[Phaedrus]

Some of you know that I'm an artist and wanna-be amateur woodworker (among other things). Artwork I've been making for the past few years has been closely related to my journey into woodworking and I enjoy both quite a lot.

To the point, a friend and I have an art exhibit going up in at Midland College in Midland, TX next month. Featured in the exhibit are a variety of drawings that document my tools and process. Six of these are on paper and are in 30x36 maple & walnut frames that I built. There are three drawings on wood panels that will be displayed with this. Along with the drawings are the contemplation bench and tool chest (with almost all of my hand tools!) that I recently completed. I have been without my hand tools for a week now already and it is stressful! My armada of carefully engineered cardboard cartons arrived in Texas today and hopefully everything is still in one piece.

Another exciting part of this all is that my Tommy Hockett mallet, JohnnyTooBad marking guage, a Disston dovetail way from Mike1950, and some planes with restore assistance from Dave Paine will also be on display in the tool chest. I am traveling down in mid-September to give a lecture about art, woodworking, and my process. I will, of course, put in a good word for our community here that has been an invaluable resource.

My good friend Colby Jennings is the other half of the exhibit. He's a video artist that deals largely with formation of masculinity. He makes very different stuff from what I do, but it all relates.

I'll be sure to update with photos while I'm down there. Until early October, I'll be using just power tools and the two chisels I kept here with me.

 

[BKBuilds]

Very nice, Good luck!

 

[Dominick]

Good for you Ben.
Didn't know you were an artist. Post some pics of your work some time.
And don't feel bad about not having your hand tools. I haven't even been able to touch mine, other than work tools.
Keep us posted. Thumbs up!!!!!

 

[Dave Paine]

Didn't know you were an artist. Post some pics of your work some time.

Ben has a site with some of his work.
http://bensandness.com/?cat=6

Great to hear about the exhibit and especially that the Diamond restoration is on display. :thumbsup:

It would be difficult for me to be without my tools for such a long time though.

I look forward to the future pictures of the exhibit and how the lecture went.

 

[DaveTTC]

nice work Ben, some great attention to detail there.

Looking forward to updates and pics

 

[mike1950]

Nice work Ben- good luck.

 

[Phaedrus]

I vacationed a week ago to go and visit my tools, and give a talk and demonstration for the students at the school. The students were really receptive to the artwork and many had a keen interest in the wood work. Perhaps the biggest compliment of the whole thing, though, was that I had a few people that hung around after the gallery talk and wanted to show me pictures of some things that had built, talk to me about how I did certain parts of the pieces, and really just shoot the breeze about woodworking.

The turnout was a little surprising for the gallery talk and walk-through. It really was a sizable crowd present, considering it was the middle of the day on a Thursday. The school isn't big and the art department there has just a handful of faculty, but they were all very hospitable and showed us a great time.

Here's an overview of the gallery when it was more-or-less empty:

Faculty member Michael Hubbard (a good friend and one hell of a painter) test driving the bench

I'm second from the left, listening to the other artist present (Colby Jennings, another good friend) filling these kiddos with knowledge:

Me spreading the good word of woodworking and drawing:

Here I am in a drawing class talking about integrating drawing into process. I'm using my LA block plane to taper a little chair leg looking block of wood.