Handmade by Gary Rogowski

Author:Gary Rogowski
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Linden Publishing
Published: 2017-03-14T04:00:00+00:00

Here’s a story of someone taking care.

Sonny Rollins, the jazz saxophonist, became dissatisfied with his sound in the early 1960s. He quit doing gigs and practiced instead on the Williamsburg Bridge in New York City for months to perfect his sound. He did this without accolade, without compensation. He did it to get better. Who would know? Sonny Rollins went on that bridge to practice because he knew that he had to be a better player. He knew that this practice would make a difference in his playing and in his life. Hadn’t the great Charlie Parker in his youth spent twelve to fifteen hours a day practicing in order to get better at the Kansas City jam challenge sessions he frequented? Sonny Rollins had to practice. And now late in his life he can think back with no regrets and say to himself, “I did this. I made this happen. I made the sacrifice and I did it for me and it made me who I am this day.”

There is no price that can be placed on this willingness and on this knowledge. No cash value that can be counted out in your hands for this type of satisfaction. You do this work because you have to do it, for yourself. Practice this and good things will come from it.

Twyla Tharp, the modern dancer and choreographer, in her book The Creative Habit, talks about the importance of ritual for an artist. Whatever form, be it an odd form like cleaning your room, a mystical form like lighting incense or unfolding a dollar bill, whatever mundane form it may take, that ritual signals the beginning of the process. And the practice is an important part of the ritual for a woodworker. Because the work is so labor-intensive, there are so many jobs to perform well, it simply takes time to learn the steps of each to master them.

Practice is the key. If you can learn the discipline to practice, one day you will surprise yourself by how much you have learned, how much you have taught yourself.

Some years later I was making library tables for the new state archives building in the state capitol. It was an important job with a design competition that I had to win in order to get the contract. With this contract came a lot of responsibility because the architects also gave me the design of the cabinetry to be built and installed. Designing for the state library, I was meticulous in how I wanted the tables to look. I went to other libraries around the state to do research. Not in books. I went to look at the library tables themselves. I went to different colleges and universities to see how their tables were holding up over time. What worked best for materials and design? I went to my old college first but the tables there had recently been replaced and so they looked great. The old ones that were still around were made of oak and were quite stout and solid, Gothic in taste.

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