Taking Dictation from God - The Studio Furniture of Craig Thibodeau

Taking Dictation from God* (One of Five)

10 March 2008

Some people are so damned good at what they do you just want to slap them!

Most of the people in the woodworking community are very sharing (I will have more to say on those who don’t on my private blog site), so if there’s something I don’t know how to do, it’s not hard to get a few tips on the proper procedures. There are also a number of colleges and woodworking programs in the area (Palomar College where both Joe and I studied immediately comes to mind) and some private parties teaching the more complicated disciplines. So I never let my lack of knowledge keep me from doing something I want to do, because if I don’t know, I can find out. Or that is to say, that’s the philosophy I’ve gone through life with, but every now and again I come up against something or someone who does something I know I’m just never going to do.

I’m the kind of person who’s having too much fun to ever feel old, but it doesn’t alter the fact that I am in my sixties now with creaking joints and that I wear rather thick bifocals. Some of the people I see doing astonishing things in woodworking have been at it for a quarter of a century or more. And some people, to be honest about this, have a hand and an eye that just astounds me. One of these is Craig Thibodeau, who won 1st and 2nd Places in Veneering/Marquetry and Best of Show for his Gardenia Sideboard at the 2007 Design in Wood at the Del Mar Fair.

For those who don’t know, the Design in Wood is sponsored by the San Diego Fine Woodworking Association, which is the largest amateur woodworking association in the world, although I’ve seen a fair amount of the work put out by those people, and it’s never looked very amateurish to me! A lot of their members are professionals, and the Design in Wood is considered the competition to win, so every year there is a fierce competition among some very talented people. Best of Show is awarded by Fine Woodworking Magazine, which is the premier woodworking magazine in the country, so they add their prestige to the award.

The winning piece, which we’re showing here, is the beginning of an artist’s foray into creative worlds all his own, but it is also the end of a journey, because of all the work he had to do to get to this point. But we cannot discuss these things until we have defined our terms.

Joseph

*In the play Amadeus, rival composer Antonio Salieri was so in awe of Mozart’s talent that at one point he said "He had simply written down music already finished in his head. Page after page of it as if he were just taking dictation from God."