Swords and Shields

When I was seven, my dad handed me a book about making wooden toys and asked me to find a project I’d like to make with him.  I chose the sword and shield.  It was a special project for me back then, especially because my dad died unexpectedly only months after we finished.  So it was really meaningful for me to build from the same design for my own boy thirty years later.

This fall, I made twelve swords and twelve shields from the same book.  I’m going to sell them at ArtsGoggle 2016.  In a great bit of nostalgia, most of the decorative plugs that went into these swords and shields came from a cache I recently discovered in some of my dad’s old things.