Tag: behind the scenes

In a world of perfectly curated Instagram feeds and flawless marketing photos, we’ve made a different choice. We talk about our mistakes. We share the pieces that didn’t work out, the experiments that failed, the moments when even 40+ years of experience can’t prevent a “well, that’s not what I planned” situation.

Rex has his own collection of humbling moments. A few weeks ago, he was turning what should have been a simple bowl from a beautiful piece of burl. Halfway through, a hidden crack revealed itself, splitting the piece in a way that made it unusable for the original design. Instead of throwing it away, he pivoted, turning it into two smaller pieces that ended up being even more interesting than the original plan.

We share these stories because they’re part of the truth of handmade work. Wood that grew on a tree with much more humidity, resin that responds to temperature, finishes that can be affected by everything from the weather to how much coffee Rex had that morning — unpredictability is part of the process.

These mistakes teach us things we couldn’t learn any other way. That failed resin pour led Dawn to discover a technique for creating more subtle color transitions. Rex’s split bowl taught him to look for stress patterns he’d been missing before. Our failures become our education, and ultimately, they make our successes better.

But there’s another reason we’re honest about the imperfect moments: they remind everyone, including us, that these pieces are made by real people with real hands in real time. In an age of AI-generated everything and manufacturing precision, there’s something powerful about admitting that humans make human mistakes — and that those mistakes often lead to unexpected beauty.

We’ve noticed that customers connect with these stories in surprising ways. When we post about a project that went sideways, we get messages from other makers sharing their own disasters, from customers saying they appreciate the honesty, from people who say it makes them value their purchases even more knowing the human process behind them.

Some of our best pieces have come from happy accidents. That gorgeous rolling pin with the dramatic resin? It started as a piece of walnut with a crack that Rex was going to work around. Dawn suggested filling the crack with resin instead, and now it’s one of our most beautiful pieces.

Perfection is overrated anyway. When something is too perfect, it loses its humanity. The slight variations, the evidence of hand work, the knowledge that this piece survived the unpredictable journey from raw material to finished art — that’s what makes handmade special.

So yes, we share our mistakes because they’re part of our story. And in a world full of perfect facades, maybe a little authentic imperfection is exactly what people need to see.