Truly, I felt like George Nakashima last week on the drive home from a sawmill in Lincoln County with a huge, gorgeous and raw slab of Walnut in the back of the truck. In the following days, this slowly turned into a small, floating dining table for a client.
The very beginning is so often the best moment of a project. This time particularly so. The day before I started work, I visited my Great Uncle in his shop. He's been cleaning and sorting the shelves and boxes out, and we played a game I love: "do you know what this is?" I've gotten much better at this over the years, but that day, he stumped me with a few slender bits of stone.
"What on earth are these," I asked.
"Really? It's soapstone. Your Great-grandfather used this for his rough layout. You just rub it to a sharp edge."
He drew a line with a piece on the lid of toolbox and held out a handful of stones.
"Put 'em in your toolbox," he said.
Next morning, I stood beside that walnut slab with a saw and that stone, still sharp from the hand of Olaf Nilson, dead fifty-five years, whose blood is in my veins.
