As you can see in this photo of the studio, there’s this tiny little bookshelf on a wall that’s way too big for it, so I wanted to replace it with a wider bookshelf, maybe 4 feet wide, with a very tall bottom shelf where my sketchbooks would fit – that one all the way to the left is 14″ tall, and that’s the only shelf in my entire house that will hold it. So I started searching for bookshelves. And discovered that bookshelves of that size are pretty much uniformly expensive, particularly if you want one not made of mdf. I think mdf is awesome and really useful, but it’s also amazingly heavy, and I’d decided I’d rather have a bookcase made of real wood – even cheap, soft wood, like pine.

So rather than spend $200 on a bookcase, I decided to build one. It didn’t even occur to me until halfway through the building process that I’d never built a bookcase before, and perhaps I should have had a bit more trepidation, but I think this is where my artistic history serves me well. I don’t look at an idea and think something like “hm, I’ve never built a mobile before, perhaps I should reconsider” – I just decide to do it, and the worst that can happen is that it’s not a very good mobile. Continue reading →