspired item is a juxtaposition box out of cedar. Last summer a friend noticed two blocks of wood that were off cuts from a decking project happening in his neighborhood. I have to say how touched I am that he thought of me in the first place and then went out of his way to not only stop and pick them up but also deliver them to me. After sitting in the shop for almost a year gathering dust, the time was right. I cut them roughly in half and put a bowl in the base. I decided to leave the outside square in its rough form. The lid is from the other half and turned into the shape of the corresponding dome then topped with a walnut finial. The walnut complements the color of the grain and the weathered cedar cube very well. Mixed textures and contrasting shapes make me happy. 

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Week 8 - For the Birds

Spring cannot come fast enough. I know it's only the middle of January, but the blue skies and sunny days make me crave warmer weather. And the warm weather welcomes the flock of birds (that eat our abundance of mosquitos) and wildlife (mostly raccoons) into our backyard.  

I've been building birdhouses since I was a kid. It was one of the first items that I ever made, and in my adult life, sold. I have been perfecting this design for a number of years and am proud of how it's evolved and matured. It looks simple, but there is a lot of thought and engineering that goes into accounting for nature's impact on the wood. The wood moves, shrinks and expands, especially in an outdoor environment. And the birds have specific requirements too. The size of the opening, the diameter of the house, the depth and the perch are all specific to different species of birds and ensuring they get their nest built just right. 

This week also allowed me to bring organization to the shop. It's not as clean or organized as I would like, but it allowed me to absorb a whole truckload of wood - literally. I'm super excited about some of my upcoming projects and can't wait to show them to you in the future. 

Week 7 - A Blank in a Box

I'm getting this week's project and post in under the wire. Callie is cooking and our friends should be here for dinner any minute. It's been another short week in the shop with a quick trip to San Antonio to celebrate New Year's and my folks 51st Wedding Anniversary. The shop is in disarray with all the last minute Christmas gifts taking their toll on my organization efforts. But nonetheless I put all that aside for this week's creation. 

I've mentioned before how much I like working on the lathe, but another passion that brings me great joy is in building boxes. I'm not sure exactly why... maybe it's the anticipation of what is to be discovered inside, the thrill of excavating a secret or hidden treasure or maybe it's my love for organization and keeping things contained... I have worked at The Container Store for over 24 years after all. 

This week's project is an 11.25"w x 5.5"d x 9"h box made from mesquite perched on deer antler legs with an asymmetrical antler pull. The termite holes remain unfilled to offer a peek as to what treasures might be inside. The grain on the wood wraps and is continued all the way around the box. The base of the box has a live edge bottom, giving it movement that plays off the curvature of the horn.

Cheers to a Happy New Year to you. Don't keep those resolutions in a box.  

Week 6 - Stella's Snowman

It was a family affair in the shop this week with my wife, daughter and Boone, the shop dog. Without a doubt the highlight was time with my daughter, Stella. Since I have started the 52 Week Challenge, she has been hankering to play on the lathe. For Christmas, she developed the idea to create snowman ornaments for her grandmothers, a little wooden treasure. The video captures her concept in the making. Outside of the lathe work, she is her own producer, own director, own costumer, own actress... you get the idea. And while Stella means star, perhaps we'll see these snowmen at the top of some trees.

It has been a very Merry Christmas in the Micek household and hope the same for you and yours.  

Week 5 - Great Expectations

Committing to my 52 week challenge, I was full of fear and hesitation. While I was expecting to have a little support from friends and family, I have been overwhelmed by you all and thank you for dissipating any fear that might have entered my head. Thank you to everyone! Thanks for the comments, thanks for sharing my work, but most of all thanks for the kind words and encouragement. I am truly blessed... and more so than I could have ever imagined.  

It is scary to put yourself out there. However, other than getting over my hesitation with my initial posting, none of my fears have yet to materialize. Beginning this journey, I thought the act of creating was going to be the difficult part. In reality it is the behind the scenes (micekmade video production and working with my editor wife) and pushing the negative thoughts out of my head.

Another expectation was that I was going to be able to produce a "large" piece every couple of weeks with some smaller ones filling the gaps. This would allow me to work on the larger, more substantial pieces and still meet my challenge of creating something new every week. I must be patient and remind myself that it is only week five or perhaps it's just that time of year. The weeks leading up to Christmas have been full of joy, family, and a myriad of little projects. I guess Santa has to plan and be more proactive next year. 

One of the gifts leaving the shop this week is a frame for a mirror. You're seeing it in its "raw" state as it's going to be painted by the parents of a special girl. All in all it is simple, but I'm proud of the joy it is going to bring to the unsuspecting receiver. 

Thank you again for all of your support and cheers to a very Merry Christmas and New Year.