Workshop: Green Mountain National Forest

“We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us even in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavour. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve
and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.”
-Thoreau, Walden

For the past couple months, I’ve taken my workshop on the road. I have been living gypsy style throughout the Green Mountain National Forest while working on conservation projects in Vermont. There is something refreshing about working in new mediums and sleeping in a tent. I’m still doing my leatherwork and fulfilling the orders that come in, but when you work and live in the forest utility and functionality changes. This change has incited a shift in how I am designing some of my products.

I think everyone should, at some point, get back to basics. Drink water from a spring, bathe in cold mountain brooks, and remember what the cold feels like.

With that, I don’t have any photos of designs to share. I figure that the least I can do is share some pretty pictures I have collected over the last three months.