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| A moment that changed me: learning to upholster a chair | A moment that changed me: learning to upholster a chair |
| (5 months later) | |
| “But you don’t look 35!” my friend shrieked. I considered what this meant – I wasn’t the wizened old crone that she, aged 24, had expected: my wrinkles weren’t deep enough, my dowager’s hump not humpy enough. I’m a few months shy of this birthday, and I am mentally prepared. Over the past year, though, my life has changed. It’s been changing for a while, but recently something really cracked. | “But you don’t look 35!” my friend shrieked. I considered what this meant – I wasn’t the wizened old crone that she, aged 24, had expected: my wrinkles weren’t deep enough, my dowager’s hump not humpy enough. I’m a few months shy of this birthday, and I am mentally prepared. Over the past year, though, my life has changed. It’s been changing for a while, but recently something really cracked. |
| A short spell of depression sat on my shoulders like that creature in Five Children and It – and while it was up there, it blew an existential crisis in my ear. Edging towards ticking the 35-40 box while getting my boring old grownup insurance quote sorted, I realised I had nothing to show for it. I didn’t own anything. I didn’t have a tangible record of achievement to prove that I’ve lived or have learned any skills. As a self-employed person, I wasn’t even working towards a promotion. | A short spell of depression sat on my shoulders like that creature in Five Children and It – and while it was up there, it blew an existential crisis in my ear. Edging towards ticking the 35-40 box while getting my boring old grownup insurance quote sorted, I realised I had nothing to show for it. I didn’t own anything. I didn’t have a tangible record of achievement to prove that I’ve lived or have learned any skills. As a self-employed person, I wasn’t even working towards a promotion. |
| That said, I have achieved many things, but not in the same way that, say, our neighbour, a doctor, has. I’ve DJed around the world at parties – once on a boat with a naked Grace Jones grinding next to me while singing Slave to the Rhythm. I’ve interviewed most of my idols – from Debbie Harry to Dame Edna. I asked Beyoncé what she sings in the shower when we shot her last year for the music magazine I own and publish independently, which, yes, is a tangible thing, but still somehow that empty, rattly feeling snuck in. | That said, I have achieved many things, but not in the same way that, say, our neighbour, a doctor, has. I’ve DJed around the world at parties – once on a boat with a naked Grace Jones grinding next to me while singing Slave to the Rhythm. I’ve interviewed most of my idols – from Debbie Harry to Dame Edna. I asked Beyoncé what she sings in the shower when we shot her last year for the music magazine I own and publish independently, which, yes, is a tangible thing, but still somehow that empty, rattly feeling snuck in. |
| It feels like a rite of passage as a “millennial” to moan about the pace of life and how our achievements are measured. You can’t move for conversations about how people want to work with their hands or start making things – my Instagram feed is clogged with pottery-class ashtrays. But I did feel a yearning to do something. To channel this need for essence in materials. I just didn’t know how. | It feels like a rite of passage as a “millennial” to moan about the pace of life and how our achievements are measured. You can’t move for conversations about how people want to work with their hands or start making things – my Instagram feed is clogged with pottery-class ashtrays. But I did feel a yearning to do something. To channel this need for essence in materials. I just didn’t know how. |
| And then one night, sheltering a takeaway curry from the rain under my coat, I found the chair. Sitting on the kerb, it was totally bare save for the odd scrap of fabric attached by rusty upholstery nails to the frame. But it was a nice chair, a late Edwardian dining chair. We made eye contact. “Come on, take me home,” it whispered. When I got home, I ate my curry and went back to get it. I left it in the basement until eventually, I plucked up enough courage to work out what to do. Many YouTube tutorials on how to use a webbing stretcher and a complex foam-shaping situation with an electric carving knife later, it was finished. Admittedly not perfect, but the first time I sat down in it, something was ignited in me, and it wasn’t the non-flame-retardant foam cushion I’d used. | And then one night, sheltering a takeaway curry from the rain under my coat, I found the chair. Sitting on the kerb, it was totally bare save for the odd scrap of fabric attached by rusty upholstery nails to the frame. But it was a nice chair, a late Edwardian dining chair. We made eye contact. “Come on, take me home,” it whispered. When I got home, I ate my curry and went back to get it. I left it in the basement until eventually, I plucked up enough courage to work out what to do. Many YouTube tutorials on how to use a webbing stretcher and a complex foam-shaping situation with an electric carving knife later, it was finished. Admittedly not perfect, but the first time I sat down in it, something was ignited in me, and it wasn’t the non-flame-retardant foam cushion I’d used. |
| Later, when my depression waltzed back through the door, my partner decided that I needed to do something that wasn’t whatever I was doing, and signed me up for a woodworking course to make a coffee table. Cycling through the dusky, honeysuckle-filled haze of Hackney Marshes and spending three hours nibbling away at a mortise and tenon joint with a group of people who didn’t know my name was pure emancipation from my own mind. | Later, when my depression waltzed back through the door, my partner decided that I needed to do something that wasn’t whatever I was doing, and signed me up for a woodworking course to make a coffee table. Cycling through the dusky, honeysuckle-filled haze of Hackney Marshes and spending three hours nibbling away at a mortise and tenon joint with a group of people who didn’t know my name was pure emancipation from my own mind. |
| I learned to have confidence, and to take care, and to feel pride in what I was doing, even if it wouldn’t be seen | I learned to have confidence, and to take care, and to feel pride in what I was doing, even if it wouldn’t be seen |
| After making the coffee table, I needed more. I enrolled in a 14-week part-time course at the Cass art school to make a chair. Every Saturday, from 11am to 5pm, I would glide around the woodmill in pure ecstasy. I made new friends. I spent four entire weeks trying to make a single tenon fit snugly into its corresponding mortise. I learned from my mistakes. I learned to have confidence in what I was doing, and to take care, and to feel pride in what I was doing, even if it wouldn’t be seen – those hidden joints are sometimes the most structurally important. | After making the coffee table, I needed more. I enrolled in a 14-week part-time course at the Cass art school to make a chair. Every Saturday, from 11am to 5pm, I would glide around the woodmill in pure ecstasy. I made new friends. I spent four entire weeks trying to make a single tenon fit snugly into its corresponding mortise. I learned from my mistakes. I learned to have confidence in what I was doing, and to take care, and to feel pride in what I was doing, even if it wouldn’t be seen – those hidden joints are sometimes the most structurally important. |
| I had order and a physical, predetermined outcome – the exact opposite of my freewheelin’ freelance life. I had an eccentric teacher who would whistle choruses from musical theatre, and who would encourage us to have a drink at lunchtime. Despite that, somewhat surprisingly, I didn’t lose any fingers. The warm waxy smells of art-school corridors reminded me of my own time at Camberwell. I was so happy. Even now, when I can’t sleep at night, I remember all the things I would do in a day there – taking raw, splintery timber, putting it through the straight edger, cutting it to length, surface planing it to make a face edge and three smooth edges. Measuring, chiselling and planing. Minutes ticking past with my mind zoomed in on a tiny detail, not thinking about Facebook or comparing myself to my peers on Instagram. I fall asleep smiling. | I had order and a physical, predetermined outcome – the exact opposite of my freewheelin’ freelance life. I had an eccentric teacher who would whistle choruses from musical theatre, and who would encourage us to have a drink at lunchtime. Despite that, somewhat surprisingly, I didn’t lose any fingers. The warm waxy smells of art-school corridors reminded me of my own time at Camberwell. I was so happy. Even now, when I can’t sleep at night, I remember all the things I would do in a day there – taking raw, splintery timber, putting it through the straight edger, cutting it to length, surface planing it to make a face edge and three smooth edges. Measuring, chiselling and planing. Minutes ticking past with my mind zoomed in on a tiny detail, not thinking about Facebook or comparing myself to my peers on Instagram. I fall asleep smiling. |
| My dad rang me on my birthday but I didn’t answer – I was using a small block plane to create a 7mm taper on the arm of my chair. When I spoke to him I could hear the pride in his voice. “Good; job first, phone second,” he cackled. My dad is Mr DIY. The man has three sheds, he pretty much built our house. Give him a bag of coathangers and some screws, and I swear he would present you with a motorbike. Both my parents are the crafty, fixing and restoring types, whose treasure troves take the form of skips and junk shops. Asking their advice, telling them what I’d found and what I’d been making has brought me infinitely closer to them. It’s like acknowledging my own DNA, learning my mother’s tips on different wood oils. | My dad rang me on my birthday but I didn’t answer – I was using a small block plane to create a 7mm taper on the arm of my chair. When I spoke to him I could hear the pride in his voice. “Good; job first, phone second,” he cackled. My dad is Mr DIY. The man has three sheds, he pretty much built our house. Give him a bag of coathangers and some screws, and I swear he would present you with a motorbike. Both my parents are the crafty, fixing and restoring types, whose treasure troves take the form of skips and junk shops. Asking their advice, telling them what I’d found and what I’d been making has brought me infinitely closer to them. It’s like acknowledging my own DNA, learning my mother’s tips on different wood oils. |
| Dad’s never really bothered with presents, really, but this year he told me to keep an eye out for two boxes. When they arrived, I cried. A huge tool box, with, among other things, his own plane and a set of chisels (in a leather chisel roll that he’d made), a set of clamps and two different kinds of beeswax (from my dear old dead Nana’s own beehive). There was a wee folding workbench and even a square pencil. Everything was individually wrapped up in tissue with string around it. The whole thing smelled of his workshop and home, the ultimate comfort. He even popped down from Edinburgh for an impromptu trip to inspect my chair handiwork with his buttocks, and brought me some leather samples and advice on how to pleat the hide round the corners of a cushion – something I haven’t gotten round to yet – but frankly I’m savouring the prospect of a day spent united with my staple gun. | Dad’s never really bothered with presents, really, but this year he told me to keep an eye out for two boxes. When they arrived, I cried. A huge tool box, with, among other things, his own plane and a set of chisels (in a leather chisel roll that he’d made), a set of clamps and two different kinds of beeswax (from my dear old dead Nana’s own beehive). There was a wee folding workbench and even a square pencil. Everything was individually wrapped up in tissue with string around it. The whole thing smelled of his workshop and home, the ultimate comfort. He even popped down from Edinburgh for an impromptu trip to inspect my chair handiwork with his buttocks, and brought me some leather samples and advice on how to pleat the hide round the corners of a cushion – something I haven’t gotten round to yet – but frankly I’m savouring the prospect of a day spent united with my staple gun. |
| I can’t remember what I’d imagined myself doing when I was nearly 35 when I was in my 20s. I don’t know if I ever really thought about it, because I couldn’t imagine a life that wasn’t going out all night and having a fabulous time and somehow, between the hangovers, making a living. Now when I sit in the chair I made, or the sofa I reupholstered, and think about what I’d like to do when I grow up, I imagine a house full of things I’ve made. And somewhere in it will sit a late Edwardian dining chair with a scrappy upholstery job and some wonky webbing. | I can’t remember what I’d imagined myself doing when I was nearly 35 when I was in my 20s. I don’t know if I ever really thought about it, because I couldn’t imagine a life that wasn’t going out all night and having a fabulous time and somehow, between the hangovers, making a living. Now when I sit in the chair I made, or the sofa I reupholstered, and think about what I’d like to do when I grow up, I imagine a house full of things I’ve made. And somewhere in it will sit a late Edwardian dining chair with a scrappy upholstery job and some wonky webbing. |
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