I hate wood working and renovating! But that’s another story (or post)

I hate wood working and renovating! When I was twelve I started watching "This Old House". Actually I watched it from its first season in 1979… After that I really wanted to buy and renovate my own house.

In ’92 I did. Drywalled, new walls… etc…. In 2002 I started helping my father- in-law with his insulating business on the weekends. I did that for three years. My father in law is a great guy and was a master of what he did. Master? That’s a term that's thrown around a lot. He’s been in the construction industry since the ‘40s and his crowning achievement was insulating the first R-2000 house in Ontario. (The house is in Walden/Lively).

I took a lot of shop classes in high school including house wiring, wood, auto, sheet metal, drafting, and machining. At The Ontario College of Art Design I took Wood Media (fancy wood shop), and Jewellery from some of Canada's top instructors.

So, why do I hate doing this kind of work? Painting and Drawing.

Painting especially is a journey. The more I paint the more possibilities I see. After you redo a wood floor or build a piano stand the moment is gone. I can guess what the next piece will bring. The depth of knowledge seems limited compared to painting.

Talking about my piano stand… Piano and music themselves share many qualities as painting. The depth of knowledge and skill needed is awe-inspiring.

So when I look back on the things I’ve built, things that were fixed-up, I think to myself… I could have been painting.