The Saw/Sand Redemption

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is a freelance writer based in London. He has a diverse range of interests and concerns, but his long reads can be found in “The Independent” while his poetry has appeared in “3AM Magazine”. He holds an M.Phil. in English from the University of Cambridge.

Today, the atavistic art of woodworking continues to capture the hearts and souls of hobbyists as well as professional joiners, carpenters and furniture makers the world over. What draws them to this centuries-old craft?

Humans have always been bound to wood. Woodworking is an activity that spans hundreds and thousands of years: from Neanderthal tools and Bronze Age wood carvings, to the ancient carpentry techniques and machinery of ancient Egypt, Rome and China. Modernity may have shaped and sanded the dimensions of woodworking considerably – bringing with it a power-tooled evolution – but an essential part of it still stays close to the grain.

Today, the atavistic art of woodworking continues to capture the hearts and souls of hobbyists as well as professional joiners, carpenters and furniture makers the world over. Like many other amateur upcycled furniture makers, I found myself drawn to its tactile artistry. What began as one simple project spawned a prolific fixation with making things out of wood: from upcycled tables to benches and bedside shelves. What surprised me was the extent to which I found woodworking to be more of an attitude than an activity. The velocity of life can sometimes be anathema to creativity, but working with wood provides a fruitful brake; a space to slow down to a meticulous pace, figuratively following the old carpenter’s adage to “measure twice and cut once”. Certainly, the lockdown summoned by the coronavirus slammed on that brake, splintering the stride of life and furnishing many with a suite of time. Yet at root, I think

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Enis Yucekoralp:

is a freelance writer based in London. He has a diverse range of interests and concerns, but his long reads can be found in “The Independent” while his poetry has appeared in “3AM Magazine”. He holds an M.Phil. in English from the University of Cambridge.

Publish date: 02.11.2020

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Enis Yucekoralp:

is a freelance writer based in London. He has a diverse range of interests and concerns, but his long reads can be found in “The Independent” while his poetry has appeared in “3AM Magazine”. He holds an M.Phil. in English from the University of Cambridge.

“Even asleep we partake in the becoming of the world,” to utter the echo in Czesław Miłosz’s poem “A Magic Mountain”. Lying awake at night, I have sometimes found myself turning this idea over in my head. Like millions of slumberless souls, I have suffered with regular bouts of insomnia, which, in my case, were triggered by overworking, psychological pressure, and obsessive thoughts. Insomniac sleep deprivation provoked in me a profound anxiety, shades of paranoia, and the promise of depression. However, during one tempestuous summer a few years ago, I discovered an aural way to silence it.

Beleaguered in the stifling intensity of two interim jobs, I worked too much, too hard and too long; stress-ridden and marooned in the city, I fell over the edge into a nightly insomnia. Like quicksand, the more I tried to sleep and ignore the freneticism of my racing thoughts, the harder it became to drift off – I couldn’t say how I partook in Miłosz’s becoming. I tried everything, from books on balmy midnight sleepwalks to friendly lectures on temperance. Nothing worked. A sleeping pill prescription was complicated by side-effect trepidation spawned by my state of nervous distress; my mental health suffered and I feared a repeat of depressive episodes. In the past, I had used music to modulate my emotions, so I trialled a kind of self-directed musical hypnosis. Finally, here was something that hit a chord.

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The Rhythm of the Night

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