Walking through the red door....

Yesterday was K's first woodworking session with a member of the Artisan's Guild, Aaron. To get there, I looked up the address, mapped it so I had an inkling of an idea of where it was and set off with full confidence in "Reggie".

The place isn't too far, under 10 miles, down by the river....must be the Willamette (pronounced Will-lamb-ette, there will be a test later..). We drove down to where two streets intersected on a diagnal and "Reggie" announced that we were there. I looked and saw no signs, just connected warehouses in questionable shape. I drove past and had to work my way back to find a parking spot. Knowing the street number, we started to walk. A building that made sort of a triangle shape because it was at the intersection was where I headed and came upon a red door. About 4 feet away written vertically on the wall was the number I was looking for. Now this place is supposed to be the "headquarters" for not only this class, but a series of classes for the Portland area, Bay area of California, and one other place (Washington?), but there was no sign, just sort of a beat up looking red door.

Not knowing what we would find, I took a chance that the door actually related to the address and was not some "den of despair". We stepped through and, most fortunately, found a mom and her son in an entry area. From there, there was a room with an ornate door leading to a room that was just what you think an artist's loft would look like - funky olive green painted concrete walls with swagged netting going around the ceiling. The pillars holding up the ceiling were surrounded by twisting vine like branches from trees to provide more of a natural feel. Aquariums in the corner hosting some sort of reptiles. A herd of mismatched couches, in addition to van benches of all descriptions to add more seating. In the center were a few projects that were in process, including a beautiful student type bench/seat for an old fashioned classroom desk.

Aaron greeted us and finished gathering the class. Then they went into a second room that was more of a workshop. In it were several kayaks and canoes in various stages of construction. One kayak in particular had just been fitted with some sort of skin covering (natural or artificial - I dunno). It was made for one person and looked about as native American as you could imagine - no fiberglass here.

A second canoe looked like it could hold about 10-20 people and was skeleton of a frame, obviously being hand crafted and made in some sort of traditional way. It to looked like it would eventually be covered by either skins or wooden planks.

The class began and quickly the kids were getting to work. The first project was to make their own mallets to start a collection of hand tools. The class is completely focused on handmade woodworking projects. The tools they were using were interesting. They all seemed to be fairly rustic and/or Japanese. The hand saw was Japanese and sort of resembled a wicked looking cleaver. The clamps were made of large blocks of wood with dual handles to screw them together or apart. Metal C-clamps were available, but mildly discouraged. Overall, the teacher gave little instruction on doing things "correctly", just enough to be safe, and promoted finding the way that worked for them. Using chisels, they crafted mortise and tenon joints. In the end, their semi completed mallets look pretty different from one another and K walked away with an additional block of wood she had practiced her chisel techniques on - very proud of her block of wood with a square hole in it!

The class was supposed to run from 4:30 until 5:45. What I got was my first taste of PNW time with an artist's flair. It equated out to be past 6:15 and could easily have gone longer if the teacher hadn't glimpsed me looking at my watch.

The good news - WITHOUT using Reggie (and only making 1 minor wrong turn), I was able to navigate to a shopping center to meet up with Mark and go have dinner at my new favorite burger place - Burgerville! This is a must stop for my burger loving eco friends. Most everything was compostable - cups, straws, lids, wrappers, etc. There trash cans were split into 3 bins: Compost, Recycle, and Landfill. Bonus - they had the best kid's meal prize. It was a booklet from OMSI (the science center) about wetland animals of the PNW. VERY COOL. But that's not all! It also came with temproary tatoos of a beaver, salmon, and....wait for it....a banana slug!

Good day in the PNW!