My father, friends, Claire, and I spent the last two weekends scratching our heads and scratching out arithmetic on scrap ends of 2×4’s. Where our geometry and physics acumen fell short (and it did), brawn and adaptation had to do. As with most designed objects, this latest task in the Treehouse Project proved to me again that the cost is not as much in the execution (though post-hole digging and carrying 16′ beams through the woods exacts is toll) but in the process. For us, blunt force problem solving was called to action at every joint and joist. As modest as this undertaking is, we slowly – painstakingly at times – stood on the slope under the Hemlock trees reckoning, figuring, and debating every cut and corner. The cost doesn’t come in the wagon wheel (it was free on the farm) or even much in the recovered garage door bearings and drum spools. It comes in delineating the form; in manifesting a purpose and deciphering it into the realities of the physical world. These things are the cost – and value – found in anything of any worth. And these things are hard to find in the a hardware store aisle. There are not SKU numbers for a Drawbridge parts at the lumber yard. This notion can be realized in any medium, but when operating in an unfamiliar skill set, these lessons are quickly learned. And like all good lessons, they are learned the hard way.
A camera doesn’t make a photographer any more than a hammer makes a carpenter. As far as I can tell, neither of those tools nor their disciplines are worth much for their own sake. Without intention, both can easily be a pile of expensive tools, all dressed up with no place to go. And finding a place to go; delineating the form; manifesting a purpose, takes a long time. In a time where accomplishment can be felt after hitting “post”, after a few dozen key strokes, and acknowledgment comes with a Retweet or a Like, this project is a lesson in patience and solitary sketching and discussions in the woods. I have had to slow down and think. The Hemlock trees just stand around indifferent to my utter short-comings in geometry and woodcraft, and they make me realize that anything truly good is hard to do. Satisfaction comes bit by bit, in hammer strokes, and chalk lines, silently, and usually very slowly, as I fumble my way to deciphering a Treehouse into the realities of the physical world.
More on the Treehouse here.