Earlier this summer I went to a party at a woodworking co-op and it wound up being a fun time. I brought my camera. Here are some photos and stray observations.

The place is called Dock 6. It’s a big warehouse on the west side of Chicago that contains “six" furniture-making studios. Dock 6 is both the physical building and the cooperative––all of the studios are co-owners. Judging by what I saw, the people there might be some of the best furniture makers in the Midwest. There were pieces with many hours of labor put into them, crazy joinery. That kind of thing.

A lot of the cutting machines were on a scale I hadn’t seen before. The furniture makers work with large pieces of material––like, 15-foot blocks of wood. It was cool to see familiar equipment at an unexpected and rare scale.

I went to the party with my friend Jane, who happens to be 40 years older than me, and also one of the more eclectic and interesting people I’ve met in a while. We first met a few years ago when I was looking at some rental properties she owns. Jane is a former fine art photographer, and her work went as far as being exhibited in the MoMa. Pretty crazy. Later on she got into real estate and now owns a bunch of cool properties around Chiraq. Sometimes I ask her for life advice, but I have to be careful because sometimes it can be intense. On the drive to the party, she said, “You should quit your job and go do what you want to do.”

I weirdly didn’t pay attention to furniture until four years ago. For me, furniture was always about pure function, and the aesthetics of it were invisible to me, for whatever reason. Then I walked into a few friends’ well-curated apartments in New York and felt the strange energy of a space, where all the shapes and colors were playing off each other. I’ve been into it since then. Stuff’s expensive though. 🥺

I consume furniture when I can, but haven’t made any. Plastic furniture is especially cool. Someday I’d like to try to make a plastic lamp or an end table, something like that.

Wood, though, isn’t really my thing. I like making stuff, especially with metal and plastic, but wood feels different.

Probably the main thing I like about working with metal and plastic is the control. A milling machine can cut metal to one- or five-thousandths of an inch. Achieving the exact dimensions you set out for is a great feeling. Like solving a puzzle or winning a game. I notice that this feeling of control and precision is something I enjoy orienting toward, almost separate from my enthusiasm for the finished thing.

Cutting metal also has this ASMR quality. A hard material, turning into soft chips. It seems impossible, even as it’s happening. Really satisfying to watch. Wood doesn’t make me spazz out like that.

Outside the warehouse, a food truck was turning out wood-fired pizzas. Internally, I was deciding which stranger to talk to. Then I saw a guy in a Sci-Fi Fantasy hat, and the choice became clear. We talked and he was cool. Dock 6 does this party once a year. I’ll probably go next year.