Mark Love
Why Are We Waiting?
Why are we waiting? We are waiting for those who have the disease to fight their fights all the way to the end. We are waiting for the...
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Mark Love
- Mar 13, 2020
- 5 min
And Now We Wait: Keeping Sane In our "Cancel Everything" World (advice from my Seattleite friends)
Prepped and ready. Toilet paper and cans of beans, hand soap and pasta, paper towels and bags of chips. Here we go. But where are we...
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Mark Love
- Mar 7, 2020
- 2 min
Understanding Wood (and also other things)
“Wood evolved as a functional tissue of plants and not as a material designed to satisfy the needs of woodworkers.”* And yet we...
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Mark Love
- Feb 18, 2020
- 2 min
Vulnerability and Growth
I don't like feeling vulnerable. It scares me. But the more I learn about wood, the more I realize that if I'm ever going to grow I have...
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Mark Love
- Nov 18, 2019
- 8 min
I Deserve Better
For some people the hardest thing to say is “I love you.” For others it’s “I’m sorry.” The most difficult words for me are “This is what...
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Mark Love
- Nov 11, 2019
- 3 min
Be Quiet
Sound affects me. And so it affects my work. There is a moment in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance when the narrator takes his...
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Mark Love
- Nov 4, 2019
- 7 min
Why Can't I Forgive Myself?
“It’s not going to go,” Michael said. His face was hidden on the other side of the giant wardrobe. I was left to judge his mood from his...
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Mark Love
- Oct 29, 2019
- 7 min
The Healing Power of Making Stuff.
"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place...
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Mark Love
- Oct 21, 2019
- 5 min
Have I Wasted My Life?
If you visit my wood shop and look around for a while, you'll probably notice them, and you'll probably say something. Something like,...
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Mark Love
- Oct 9, 2019
- 2 min
Rhythm
Working wood is always a rhythm. The mallet strikes the chisel, then raises up, then strikes it again. The hand plane sweeps the board,...
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Mark Love
- Oct 17, 2018
- 7 min
Seven Ways My Life Is Better Since Deciding I'm Not So Sure About God
I revisit The Missing Piece regularly, ever since a friend gave me the little book two decades ago. I see myself in the story. The little...
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Mark Love
- Sep 10, 2018
- 6 min
Be still.
There it is. I was looking for it. I was starting to wonder if I'd find it at all, after coming all this way. A plane over the Atlantic,...
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Mark Love
- Sep 6, 2018
- 1 min
Exposing Everything
Who was it that first decided we should hide from view the parts of furniture that make a piece function? Who first said we need to...
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Mark Love
- Sep 5, 2018
- 1 min
Made By Hands
To own a thing made, from start to finish, by a single pair of hands is a privilege that is now nearly extinct. Look around your house,...
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Mark Love
- Aug 31, 2018
- 1 min
Bend
People are sometimes surprised to see how much a piece of wood can be bent without breaking. To which I always say, Watch what a tree...
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Mark Love
- Aug 10, 2018
- 2 min
Dust
Image: Bones by Corinne Schulze, used by permission I sanded all day today. My hands are dry, raw, sensitive. I can feel the texture of...
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Mark Love
- Aug 4, 2018
- 4 min
Simplicity as Healer
Whenever I meet someone for the first time and they find out what I do for a living, invariably the next question they ask is, “What kind...
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Mark Love
- Feb 28, 2018
- 4 min
Nothing is Permanent
When I was 26 I rented a little gray house in a very old south Austin neighborhood. Before I even signed the lease I decided that the...
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Mark Love
- Feb 23, 2018
- 7 min
The Inner Stunning
So many people are shut up tight inside themselves like boxes, yet they would open up, unfolding quite wonderfully, if only you were...
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Mark Love
- Feb 21, 2018
- 4 min
Filling the Cracks
I have a woodworker friend who refuses to work with mesquite. ‘Firewood,’ he calls it. ‘Makes excellent steaks, horrible furniture.’ He...
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