It is just a shame in the day of manufactured housing and big box store cabinetry to know a true craftsman who cannot work his craft. See, that it what my husband is. He is an artist with wood. He created the kitchen you see in this photo. He designed it the old-fashioned way, with a pencil and an idea. True, he got a lot of the ideas about the design from the owner of the home, who knew what he wanted. But Jay put all the measurements together, designed the drawers to all work perfectly, the doors to all hang level, the cabinets to be sturdy, the island cabinet with it's hand made butcher block top...and in hickory wood with a natural finish. Then he built all of it, sanded every piece of wood through several processes. He put it all through his finish shop. I helped a little, and there was another guy at the time, helping. But Jay knew how it had to go together and how to finish it all and then install it. He was a wizard with wood.
This is a musical instrument called a hammered dulcimer. Jay made it. He made 24 of these when he was building them. He also made the cute little stand you see the instrument displayed on, which is adjustable so you can play the instrument while standing or while sitting. He also built the stool you see in the picture. He made a lot of those, too. I have a nice stool that he built at my bedside that I use for a table. It's very handy for keeping my water bottle and my thyroid medication on. Jay tells me that there are so many pieces and parts just in the stool and so much work in the stool alone. He would charge you $130.00 for the stool because of all the work he put into that. But, of course, you can go to Menards and buy one for about $25.00 on sale, so why would you pay $130.00 for this one?
See this table? The top opens and you can store things in it that you might like to display. You could put a hand gun collection in there, he would put a lock on there so it would be safe. Shhhhh, don't tell, but there is also a secret drawer on this table. Jay designed and built and finished this table, even the crazy legs! The legs are mahogany and the rest of the table is curly cherry. Have you even ever heard of curly cherry?
So, see, here we are, in this horrible economy, and all the craftsmen who build lovely things like these are being displaced. If they are lucky, they have a small shop where they can still build beautiful things, and maybe they can sell them and stay in business. If they are lucky. But, so many others, like Jay, have lost their very place in life. If Jay is not working with wood, then what else must he do? Perhaps, he can be a Security Guard. Oh, wait, he tried that. It didn't work out. Perhaps he can work at a trailer factory. Nope. They want people who can whip out ugly little wimpy cabinets in trailer factories. It doesn't matter if it is built to last, it has to just be built fast! Perhaps, just perhaps, he must go to McDonalds and flip hamburgers and fry french fries and come home at night smelling like grease. How very sad that he can't build beautiful things with wood and make a living doing that again. Maybe there is somewhere that he can go in this country and still do that. Maybe there still exists a place where they want things done the old fashioned way and where people don't want to buy the things to furnish their homes from Walmart. Maybe.
It is perplexing to me to see him try, time and again, to do something else. He must keep trying, and he does. But I know that Jay is not the only one who is in the same boat. There are men and women out there who used to build homes. Where are they now? There are very few homes being built, and you can bet the ones who are building them are barely eeking out their costs in building them. (See, there are a few people who still have money and they know that they have these guys over a barrel when the demand is so low for new homes; you can practically name your price!) The craftsmen also have families and bills to pay, and, if they can't do what they are accustomed to doing, what they have been trained to do, what they were born to do, then they become unskilled laborers for someone else. They are no longer independent, self-employed, masters of their trades. They have to go find labor and be happy possibly just working for minimum wages.
I shudder to think what will become of them. I hope, along with them, that things will soon pick back up again, and that they may happily go back to doing what they were born to do. But, I tend to be pessimistic about that happening any time soon. I keep thinking that it is in times like these when the creative thinker sees a new opportunity. What is that old saying "Necessity is the mother of invention." I keep thinking that this is the time to start some new enterprise. But what? What enterprise can you start with no money to invest and very poor credit (getting worse all the time)? We have friends that sell various things who would be glad to get us into their multi-level marketing schemes under them, of course. Been there, done that, not interested, thank you.
We are going to keep plugging away. We now agree that we must find more ways to cut costs and are going to need to move out of this nice, but too expensive place in Middlebury. We could probably make it on my income alone, if we had a smaller rent and less miles for me (or us, when he finds something again) to drive to work. But how I miss the guy who was happy working with his wood.
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