I kind of feel like I was meant to be blind just able to see things from a completely different point of view it took some courage to these different tools but when I'm working a piece of wood it feels very peaceful it's got such a fluid feel to it that it's almost like another dog I can feel it flow and change and then I turn it off announce it beautiful ornate bold I grew up in a small town in Colorado I felt like I never really fit in a lot there it really started making me
feel depressed so when I was 16 I attempted suicide by shooting myself I didn't want to face the world anymore the more I think about it the older I get the less it makes sense luckily I only lost my sense of sight and smell and left my mind totally intact I learned woodworking about eight years after I became blind I went to a training center for blind people I started going to that woodshop and discovered I just had a knack for it you know I'd never thought of woodworking after I was blind but I come
to learn that there is actually a very large community of blind woodworkers it was just incredible for me it just opened up my world my wife Annie helps me in so many ways she has been an enormous part of my woodworking she helps me select different colors of wood for one thing but she's also the one that bought me my lathe she supports me in every way and just has been a wonderful part of my life I mean out here in my woodshop about six hours most days and can't tell you how nice it is
when I'm out here covered in wood chips I start with my rough piece of wood you know measure it and see will this make a bowl or a canister or a jewelry dish the best from there I I turn on the design program in my mind I call it my imagination is still so visual you know cut it into a usable block on the saw basically if you follow the rules blind or sighted keep my hands where they're supposed to be a saw works like a saw and there's really not much you can do about
that and then I mount it to the lathe and turn it into a piece of art I love the sounds it makes when you're carving cuz different cuts will make different sounds and then I'm really got it going right and I'm making the sweeping cut into a bowl it's just kind of a hist it I feel the wood as it's spinning with my left hand and I carved with the right hand and I can feel it transform under my fingers as I'm cutting the wood away with the chisel I can transform just a rough stump
of wood into a piece of art that looks like wooden pottery it's like you can feel the life in it it just has this kind of magic to it it's been one of the most fundamentally life-changing things for me because I have something I'm good at and it produces something in the end
