"What's in a name?"
When I was considering a name for my business, I did a lot of thinking over what has informed the way I approach woodworking, trying to find a name to capture what I do. I think back to a book I read as a newly married man, by Wallace Nutting called Furniture of the Pilgrim Century. It was written post World War II era, when there was a resurgence of patriotism and people were looking less to Europe for inspiration and starting to become interested in the kind of craftsmanship of the colonial times. The message that I took from that book shaped the way I work with wood (along with a smaller book, "A Reverence for Wood," by Eric Sloane. I highly recommend finding both of them). The message was that, when hand craftsmanship was the norm, furniture was built to last and last and that the quality of the product was inextricable from the pilgrim character.
In another vein, I love the Tolkien books and I felt like Gandolf, as the grey pilgrim, represented the same mission I have felt compelled toward. He was an outlier, on a quest to preserve the old ways and the virtue of those ways. In my mind, there is no room for compromise of quality in my work, because what I am doing is bigger than just making a good product. I care deeply about preserving a methodology that I feel fortunate to have mastered, being taught by my Grandfather Kohart, my uncles and my Father and then perfecting my skills through years of study and practice. I also feels like it has been a gift from God and it matters how I honor that gift.
