4/1/98.. Artpentry.

It's down to finishing touches on Seven Eagles, and the process moves from construction toward installation. As we perfect the details, fit the trim, button up, I'm beginning to see how this shop is going to be organized. I'm turning from carpentry back to designing.. finding my feet again. I've got a new canvas to paint on, and in. I'm getting excited.

I'm still half-numb with fatigue from trying to keep pace with Brent. But the drill is familiar now, and my admiration for his mastery, and my desire to measure up to it, outweighs my exhaustion. It's ironic that I'm more worried about meeting Brent's standards for construction, than I am about pleasing myself. That's because, in this project, I've been the artist's apprentice.

While I grumbled about hobbling through a parallel universe, feeling hollow as a builder's assistant, Mr. Mann sent me these observations about art:

The matters each of us must address are, "What is my art?," "How do I want to express myself?" Most importantly, "What do I want to say?"
As Henri put it, "Art is the province of every human being, simply a question of doing anything well." I take that to mean also,
"However you choose to do what you do!"
Do we ignore the poet's message if they use free verse instead of rhyme, the musician who uses electric, instead of traditional instruments?
We are creatures of our time. The message is the matter, the medium only the vehicle! One should feel no compunction about how they use the medium, if it successfully conveys their message. We must be free to express ourselves by whatever means work best. By whichever tools each of us chooses for ourselves.
I have a sense that those who vigorously defend a particular methodology are probably invested in a technique, and possibly, insecure about what they have to say!
Art, in my opinion, exists to sharpen our senses to the appreciation of our lives, not as an academic study of technique. The art does not reside in the object or how it was constructed, but rather, in how it makes us feel.

I immediately thought of Brent. An artist with a nailgun.

When we moved to town in 83, Brent was a finalist in the Town Drunk competition. Native son, Nam vet, BA and Masters out of U. Maine, an escapee from the dean machine at Orono, where he left his ex when he came home to the local scene. He was running a cabinet shop in the back of Dunn's barn, using borrowed tools, and commuting to Happy Hour at the pub in a beat blue Volvo. Living in a house just a tad larger than my new shop, with Brandy.. his golden lab.. grand dam of the whole doggy crew around here. A standup bar was the centerpiece of the place. Evenings with Bourbon at Brent's were a local institution. If you hung out late enough, scorched chicken off the grill was laid on for all.

I got in the habit of cruising up the Post Road to Dunn's around 10 AM for morning smoke break, and Brent would generally pick me up on the way to Happy Hour. He drove much better than I did with a buzz on. I'd often end up at his Open House by Owl light.

Riding shotgun with a genius locus showed me the furry underside of town, and I got to know most of the fellow hairballs, thanks to Brent. I also stayed mildly pickled, for good or ill. Had some of my most productive years on that schedule. But Seth was coming up on his teens, and I began to catch glimpses of myself in the mirror. Wondered what message I was sending him. Peggy was not charmed, either. But my flashpoint was soaked in alcohol, and any criticisms exploded in anger.

The sauce was definitely for ill in Brent's case. He was killing himself with a bottle, and we all knew it. Physically he was hurting and his moodswings got wilder. His genial caring interest, his hilarious tales, would turn sour about 9PM, as the mash got to him, and his rage would blow up. Armed and intermittently paranoid since Nam, he'd start waving his rifle around. Shoot out the windows. Next day he wouldn't remember a thing. And we'd joke through the hangover. Laugh all the way to the Pub.

Brent ran into the wall in 89. Took a hard look at himself. Got sponsored at AA. Went cold turkey. Hasn't had a drink since. Peggy, Seth and I went to Norwich, England, on a teacher exchange at the same time, and I jumped on my own wagon. By the time we got back my friendship with Brent was different. Still full of mutual respect and kindred feeling, but it's hard to find the right roles with your drinking buddies, once you're sober.

You change. Brent felt he had all those drunk years to make up for, and started playing catchup, big time. His brother Earl is big contractor, brother Max is one of the most successful cabinetmakers in these parts, and they had a long headstart. Brent is definitely gaining on them, though. Brent is the hardest working man I know, by far. If you were uncharitable you might call it workaholism, and I've sometimes missed the laid back boozer who always had the time for philosophy, and good advice for all of us crips. There are days I've needed the old Brent.

You can't begrudge him his new life, however. Successful contracting operation, big production shop, sprawling house and estate, every tool you can imagine, money in the bank. Jo and Ivy have joined forces with him, and now he has a family, instead of a non-stop procession of users cruising up the drive. This is one of those turnaround success stories for the Sunday supplements, folks. But I don't think Brent will ever believe it. Kick back. Take a vacation. There's still a hellhound on his trail.

The joy of building gets him up in the morning. Drunk or sober, Brent is a master craftsman, who manages to juggle all the details, balance cost and time against good design, and make the customer happy. Hell, make customers into friends. Or vice versa. I knew all this before I asked to hire his expertise, but what I hadn't seen so clearly is the imperative of Brent's creative passion.

Sure, I know he gets excited about each project, and he charges ahead with them full tilt boogie, but I'd somehow shrugged that off as contractosis. For all our mutual recognitions about making things, I hadn't made the leap. Because carpentry is just something I can do, in a rudimentary way, and which feels more like washing dishes than anything else to me, I hadn't grokked that this is an artform to Brent. I'm a little slow, sometimes.

The penny dropped this last week. I was slugging along in my sugared fatigue trying to match Brent's standards, amused that he cared so much more than I did about the details in MY shop.. a space I've been dreaming about for 14 years.. when I suddenly saw the whole thing. That Brent pours his whole being into the places he builds. That his caring about details is self-caring. Caring enough to make it art. And if, as I believe, the highest art is the life you make, Brent is creating high art with air tools.

It's a little embarrassing to be such a slapdash carpenter when Brent's around. Maybe I should be more zen with a hammer. It's probably time for me to get back to carving, which I'm impassioned enough about to be meticulous. It's been good to be reminded how important your daily work can be.

Yesterday it was in the 80s, and I was sweltering as I nailed up trim and soffets and hung gutters. But today is raw and 30ish again. I'm wrestling with the finish wiring. April Fool.

Brent has left me to my own devices, after all.. propelled by a new passion. He's out playing with a rented Kobota backhoe. Moving some landscape. Had a ditch to dig, and got carried away with the possibilities. Jo will flip, if she thinks he's bought a new toy to work with. She knows how passionate he can get about his art.