Last week I had an exciting opportunity.

Thursday morning, I got up bright and early to go to estate sale in St. Louis Park on the way to delivering art to my friend Genie Castro in Hudson, Wisconsin. She was bringing it to a new gallery- Milward Farrell Fine Art that is showing both of our work in Madison, Wisconsin.

The estate belongs to an 86-year-old old-timer named Lou, who was an ex-Honeywell Exec and had a passion for woodworking and carpentry. Lou had recently moved to assisted living because of dementia, and would not be returning home. Needless to say, he had a collection of tools that would make most men salivate. Not only had he taken incredible care of his tools, but he had obviously invested a lot of time and money in quality and had customized each one of the tools with different guides and enclosures that worked with a really elaborate ventilation system. While I was there, I bought a really nice Oscillating Spindle Sander and loaded up into the car for the trip to Hudson. Here is a peek at what Lou was rocking in his shop-

On the beautiful drive along the river, I became really nostalgic about the time I spent making sculpture in college and became a little frustrated about how I didn’t realize until after graduation how difficult it would be to continue that process without all the tools and expansive space I had access to at the Dittmann Center at St. Olaf College.

I took my mother for lunch at Barrio in Edina, and I confided in her in my frustration in my inability to execute large three-dimensional work, and my excitement in the incredible life’s collection of tools available down the street. Of course, she had a solution. My brother has a large detached building at his house, that would be perfect for a studio… and why couldn’t I just use that?

The fact that my brother was in Dallas for work, and we hadn’t passed the idea by him yet, was just a detail.

We took a field trip to the sale immediately after lunch, and I promptly pulled the trigger on buying the entire collection of tools and the “remove at your own risk” ventilation system had been installed throughout the shop.

I was officially in business.

Within the next couple of days I made several trips with a 17 foot truck and my main man Dan, to move over all my new purchases. Here is the truck on our first trip-

Over the next few weeks, I’m committed to sharing pictures and progress of my new sculpture studio and the process of putting it together, as it takes shape!

PS I finally had the opportunity to break the news to my brother that I was taking over his building for my new laboratory, luckily he was just as excited as I was!