I might’ve forgotten how to do this.

I’ve been staring at this blinking cursor for 13 days, trying to remember how this goes.

Something my English teachers forgot to tell me is that grammar, sentence structure, and vocabulary are all well and good, but the thing that gets writing done is muscle memory. Sitting down to put words on paper every single day is about practice and repetition. Sure, they were charged with teaching us to understand a language, not to professionally execute it, but all the same, I’d have appreciated a heads-up.

In April of 2019, I posted here a message here titled Update: The State of the Project in which I announced our intention to move from Washington to Oregon in order to pursue a job opportunity for my wife. It was a hell of a move and it ate my life.

In April 2020 I posted again to chat a little bit about life in the wake of a wood turning accident that had sidelined me for a bit in the middle of a remodel that had already been interrupted by a pandemic. We had moved into a 1971 ranch house that hadn’t been updated since it was first built. The oven in the kitchen was an errant spark away from putting us on the 9 o’clock news, so I tore the ovens out. And the rest of the kitchen. The pandemic lockdowns and fear and chaos had befallen us precisely between the moment we removed the old kitchen and the moment we ordered the pieces for the new one. We couldn’t get tradespeople to answer the phone and if they did, they didn’t show up.

We didn’t participate in the lockdown baking renaissance because we literally didn’t have a kitchen.

Later that same month, I posted again to update you about my health and that remodel that had been slowed by the still-unfolding pandemic.

I promised “more soon”.

There wasn’t more soon.

There wasn’t more later either.

I apologize to those of you left wondering what happened to me, to those of you who reached out to ask questions or advice, and to those of you who assumed I’d lost interest in the project. I even apologize to those of you who didn’t think about me at all.

It was a trying time and you had a lot on your mind(s); I understand.

When I began the Renaissance Artisan Project, it was 2012. I had brown hair and an optimistic dream that this would only take a year. 52 weeks for 54 guilds, what could possibly go wrong?

It’s been 12 years; my beard is no longer brown and my eyesight is nowhere near as sharp. I’ve moved 5 times to 5 different cities in 2 different states. I’ve published a novel, had surgeries, and lost both of my parents yet still the project trundled along in the background. It never traveled in a straight line, nor at a consistent speed or heading, but it never quite stopped even if I’ve paused writing about it here and there. It has effectively taken over my library and, to a certain extent, my identity.

At times I’ve wondered if I was done, but no… this long journey into the life of the everyday craftspeople of Elizabethan London is probably a lifelong journey for me and this is the place where I record the events of the journey.

I don’t know that I will ever be done even if I do eventually turn all of this into a book. I suspect that one day I’ll be buried in my toolbox, surrounded by enough tools to keep it going in the hereafter like the negative image of a Pharaoh who expected to continue to rule an undead kingdom long after his or her demise. A pharaoh with calluses.

“My name is Scott, the eternal apprentice;
Look on my blog, ye mighty, and despair!”

With earnest apologies to Percy Bysshe Shelley

Anyway, here’s a proper Status Update:

• Worshipful Co of Stationers
  The book I was binding when last we met was finished ages ago and others have taken its place in the various workshops and ad hoc studios that unfolded and folded over the course of the last five homes. I’ve slowly added to my arsenal of bookbinding paraphernalia in the areas of finishing and gilding so I can finally cover the rest of bookbinding in a way that I find satisfactorily period-appropriate.
  
  I have also recently acquired a small hand press for printing wood blocks, so I can add that to my list and tic it off as well.
  
  
• Worshipful Co of Cordwainers
  I am in the middle of a series of period shoemaking workshops, led by the fantastic Francis Classe. We are currently working on a lasted turnshoe, which isn’t very Elizabethan, but it’s a good and necessary step toward renaissance welted shoe styles, which are next.
  
  I’ll discuss what all of that means when I start writing it up. Suffice to say, the people shall be shod.
  
  
• Worshipful Co of Joyners
  Inspired by the fantastic and fascinating book on 17^th century woodworking, Joiner’s Work by Peter Follansbee, I assembled a chest of period-appropriate tools and returned to the guild of artisans I’d founded long ago near the beginning of this project in time to present at the Washington Midsummer Renaissance Faire last August.
  
  Coming soon: Plane making and other assorted joinery-related tools and tasks.
  
  
• Worshipful Co of Merchant Taylors
  This is a topic I brought up and then unceremoniously dropped looooong before I started did the same with everything else. I’m not sure why, other than the fact that I had a lot of period costume pieces done already and I wasn’t in the mood to do a lot of sewing. Unfortunately for me, moths had other plans and at some point in all that moving I mentioned, they absolutely feasted on all that lovely wool.
  
  I patched and darned my way to decency at the renaissance faire – or near enough – but there’s no getting past the fact that my wardrobe has fallen into motheaten squalor. So I will be making a full set of clothes from the shoes to the hat and you get to come along for the ride.
  

The only real trick is awakening the part of my brain that remembers to take pictures, remembers to take notes, remembers to sit down every so often to properly document the process here, where you can find it. That’s a hard habit to breathe life back into, but I’m working on it. Some of what’s to come will need to be reconstructed from what I’ve already done, but I hope that it will be useful nonetheless.

More later.

I promise.
Scott