At this point you’re probably wondering when I’m going to get on with it and talk about Zeca and what we’re actually doing down here day to day.  Truth is, I meant to do that earlier in the week but I took off to Sao Paulo for a well needed break from small town life…turns out I’m a city girl…big surprise!

Okay, I think I’ll organize this into two posts…this post I’ll just tell you about Zeca and his work, then the next post I’ll focus on our concept and project.

Zeca’s workshop is at the back of his house and although he has everything he needs, it is amazing to see the make-do kind of stuff he comes up with.  First of all, he made his table saw…and it’s perfectly square.  It doubles as a bench, a glue up table and a bee’s nest (there is a friendly bee that has burrowed a hole into the wood and comes flying out when the saw turns on).  He somehow lives without a tilting arbor…we’re cutting a bunch of angled pieces for our project and have made a jig for the planer, which probably works better anyway.  So, yes, he’s got a jointer and planer, and a shaper, which surprised me…and which, to be honest, I’m hesitant to go near.  He has a bit of a cowboy attitude in the shop (although he still has all his fingers) and does some free styling on these tools that totally freaks me out.   He doesn’t have a band saw, a jigsaw or a router which might explain his current disdain for organic shapes.  I haven’t seen any clamps yet except for a few c-clamps which he uses to attach the fence for the table saw.  Check out the picture below to see his solution for a web clamp…pretty smart…although one of the reasons I went into SP was to find some real web clamps because we need a bunch for the project and the stick and rope method isn’t quite going to cut it!  Last but not least, he has rigged up a machine that cleans his wood.  All of the wood Zeca uses is taken from the demolition of civil construction, which is apparently one of the largest categories of waste to impact the Brazilian environment.  In Botucatu alone it is estimated that 40 tons of this stuff is thrown into the fields daily.  So, this is old wood, dirty and covered in paint, and needs to be washed before it can be worked.  I’ll give you a hint about our project: this machine and process is key!

That’s the shop…now let’s check out the work.  In the past Zeca used to do a lot of carving and was really drawn to organic shapes, but now he believes that the wood is organic enough on its own and prefers working with geometric forms.  He recently took a course through the Museum of Modern Art in Sao Paulo which may have spurred on his experiments in geometry.  Zeca is a pretty interesting guy because he is so smart and curious and when you look at the pictures below you’ll see that he is highly, highly skilled with his hands.  However, he can’t really read or write…I mean he can, but not well.  He said that he always had trouble in school and would pretend to read books, but just made up the stories in his head…and when he knew there was going to be a test or reading out loud he would just skip school.  When he discovered woodworking he said that he finally felt like he was good at something and has been working with his hands ever since. 

When I got here I kept asking Zeca to show me his work and tell me what ideas he was interested in pursuing but he seemed really hesitant to do this.  I think it was part shyness and part wanting to be totally open to my suggestions.  Finally though, after enough coaxing, he came around and told me that his most recent work (pictured on the bottom, in the middle) is something he would like to explore.  At first I thought “oh shit!”, why did I ask, how am I going to take this and turn it into something that expresses both of us…alternating wood tones, kill me dead a little bit, right?!  (Now I know some of you are thinking wait a minute honey, what about the Common Chair, alternating woods…but hopefully we can all agree that that’s somehow different).  Anyway, one night I was lying in bed and it all clicked and I knew exactly what we were going to do…I had come up with the perfect marriage of ideas and form…I basically couldn’t sleep all night I was so excited…so, needless to say, hint #2, the project is based around this stool.

Alright, that’s all you get for now…off to make pudim de leite condensado with my surrogate mum, Regina…but this week I will definitely post some pictures about our actual project and how it’s all progressing…