It's What You Choose To Do

[Tom Watson]

I am sometimes the recipient of kudos for the beautiful work that I have done.

Tommy Plamman gets the same treatment.

The interesting thing to me about this is that it is really about the kind of work that we have been allowed to do.

The stretching of your skills comes at the behest of your customers.

For a man who makes his living at it, these stretching exercises come more frequently, and with the added impetus of profit.

Mike Hide would never have learned to carve as well as he does, if he were only responding to a request from his wife, to make a nice carved piece.

For a hobbyist Wooddorker, they usually come at the behest of yourself, or your wife.

Let's tell the truth here; you really can't save any money by building it yourself.

The best thing about being a hobbies wooddorker is that you can build any damned thing that you want, and you can damned well take as long as you want to make it.

You can also buy the best wood that you can find.

I see a number of threads that involve envy of the professional wooddorker.

Do not envy him, he is a slave to time and money.

I've had twenty months of freedom from the need to produce wooddorking items for money.

These have been the most enjoyable months of my wooddorking life.

To me it's analogous to the Hale-Bopp phenomenon in Astronomy.

Tom Watson - WoodDorker tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (email)

(website)

[Thomas Bunetta]

Tom Watson - WoodDorker

Now THAT's calling a spade a spade! Tom, the naked truth is usually pretty simple. If you have the vision to see it. It is clear you do. Tom B

[Art Ransom]

I agree. Since I retired 4 years ago and started my own turning business as a tax write off for my toys I have done a lot of commercial work. Since my bread and butter doesn't come from my turning I still can't wait to get to the shop in the mornings and am there 6 or 7 days a week. Business keeps growing and this year the shop may be my primary source of income. It's great to be paid for doing what you love. Probably need to take a vacation and turn some bowls!

[D Steck]

I'm with you Tom. As much as I love to work with wood - it's only a hobby. I have no desire or interest in doing it as a profession. I love to bass fish too but have not interest in doing tournaments. I did a couple of tournaments for the experience a while back - and I hated it. As soon as you put competition or the $$$ as part of the hobby, it's just not fun anymore.

I have an office job and the woodworking allows me to escape that and focus on nothing but the project at hand.

I'm not a religious person but it brings up the sermon our priest gave months ago. He said that we often live in the past or the future. We are always thinking about what we did yesterday that we need to fix tomorrow. He said there are very few things that make us live in the present. I thought, woodworking is one of those things, you think about anything other than the present, you'll lose your fingers in the future.

I think when you turn your woodworking hobby into a profession, you lose the present. Now, you have schedules to meet so you can put food on the table and you lose that ability to focus entirely on the task at hand.