Many of you know that before I discovered painting, I was a woodworker. There is something special about wood...the feel, the smell, the beautiful grain, just holding the three dimensional object. For several years I designed furniture, bookshelves, toys, games and puzzles.
You may also know that recently a friend and I have been offering workshops focusing on end-of-life issues. We call them "Let's Talk About the Hard Stuff".
So where am I going with all of this?
After receiving his terminal diagnosis, my husband and I talked a lot about end-of-life issues: the conversations that needed to be had, plans that needed to be made - all the things to 'get ready' for death. He even wrote a series of essays about his year-long 'journey into dying'. In our workshops we stress that whatever can be done ahead of time is a gift to family and friends.
For quite a while I have been thinking/planning about a final woodworking project. In my workshop, I have a lot of wood from a cherry tree that we had to have cut down over 30 years ago. We had it milled and over the years I have used it for several projects. My 'gift' would be to create two wooden urns for George's and my cremains!
Over the years, I have sketched out many different plans and done research about urn sizes and shapes. Realistically and sadly, I do not have the strength or skills to do what I used to do. No more frame and panels, dovetail joinery, running wood through the planner, or even use the router to create decorative edges. I threw out the sketches I had drawn and began to work on something simple.
New plans...I looked at the old cherry wood in my shop. I found beautiful clear boards and others with worm holes and live edges. It occurred to me that it's like life! Beauty complementing the atypical and imperfections highlighting character.
I began. Some of the wood was thick and very heavy. I was able to use the chop saw and cut manageable size pieces to run through the table saw. I created clouds of sawdust!
No fancy joinery or intricate anything...I dry fit the boards several times.
After all the glue was dry, I got out the tung oil. The oil brings out the beautiful grain and color of the wood. Here they are in my shop with a coupe of coats of tung oil.
I took them outside...Five coats of finish, the urns are glowing!
NO ONE wants to 'look' at death, but having discussions and preparations made BEFORE we need to helps/enables decisions that have to be made during a stressful time.
For any information on our 'Let's Talk About the Hard Stuff" workshops and/or other resources, click https://www.connectingtodot.com/
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