What Makes a Maker?
Meeting Bob and Jimmy at Workbench Con in 2018
I’ve always had a curious mind. Always needed to know how things worked and how things were made. My Grandfather was a Maker long before our community had a word for it and he instilled in me the “I can make that” mentality, along with the notion of always asking “What’s the Why Part” of any process or situation and that there was no such thing as “The Only Way to do something”. My father worked as a handyman for a time and would take me on jobs with him and teach me the basics of how to use tools and the importance of taking pride in a job well done! Between the two of them, and growing up watching Norm Abrams, Bob Villa, and Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor my inner Maker was starting to become fully realized!
My late teens and through my 20’s I fell in love with Movies and Television and ended up going to Film School in Orlando. There I had the opportunity to hone my Maker skills in the workshop on campus. Designing and building Movie sets and Making props for student films, and then for commercials and small productions once I graduated, Oh and did I mention that I got to work on Trading Spaces for a little while?? Had there been a YouTube Maker community in the early 2000’s I would have jumped at that chance!
I’ve spent the years in between then and now tinkering and building where I can and watching too much HGTV, and DIY Network, instead of striding head on into being my own Maker! And now I am finally at a place where my Knowledge, Passion, Skills, and Desire have all attributed to Forging the Maker you see before you! But my Journey is still getting started and I’m so thrilled to have you along for the ride!