Since my early years growing up in Anderson, Indiana,
I have always enjoyed building things. ...Wooden go-carts, tree houses, snow tunnels in the field behind my house during winter,
you name it… I’m not certain where this interest came from, but perhaps my father’s work as an auto mechanic
and vocational school instructor, as well as our close relationship had something to do with it.
After High School in the early 1980’s, though my primary interests
included music, writing and some sports, I took the lead from my dad and my drafting teacher to pursue a degree in mechanical
engineering from Purdue University. Up to this point, I had no idea what this would entail, but it sounded interesting the
way they both described it to me at an open house at the high school one night. I obviously enjoyed building things, designing
things and math, so they figured this to be a natural fit as a career. Once sold, I agreed.
Upon graduating from Purdue and beginning my work as a young engineer on
the east coast, my career seemed to take me farther and farther from the sort of work with my hands that I so enjoyed towards
more business related responsibilities. Even though I enjoy that too, and ultimately went back to school to get a business
degree while living on the West Coast, I would always envy in some ways those I’d see in almost any field who had the
pleasure of working with their hands and creating something. In fact, I often tell the story that while working in a high
rise office building just south of New York City in the early 1990’s, when asked what I’d be doing if not engineering,
I responded to a surprised co-worker that ‘I’d love to live in the country some place in the middle of no where
and just design and build furniture.’ I did not honestly believe that dream of building furniture would become a reality
until much later in life if at all. However, fast forward to after the millennium, ...I decided why not?
It began as just a hobby. After realizing I couldn’t build the caliber
of furniture I wanted to using only a hammer, hand saw and maybe a power drill, I discovered the joy of shopping for tools,
hand tools in particular. As I would read various books and magazines on wood working, visit trade shows on the subject, meet
and talk with other wood workers, this only fed my desires to learn more and more about the craft. Given my natural interest
in mechanical design and working with my hands, I quickly realized that the more hand work involved in making a piece,
the more interested I was in building it. Today, I certainly employ machine tools for their speed and practicality, but also
I go to great lengths to use hand tools for their accuracy and control as well as their ability to give any piece of wood
work a unique sense of character that cannot be achieved in any other way.
Wood working has truly become a passion for me. The perfect activity for one as drawn to being imaginative and artful
as they are to being precise and structured.
Thank you for your interest in my work.
Gerry Adams
