This is plenty long, skip it if it suits you, but I have to say it for those of you who care to read it.
On most counts, Chris' first experience with IAP was ugly. There are several posts on this thread that made me cringe, and I'm just glad that Chris had the grace to accept the undeserved whipping and still turn the other cheek.
Personally, I disagree with many things in his essay, and if I were to set out to write my own essay on pen crafting, there would be a lot of night and day differences, no doubt about it. It's going to be very interesting to look back in a year and compare how both his and my perspectives may have changed.
Chris qualified his essay right off the bat as not being the 'Bible' of successful pen crafting by stating "I am sure that my article is not the final word on this subject", and then proceeded to invite insight into and collaboration on an evolving topic. That alone should have excluded him from the ration of pain that he was dealt.
Now, all that being said, if not reading his initial post carefully, I can see where some people got upset by reading his article. We all love what we do here. I mean, where else can you find a hobby that you love and want to spend twenty-four hours a day at that can easily pay for itself? To be told in the essay that your entire setup is wrong and you're going about this whole craft the wrong way should have made everyone raise an eyebrow.
Chris has a great setup and his pens are stellar! Some amazing stuff on his site! After eight years, there's only two ways he could've got where he's at right now; either doing exactly what he did (and all of us are doing, learning on the fly), or investing a ton of money in a bunch of tools that he had no idea how to use, and spending a year reading manuals before turning the first pen. That's assuming he'd have known enough in the first place to be able to buy the right tools.
I gotta giggle a little bit thinking about what I'd have done in a full blown machinist shop, having never turned a pen in my life. I'd give it one day before the first major catastrophic event.
Reading into Chris' essay, I think he's being too hard on himself. It sounds to me like he's looking back on all the money spent on tools and time and wishing he'd have 'known then what he knows now', the classic wish that we all ponder about. Rather than 'waste' all the time and money it took him to get where he's at, he'd rather that someone would have told him in the beginning exactly what he'd need to find his place in the pen crafting world.
The thing is, there's no one in the world that can know that but him, and there's no way he'd know unless he found out on the fly, that's just the nature of things. He wrote this essay to help others learn from his 'mistakes', and some people will, if they're trying to get where he's going.
But some people wont. Some people, myself included, enjoy the 'journey' as much as the destination, and while I'm the first person to ask advice when I need it, I also get a lot of fulfillment from 'doing it myself'. I'm not a machinist, I'm a woodworker. I hate working in metal, it's sharp, messy, greasy and hot! But you put a piece of wood in front of me, and I love to make it sing. Sometimes it sings like Olive Oyle, but I have the time of my life doing it.
My dream is to someday own a custom wood shop with a store front and a display workshop where people can come and watch masterpieces being created, take classes to learn how to make their own, and buy my tools and supplies to make it happen. I love making pens, and will probably always have my hand in it, but ultimately I love beautiful, one-off wood art of all kinds, and there's a successful business model for that, too!
Twenty years down the road, I can see myself working right next door to Chris, both of us successful, loving what we do, and in totally different businesses.
I think that's where the rub started. There are so many of us on IAP that think the same way as I do about our craft, and that way is very different than where Chris is at now and headed to in the future. I tell you what, though, I'm going to steal everything I can from him when I see something that I can morph into my own flavor of craft, and
THAT'S why we need to keep open minds when reading and responding to other people's posts. We can all learn from each other, but not if we chase people away by acting like jerks.
Writing harsh retaliation posts in public against fellow members for their harsh posts is just as detrimental to the community as the intial transgressions. This whole situation would have been better handled had PM's been sent to those who needed to be chastised, and their posts should have been immediately edited to something civil if possible, or deleted if not. Instead, everyone's got some egg on their face and we're all a little embarrassed by the 'dark side' displayed today.
This community is evolving as fast and hard as our craft is, and there's going to be growing pains, but I'm going to keep banging the "can't we all get along" drum as long as this kind of stuff keeps happening.
Chris, welcome to IAP! It's a great place to live, but I wouldn't want to visit!
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