Bottega

For as long as I can remember, he’s always carved out a workshop of some kind, his own little slice of heaven amid our chaos on earth.  Adjacent to the utility sink in the basement where mom used to wash my long, blonde hair and brush the tangles out with “Tame” he claimed space for gadgets of all shapes and sizes.  Peg board covered the wall above his workbench guaranteeing every tool imaginable knew its rightful place.  As kids we mercilessly squeezed a myriad of objects within the clutches of his red vice.

He marked his territory in the garage as well, an old refrigerator housing all that’s necessary to repair the assortment of old jalopies he kept running for my siblings and I to drive.  At the time I couldn’t appreciate his métier, instead seething at the corner of Burlington and Route 53 on frigid winter mornings when prayers for a green light went unanswered, the engine of our 1975 Cutlass Supreme dying in the intersection. He siphoned gasoline with his mouth.

He has an affinity for the vintage; salvaging the metal cabinet from Grandma’s kitchen in the Rogers Park apartment, cigar boxes from a past era repurposed storing screws, bolts and nuts labeled accordingly in draftsman’s block lettering.  There’s even a pair of blue jean cut-offs tacked to the wall, back pockets exposed, pouches ready to take in stray implements.  Nothing goes to waste.

When it comes right down to it, his space is kindred to the art studio I now call home; inspiration strewn about the areas where we work in the form of the glimmering tools of our trades.   We gleam in involuntary delight when we happen upon that perfect something to add to the ever-growing collection.  We can never have enough.

I truly believe each one of us is an artist in our own right.  The finished work may represent us to the outside world, but the tools we invoke in the process honor the inner journey we’re on to create. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t call himself an artist, but I see the signs everywhere I look.  I hone my own craft in the shadow of his. This apple didn’t fall far from the tree.