Tonight we have the Mad Hatter Ball, a fundraiser for the Eureka Springs School of the Arts. It might surprise some readers to learn that I am a near thoroughly shy guy. I like one on one, but being in a crowd of people, I feel misplaced. Add to that, wearing a funny hat, and I am clearly out of my comfort zone. Tonight I will be wearing my bent walnut fez, a hat recycled from an earlier mad hatters ball years past. It is one of those hats that you wouldn't really notice until you took the time to look close, but it is steam bent walnut, formed the way I would make a tine, or Norwegian bent wood box. Since hardly anybody ever noticed it in the first place, I get to wear it again. It has no bill so it is a convenient hat for taking photos and the other way I hide out in a crowd is to take photos. Give me something productive to do and I can hide from the socially agonizing experience of obligatory fund raising.
In the meantime, I am applying spray urethane finish to drawer facings and working on parts for boxes in my relentless friendly competition with the Chinese.
It is certainly a good thing that human beings come in a variety of colors, shapes, sizes and personality types. Nothing gives me greater pleasure than to be working in the wood shop. And today, in preparation for the Mad Hatter's Ball, I get to do just that.
In the meantime, if you happen to come to Eureka Springs this evening, bring a hat. At the Mad Hatters Ball, I'll be the one wearing the walnut fez.
So, Doug, we're ALL anxiously awaiting a photo of you and the hat:)))
ReplyDeleteJD, I was on the perfect end of the lens. The one where you are not preserved for posterity.
ReplyDelete