The Sunshine Coast’s Inside Passage School of Fine Cabinetmaking has certified three more skilled craftsmen, and much of the exceptional woodwork they made during their training has gone on public display.
The graduation of Ted Boey, Travis Gran and Ben Miscavage was celebrated with teachers, friends and family on July 27 at the Grove Front Gallery in Sechelt, which is devoted exclusively to artisanal wood creations.
The internationally renowned Roberts Creek school draws students from across North America and around the world. Two of the newest graduates – Gran and Miscavage – moved temporarily from the U.S. to study there, with the third new alumnus, Ted Boey, coming from Vancouver.
“We’ve had students from 41 different countries,” Yvonne Van Norman said in an interview at the weekend gathering. Van Norman is a teaching assistant and administrator at the school, founded in 2004 by her husband and resident craftsman and teacher Robert Van Norman. “We have someone in the program right now from Brazil,” she said.
The Impractical Cabinetmaker program, which the three grads completed, consists of four ten-week terms, which students can do in one go or intermittently. What’s “impractical” about these skills, perhaps, is that most grads won’t make a full-time living with them. But they will have a rare craft to work on for the rest of their lives.
In contrast to factory-made products turned out by the tens of thousands, the design, meticulous precision and exotic-wood construction of the works made at the school are a delight to view and touch. The students’ chairs and cabinets are a testament to abilities developed gradually and with mandatory patience.
“I think I learned more in the mistakes I made than I would have learned had it all gone well,” said Gran, of Missoula, Montana. A nurse by profession, Gran is returning to his work-life in the U.S. with his engineer wife and toddler son. “I want to continue cabinetmaking as part-career but also as a joyful pastime,” he said.
Typical of the time required for advanced projects students make at Inside Passage, Boey said he spent more than 1,000 hours crafting a cabinet for his wife’s viola, an instrument slightly larger than a violin.
Miscavage estimates it took him about 1,600 hours to make a small oak, pecan, and rosewood cabinet for storing coffee-making implements. He named the work Abd, as a dedication to a barista friend by that name he met in the Middle East. Miscavage plans to further his education to help earn a living, but also to help make it possible for him to carry on cabinetmaking.
“I’m going to Portland to get my doctorate in physiotherapy,” he said. “I want to do that part-time, which will hopefully allow me to do this without anxiety about having to sell pieces.”
