Wood working! (Patreon)

Hello Beastlings!

I hope this finds you well. As some of you know, I have a passion for wood working. It might sounds out of character so here's where it comes from. This might also explain my love of musical theatre.

At the age of 10, I was asked to paint the set designs for my elementary school play, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. The teachers asked me this because I was already competing in local art competitions. I did the sets and my work immediately caught the eye of some of the parents who came to see the show. Over the years I was hired to do more and more mural work, set design in community theatre groups and schools, competitions and private commissions. I did this until I was about 22 years old and it kept me extremely busy. I think this is also where I got into the bad habit of overworking, doing 16-18 hour days and taking on too much, but that's a whole different conversation!

So, I am used to painting HUGE paintings. Unfortunately I didn't document most of them because I had this weird fascination with the concept of Le Chef-d'Oeuvre Inconnu and camera phones weren't a thing yet.

To paint these giant, 3 dimensional pieces, I often needed to sculpt and build the canvases, walls, stairs, doors, columns, etc for them, usually >10 feet tall and >40 feet wide, divided into panels. Hence, I needed to learn to build things out of wood! I have a pretty great selection of tools and power tools now but I dream of having a full workshop one day.

This work experience is also probably one of the reasons that I really pay attention to set design for Arch Enemy and love to brainstorm with our lighting director for new ideas.

When the pandemic hit, I wanted to find a way to see my family but I knew I would need to be outside, wearing a mask and googles and gloves. So I thought, why not go build something in the backyard? I would be wearing all that PPE anyways when woodworking, so it will feel normal and I won't get too cold or hot or bored because I will have a project to keep me motivated. So I built a table that now lives inside my vocal booth, to hold my pre-amps, compressor, sketch pad and interface! It is also what YOU all sit atop sometimes when you live in my laptop during our Virtual Meet & Greets!

I spend so much time in that tiny booth and I need to feel comfortable and organized when tracking. I also loved the idea of making the table myself so I would feel proud and happy just by seeing it. Plus... up-cycling!

So here is the life cycle of this desk that now lives in my booth:

The wood is really beautiful. It was harvested in the 1930's and turned into an armoire that my mom had growing up. You can see it behind her, here. She's the cutest thing ever, btw.

Then, as most good ideas do, my desk concept started with a sketch:

You can ignore the random scribblings, it was most likely me explaining the math to someone. I doodle a lot.

Then - crowbar to the armoire. That was fun! Got out some aggression that normally would escape sonically. I took the nicest pieces of wood and started arranging.

This probably makes it quite obvious why I would love to have a workshop: keeping a social distance meant I couldn't ask anyone to come over and help, so I was basically holding things with both hands and both feet! 🤣 This hurts after a while, even for someone who is quite flexible! Ha!

After several days of sanding, staining, buffing, cutting, assembling... my table was complete! I had to leave the legs off to transport it but I love it! I also chose to keep the pieces separate and simply braced together in case I need to install it in pieces or rearrange it once it was in the booth.

It looks weird, I know - but I have VERY specific dimensions for fitting this bad boy into such a small space (which was another reason it just made good sense to build it myself). I also needed it standing height because I stand while tracking.

I will add some videos of the desk into my Lens since I cannot add video clips here.

So, there is a century of history under every song I record - literally!

Enjoy! 🛠

~AWG