Ten Years Ago Today, a/k/a Time Flies!

Exactly ten years ago I was experiencing the most exhilarating and exhausting week of my life, the culmination of years of research, writing, and travel; it was Studley Exhibit Week.

It started with packing up of the Studley Tool Cabinet and Workbench ensemble at its home, loading it onto a dedicated truck with armed driver and escort, and unloading it at the end of a long day’s driving in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, just a few miles from the Handworks event in Amana.

A dedicated team of volunteers (and vendors; the original lighting contractor bailed on the project three weeks before the opening) made the whole thing possible as the installation came together.

That evening I hosted a special reception for all the Handworks vendors who would be otherwise unable to see the exhibit.

On top of everything else the Lost Art Press crew arrived with cases of the book, almost literally hot off the presses and straight from the bindery.

The event garnered favorable feedback except for those who were miffed that there was a ticket price for the small event.  Apparently, they were unaware of budget items like the cost of dedicated, secured transport ($6k), insurance (a thousand dollars a day), facility rental, exhibit fabrication (almost $2k just for the tool cabinet exhibit case alone), and much, much more, all of which I was paying out of my own pocket.  Thanks to the unbelievable generosity of a friend of the project the books all balanced in the end.

Despite the frenetic pace of those days, robbing me of many of the memorable moments, I still get warm-and-fuzzies reflecting on those moments I can remember.

Ten years!  Goodness, how time flies.