And The Foundation Held

The same friend who taught me carpentry, who started me down this road, told me about the wood. Chainsawed parts of a tree, piled on the roadside next to East Atlanta's cemetery where Fiddlin' John Carson is buried. I drove by expecting oak. I didn't know what I had until I cut in at home and the smell told me: eastern red cedar. The Graveyard Tree.

The wood didn't want to do anything. It wanted to sit there. I put it on the lathe anyway, and halfway through the rot gave way and sent the bowl through my shop wall. I couldn't reach the off switch without stepping into the line of fire. I was scared, pissed, laughing. I kept going out of spite, plotting to upgrade my lathe to one with an emergency stop.

The rot that broke the piece became the anchor for redesigning it. Immediate, intuitive. The void and the rough edge stayed; I wasn't going to pretend the failure didn't happen. I like to think my will was imposed but not without a fight. The wall's still scarred too, hidden behind two license plates from cars I used to drive.