The Beginning
"The Beginning is the most important part of the work"- Plato, The Republic
Welcome to the DuckHill Workshop, I'm Ben and this is how you and I have arrived, here, at the beginning.
I purchased my table saw in November of 2015 and spent the winter setting up shop in the basement of my rented farmhouse. At the time it was just a hobby shop. Since I’m really into naming things; had a flock of ducks, geese, and chickens and lived on a hill, the shop became the DuckHill Workshop. Super original I know, but it’s stuck and I’m running with it. Just ten months after that beginning, I packed everything up to move 5 hours north to River Falls, for a different beginning. I started a new job at my alma mater, as an Event Production Coordinator, which is an AWESOME job I enjoy immensely. But I didn’t have a place for the workshop, so all my tools went into storage, soundtrack cue Semisonic - Closing Time “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.” During my first semester, I was all WORK, WORK, WORK, but really wanted to get the shop back together. After deciding all the local rental spaces I could find were all outside my budget, I broke down and asked my parents if I could set up in their garage, an hour away. They graciously agreed. So as soon as the fall semester ended, in December 2016, I spent my winter vacation resurrecting the workshop for it’s second coming. More details will be in subsequent posts, but I will tell you there are some serious design constraints to setting up a full shop in half of a two car garage, almost everything has to be mobile.
With the shop starting its second year in this location, there have been some major storage upgrades, but not much has come out in the way of finished products. In many ways, I’m still setting up shop. However, I feel much more settled. I have a better handle on my day job schedule, which allows me to focus more time on the workshop. It’s high time we got serious. Now, I told you that I love my day job, but my position is designed to be a 5ish year entry level position, and while this is my second year doing the job at this university. I was doing an almost identical job at another university for three years prior to moving here. I’m nearing the natural end of my role and am thinking about how to successfully transfer the position to a younger, more energetic individual, with bright eyes, and new ideas. This also means I’m determining how to transition myself into another position. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I didn’t want to continue the 9-5 office life. Even if that office life means I get to set up awesome rock shows, work with great colleagues, fantastic students, and great gear. So that brings us full circle, to the beginning, or rather the third inception of DuckHill Workshop. It is important to note, I am not quitting my day job to run on white sand beaches, put out beautiful lifestyle content on social media, chasing likes, or posting sponsored product placement. That’s not what I’m about.I want to make my living creating things. I want to invite you to share that experience with me, in print, in video, and in person. The two main things I learned in nearly six years of art school is: how to think around a problem, and you can teach anyone to do anything. I want to create things because I love creating, but I also want to show you that YOU are more than capable of doing so as well.Now who’s with me? Lets build shit!