I sat down with woodworking instructor Mark Rickey, whom I found in VisArts’ mid-renovation woodshop as he sawed pieces that would end up in the VisArts community garden.
How did you first get into woodworking?
I’ve always tinkered, all my life. When I first got married, my wife was taking a cooking course, so I was sitting at home and I thought, “God, this is kind of boring,” and I thought I might do something. Then I started learning woodworking in earnest, taking evening courses and that kind of stuff. But it’s really just evolved over the years. Everything from building parts of houses to building furniture: fine furniture, rustic furniture. I ended up doing work for several churches in Richmond, and I kind of hit the point in my life where I wanted to start sharing [my work], so here I am.
Some of Mark’s work is in the VisArts community garden
Tell me about teaching your first class.
I’ve taught individuals the components of woodworking, and I have a son who’s a furniture maker, but the first class I taught was here about a year ago. I started with the garden, the live edge, the benches, the tables; then we started the second section and it filled up, so I just kept on teaching and expanding my courses.
So what was it like? I didn’t know what to expect. There’s a huge variety of people in terms of backgrounds, age, experience and that kind of thing, but it was really an eye-opener [in that] I could say it was at least as rewarding for me as it was for the students, and maybe more so, because there’s nothing like watching people’s faces light up as they do something with wood they never thought they could do.. It’s addicting. You want to keep teaching because as long as people keep getting excited you want to be there.
I read that your classes often involve using local woods and the natural shapes in wood. Can you tell me about that?
Well, what they call “live edge” or “natural edge” furniture has gotten more popular over the years, as people have kind of moved back towards the natural. It’s really different than building what I would call “fine furniture:” a cabinet, a dining room table or something like that. Because, first of all, nothing is square, nothing is straight, and so it’s a whole different approach. The other neat part about it that we finish the furniture really well, it’s got a nice, clean, smooth finish, with hand-rubbed oil finishes and that kind of stuff, but right up against that is the bark, the raw edge of the wood, and sometimes even the sawmill marks.
Chair using “natural edge” wood by Mark Rickey
I hate the word “juxtaposition,” but that contrast when two come together is really, really interesting because it draws your eye to pieces of the furniture that you would take for granted.
Is there anything you can tell me about the woodshop renovation and what will come out of it?
This space has served as kind of a combination workshop for all the stuff that goes on at VisArts, including Robert, the facilities manager, using it all the time for projects and various people using it for storage. Prior to us really starting teaching woodshop classes in earnest two years ago, [storage and project space] is pretty much what this functioned as. When we started getting some teachers–there’s another teacher, Nathan Gomez, teaching now and prior to that Anne Walsh taught classes– and started getting real interest, Robert was instrumental in getting the grant to start renovating. To start, you may take this concrete floor for granted, but it wasn’t like this. They tore the old floor up, and they replaced it. And we had shelves of lightbulbs and supplies for the building here, and a lot of that has been taken out.
We’ve replaced our old table saw with a new one, which has a lot of new safety features in it, making it a lot more difficult to hurt yourself, and the beauty of that is we’ll be able to start teaching kids from Binford [Middle School] and other schools after class. That’s going to be really exciting, because schools don’t do shop classes any more, and getting them some exposure to making things is going to be good. We’re putting in a dust collection system, and all the kinds of things a woodshop should have. We have more plans, but the trouble is trying to fit everything into a limited space.
What would you tell somebody who was interested in woodworking or just starting out in woodworking?
The woodshop has already undergone significant renovation, and has more to go
First of all, to find somebody that can truly take you on your way, and don’t try to accomplish too much too soon.
You’re not going to learn that until you work with someone directly who can explain things: not what to do, but why you’re doing it that way. You’re not just walking away with a finished product, but you’re walking away with some knowledge that you’ll be able to apply that to other projects.
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
In the context of VisArts, what we’re doing back here [in the woodshop] is really exciting, and a lot of people still don’t know it exists. When people think about VisArts, I think they think about clay, glass, painting and that kind of stuff, which is all wonderful stuff, but wood art is also in fact an art form. We’re not carpenters back here, building walls and that kind of stuff. We make some pretty interesting art.
-Lindsey Kellogg