It is a tradition for the board of directors of the Center for Art in Wood to ask the artists who participated in the summer residency if they would be amenable to donating one or more objects to be chosen by the board to the Center’s permanent collection. This creates a record of the artists who have participated in the program over the years that can be viewed by the public. (It is not obligatory for artists to donate objects.) 

This year I was both surprised and pleased to be asked to donate the planes I made during the residency. Today, the fore plane and smoothing, both made in early eighteenth century designs, are now in the permanent collection of the Center for Art in Wood. 

This left me with a dilemma. I was anticipating taking my planes home at the end of the exhibition where I would be using them daily. I thought I might continue to experiment with plane making at some point in the future, but decided to gear up and get working straight away on a second set of bench planes. I found a source for quartered beech, purchased irons, and continued to explore wood plane-making.

I hadn’t planned on devoting the amount time as I have lately to plane-making, but l felt a sense of revisiting passions and contemplating craft through a working process that matters greatly these days.