Joel: All right. Mike Randall. How you doing?

Mike: I'm doing good, thank you.

Joel: So, Mike, you are unique in that you both took this class and now you help teach this class, right?

Mike: Yes.

Joel: So tell me about when you taught, when you took this class.

Mike: I did it in the 2010, 2011 year under Ken and Cam.

Joel: And what did you do before you took fine furniture?

Mike: I ran boats for a long time. My original background in the UK was forestry, and I came to Canada in 1999 and I started running my own sailboat for charter business. And then I worked whale watching for a good few years, running some big boats. And then I went and worked on C Span tugs for a year before the recession hit in 2008. I got laid off 2009 and then took me a year or two, sort of just figuring out what we were doing. My son was very young and needed quite a bit of hands on. And then in 2009, I was told, a buddy of mine sort of said, you should do the weekend warriors like sort of furniture program. The first woodworking one was Russ Frampton, I think his last name, but Russ. And then Sandra did three, two, three and four. And so I did those courses like, two days a week. And then towards the end, Sandra is like, have you signed up to the Fine Furniture Program? You do know about it? I was like, I don't know anything about it. I mean, other than being in here. And she's like, yeah, you probably should do that, so I did it.

Joel: Had you any woodworking experience before those weekend programs?

Mike: A little. When I first was whale watching, a buddy of mine and I ran a little fencing business, but I was really amateur at that stage. Yeah, embarrassingly so.

Joel: So what was your experience as a student in the class like? And then I'm going to ask you what your experience as an instructor has been.

Mike: My experience as a student, I mean, apart from the sort of, like, hindsight, it was freaking awesome. Honestly. I grew so my background I'm dyslexic, potentially ADHD school was an incredible challenge for me. I basically never, I completed high school, but just by the skin of my teeth. It was in Europe, so we were using the English system, and I had very little confidence in my own ability to do anything, really. When I did my navigation stuff, I did really well, but I'd done that all my life. And this was the first thing I ever did where I really came in pretty green. I'd had Sandra's training, obviously, beforehand, which was really good, but being confronted by an enormous amount of homework, in those days it was all written and just time pressures and things. It really scared me. And I mean, literally, I used to feel sick every time homework was set. And then I realized I was getting good grades and I was actually coming out with almost 100% on my assignments and all that sort of stuff. And it's like, this is really cool. And it was just enormous boost to my confidence, really.

Joel: What was your best experience in the class? And by experience, I mean homework assignment, a project, a new relationship, a great day.

Mike: I think my best experience was discovering the sort of mid century modernists and wood bending and just the minimalist design. My background was antiques because my father used to be an antique dealer, and I was surrounded by antiques, mostly Cotswell, Arts and Crafts, which is why I sort of loved and I had sort of discovered the Shakers a bit. And then when Ken was doing his furniture history classes, I found a lot of it really dry and dull. And then we came across he got to the sort of 1950s, and my brain just went, oh, yeah, that's where it's at. And so that was the light bulb moment, really, for me, in terms of like, just, yeah, this is cool.

Joel: When did you decide to make this a career? Was it where you finished the program?

Mike: Oh, yeah, no, I started this out with the intention of working. I think my biggest mistake was to not go into working for another company. At the time, I was sort of I just want to work for myself. I've got my son to look after. I got, like, you know, work from home. Just I was done with working for other people, and I was sort of, but I think that in hindsight, I would have learnt an awful lot in the first few years, even if I'd just done a few, and it would have given me skill sets that took me years to learn.

Joel: What, when you were a student, was your most challenging experience? And again, experience can be however you define it.

Mike: Oh, I think some of the assignments, some of things that take time and patience. I am very patient with people, but I'm not very patient with myself. And cutting dovetails, for instance. Fitting dovetails. Yeah. Some of the fine joinery. The introduction of each individual project used to make me feel sick, and then once you get into it, you realize, if don't you just work through it.

Joel: Sick how? Nervous? Insecure?

Mike:Nervous.

Joel: What were you nervous about?

Mike: Just the work, the time. That was my go to having spent most of my school time being always struggling and being stressed. So yeah.

Joel: How were you able to work through the class, given your learning disabilities?

Mike: Well, I mean, everyone is really understanding. And at home, my wife realized that I needed to get this done and was very supportive. And so in terms of looking after the kids and stuff, I spent a lot of time doing homework at night, and I tried in the past, growing up, I'd always procrastinate leave everything to the last minute.And this time I really forced myself to just get everything done the day of the set or start working on it, at least. And my wife's a very academic driven person, so that was easy. Yeah. Yes. You got to get the work done. Okay. So from that perspective, I just learned to get it done.

Joel: And what kind of business have you built since you graduated from fine furniture?

Mike: It's a growing business. It's difficult. This is a hard industry to be in. I've grown my network, I've grown my sales.

Joel: What do you make?

Mike: I make lighting. I'm a light designer. Essentially, I bend wood. I design curved things or products that have curves. So I do dining tables, I do a little bit of seating, a lot of lighting, and I'm starting into sort of sculpture. I do bent lamination, large scale bent lamination, sort of up to sort of 14 feet. And I'm sort of starting to play with steam bending a bit more. I've had a couple of really big steam bending projects, and again, it's just learning on the fly. Yeah. So that's kind of the direction I go in. I do a lot of work with interior designers. I have production pieces which I can have manufactured or make myself, and I do a lot of custom work, too.

Joel: Is this your first year teaching?

Mike: Yeah, I started in December or January.

Joel: What is the difference? I would imagine there's so many, but what are some of the most substantial differences between being a student in this program and teaching this program? I know what the day to day differences are, but I mean more like psychological and emotional for you.

Mike: Well, I mean, I absolutely adore teaching. I've always liked talking. But teaching is really reminding me just how much I do know. And over the years, I've always ended up sort of designing for what I figured my skill set was. But my skill set is really way bigger than that. And so teaching has really helped me gain confidence in myself and yeah, it just really pushes me. It's pushed me to look back on the course content that I learnt and never really used over the years and revisit it and going with a completely different eye of 13 years experience, which has been fascinating for me, absolutely fascinating.

Joel: So I teach as well, and the relationships that I have with my fellow students as a student are radically different from the relationships I have with my students when I'm teaching. Could you talk a little bit about that and how you've dealt with that transition and what are the main differences, like I said, more emotionally, that you've encountered?

Mike: I'm a teacher now, so you have to be there. Is that sort of teacher student barrier. Not barrier is the wrong word for it because it is just sort of especially on courses where there's lots of, you know, students who are older and sort of closer to my age. I get along really well with this group. I got along really well with my class before, but my life was so chaotic and hectic that I never really socialized with them and didn't, they've got a couple I've hung out with. But now I just feel this year in particular that there's a really great connection and it's just really nice. It really makes me feel good at the end of the day. And seeing, watching the students learn and grow and grow in their confidence is the biggest one for me.

Joel: The first night you came home after teaching your first class in January and your wife said, Mike, how was your day, what was your answer?

Mike: Well, I did some shadowing to start with and my answer at the time was like, oh God, I don't know if I can do this. I've always been in total awe of Sandra's teaching ever since I started being taught by her, and she's phenomenal. And I was really nervous about trying to sort of live up to that and fill those shoes. But the first day I think I was like, this is going to be okay. I think it's going to be okay. And then I've gradually got more and more comfortable and it's just yeah, I come back at the end of the day being tired and really fulfilled.

Joel: What have your biggest successes been in the last five months as a new teacher?

Mike: Probably demo-ing the wall cabinet, making the doors. It's definitely something that I don't do. And it went really, really well. And I'll probably never have to teach it next year, but if that's an option, but yeah.

Joel: What have been the areas in the last five months that you look back and think, boy, I need to improve that aspect of my teaching?

Mike: Aspect of teaching. I think that's a tough one. Probably the finishing.

Joel: Yeah.

Mike: I use very specific finishes in my work. I haven't had to teach the spraying, but the spraying and understanding the complexities of industrial finishes, sprayed industrial finishes, I think that's going to be the hardest. And trying to detach my personal tastes out of the equation. I have very strong beliefs in off-gassing and environment and all the rest of it, and a very specific style of finish. And look, trying to teach something that I personally can't bear, I think is something that I will have to adapt to and get used to. And it's such a subjective subject.

Joel: Has there been a moment in the last five months where through teaching you've learned something about yourself that you didn't know? Or you had to examine an aspect of your personality that maybe has previously gone examined before you became a teacher?

Mike: I think two things. One thing I've always thought I would, I don't know if I'm a good teacher that's other people to say, but I've always thought I would be comfortable teaching. But I think this really affirms that I am very comfortable in this environment, certainly somewhat because I have done this for so long. But terms of, it's helped me with my patience. I mean, my patience is pretty good because of my son and being a father but yeah, it's just sort of learning to connect with people, learning to remember people's names. That's my terrible one.

Joel: I'm horrible at that.

Mike: I'm horrible at that.

Joel: I make my students put name tags on their desk.

Mike: Yeah, well, I mean the fact that they are here I always had to go and look at people's desks before I went to talk to them. So it is that sort of side of things. I came into an established class so I'll be interested to know how different it is making or working through those relationships from the new and nobody knows anybody, so that'll be an interesting thing. And also we've got a particularly good year this year.

Joel: What makes this year a particularly good year?

Mike: The energy, the vibe. There are no major personality clashes. I mean, even if there's general day-to-day niggles, that's life in the workshop. That's the way it is. In past years gone by, there's always been some interesting dynamics. And that's also life. That's going to happen. You're throwing 17-18 people in a high pressure area. But this year, everyone from what I gather, seemed to feel they are willing and happy to work alongside, share things. There's little tiny frustrations, but whatever, those are normal.

Joel: When you were a student in this program, did you feel insecure about your abilities? Like, no matter what you produced, it wasn't good enough?

Mike: I think my expectations are so low. I think what I produce is like, yes! And I still struggle with insecurities. I'm an artist. I mean, every artist I know has these enormous emotional swings.

Joel: That sort of sets the stage for my question. I've done, I don't know, a couple of interviews so far. One thing that has struck me really deeply is how my fellow students and friends, who I look at with such reverence because I have no skill. And I look at them and I think, my God, they are such amazing artists and makers. And then I talk to them and they are so hard on themselves and I struggle to understand why that is.

Mike: Because we all have that. It doesn't matter what level you are as a creator. You are relying on your skill sets. And so there's always going to be the self doubt. If you meet a maker and a creator who's 100% confident in what they do. I don't even know if they exist. They're probably just plaining a piece of wood, really. Creators push their limits. It doesn't matter if your limit is cutting a straight line or doing hand-cut dovetails of unequal spacing - that's still pushing your limit. So if your expectations for your abilities do not match your results, or even if you're going to feel nervous, you're going to feel like you haven't succeeded. I very rarely feel like I haven't succeeded at the end, but the emotional roller coaster I go through to get there is enormous.

Joel: So then why wake up the next day and decide to get on that roller coaster?

Mike: Do it again? Because it's the beginning and the end. Because you come out of it with a buzz and sometimes I've had designs that I've worked my heiny off trying to come up with and spent enormous amount of time and it's like it didn't really look quite as good as I thought. And it's nothing to do with my skill set or anything. It's just it didn't quite turn out that way. And I've had designs that were complete flukes. I have one lighting product which I made up just to demonstrate an LED type at an interior design show last year. Never meant to be. It's my biggest selling product of the year. It just turned head. Everybody went to it. I was like, that's just a demo strip.

Joel: What makes it so popular? Because it's different. How is it different if this particular.

Mike: One lights the wall. It's a pendant that hangs and just lights the wall. But for the interior designers, they're like, oh, that's cool, because there aren't any out. So now they turned it into a floor lamp, ceiling hung pendant, and then it's led to a new up and down linear pendant. So that whole thing has led to a whole line of products that have been really well received. So the mistake or the accidental is incredible.

Joel: So a simple question.

Mike: Yeah.

Joel: How do you define art?

Mike: You said that's a simple question. That is not a simple question. How do I define art? I think art is the visual or music, I guess music and creativity from a human. So whether it's somebody writing a song, whether it's somebody writing a painting I mean, to be honest, if someone sticks a banana on the wall, if they've had a creative process to get to that point, it's art. Other people might not notice it, and some people come along and eat the banana. But the fact that someone's brain had to come up with a concept and a theory and an execution, whether it's visual music, yeah, it doesn't matter. It's art.

Joel: William Morris defined art as the pleasure that workers take in their labor.

Mike: Potentially. In an ideal world. But there's an awful lot of artists who don't take, there's enough artists out there who maybe have it a slightly overdramatic, but you wouldn't say they take pleasure in their art. I'm thinking of some of the writers, and they have other issues that maybe lead to this. So I think necessary, I think the pleasure aspect is a tricky one to associate with. I think it's the creative process and the fact that it came from someone's brain and it's not copied. Somebody processed this and thought it through and executed it.

Joel: A couple more easy questions. How is art affected by politics and economics? So you sit down at your shop at 08:00 on a Monday, and you're going to create a piece of art, but you live in a world that has political and economic guide rails.

Mike: I think that depends on what you take as your influence. The economic guide rail. I mean, I have to create for my target audience.

Joel: Which is what?

Mike: Definitely the upper economic bracket. You need to know your clients. You need to understand your clients. I think the politics behind it. I think if you are a musician or a singer songwriter, like singer songwriter or a writer or maybe even a visual artist, a painter, then you might start being more influenced in the sort of political side of life to sell your work. If you're doing spec pieces, there are furniture makers out there who make political statements or at least societal statements. Maybe not direct politics, but I'm creating, personally I create more for my clients. I create more visually from nature. I think environmental, news constraints, they focus me in the direction I go in terms of material use, finish use. That's how I try and run my business. I try and be more community minded. I try and be supportive of other people in the industry. I don't want to be an isolationist. I keep politics, as I said in the class this morning, I keep politics well outside out of my business.

Joel: Can you be a fully realized artist? Can you make art for art's sake in 21st century Canada, capitalism, representative democracy, climate, existential climate crisis, blah, blah, blah?

Mike: I don't know. I think any artist there, there are artists out there who just create for the sake of creating. Maybe they're getting a message across. Maybe they create art. So if you think about, say, graffiti artists or urban artists, they're not getting money. There's no financial gain. So that gets rid of the economic side. A lot of it's political statements, a lot of it's about confronting society and challenging the leadership to how do we get to a better place? So I think on that front, for me, it currently is very much about the economics. It's a business. I'm trying to run a business. I think as I move more into sculptural pieces, that might change. But at the end of the day, there are a few makers out there who are big enough and bring in enough income, and the financial side is okay, that they can afford to just make for making sake and donate. But anyone who gets money for their work, you're always tied to the economy, in which case it's difficult.

Joel: What would you make for the sake of making? Let's say money was not a concern. Family time was not a concern. Environmental impact was not a concern. If you wanted to make a 20 foot statue out of lithium, you could.

Mike: Yeah. No, I don't think the environment will ever be not a concern. I'm currently very influenced by a maker called Joseph Walsh. He's based in Ireland, and he's a sculptor. He's a phenomenal furniture maker. Furniture designs are necessary to my taste, personally. But his skill set is incredible. But his sculptural stuff is acres. It's massive, and it's all bent wood. And that's what I would do. I would just find the biggest pieces of wood and the biggest team to help me, and we would create enormous bent wood art. Just because I know that I can do it. But I have so many constraints with financial space, family, all the rest of it. I know I have the skill set to do it, but everything else, if I could get rid of all those other parameters, that's what I would do for sure.

Joel: If I asked you to make something sacred to you, you can define sacred however you want. Some people, it's theistic, some people it's their relationship with their family. A mug, whatever. What would you make?

Mike: A boat.

Joel: Why a boat?

Mike: Because I've grown up on the water. The water is my happy place.

Joel: What does your sacred boat look like?

Mike: Probably based off a West Coast fishing boat. But again, that depends. There'd be a lot of variables on that. I've sailed all my life, but the practicalities of sailboats in these waters are, I don't know. There's more getting into the boating, but it would definitely be a really beautiful boat. And big.

Joel: If you only had three woodworking tools that you could use for the rest of your career, what would those be?

Mike: God damn it. That's a difficult one. We'd have to have some sort of cutting tool, some measuring tool. God damn it. I'd be interested to know what other people thought of this. What else would it be? Just trying to think of what I could get away with. Carving tool, cutting tool, something like that.

Joel: And a measuring tool?

Mike: Yeah, I think those are the two key ones. You can always use found items to draw lines, to make marks, to weigh things down, to bend things, rocks and what have you. But in terms of tools like the accuracy of measuring and cutting.

Joel: What sensual memory of the shop stays with you the longest? Sight? A sound, a smell?

Mike: For me, it's probably smell, but I couldn't put a finger specifics on it. It's the vibe, it's the feel. It's the feeling of walking in, just feeling comfortable.

Joel: What about the shop makes you comfortable?

Mike: It's well laid out. There's lots of room. It's just a friendly place for this specific shop. Just the environment for learning. I mean, there's lots of tweaks, there's lots of tweaks I'd do, but that's whatever. That's personal preference for everybody. But it's in a great space to be in my personal shop. I've spent years honing it down and designing it, and it is my happy place. It's like a relaxing place to me, except the occasions when things aren't going quite right. But it's got tons of light, it's got tons of air. It opens up in the summer. It's a comfortable space to be in.

Joel: Do you think the fine furniture program is unique?

Mike: I would never say it's unique on a national scale. It's very much unique to the island. It's not unique to BC, but I don't know enough about the other options, I guess.

Joel: I mean, more the experience.

Mike: The experience is always going to be unique because it's based on the school. I think Camosun does a fantastic job of not just this program, but all its programs and how it works with the community and how it has helped people grow. And an awful lot of people who really don't think they have room to grow or not have room to grow have the ability to grow. I think a lot of universities take the crem de la creme, and so people go in there thinking that they're strong and good and really whatever, and they come out with the same feeling. I think there's an awful lot of students that come out of Camosun that came into it with very little self-confidence and an awful lot of doubt for their future. And Camosun really works hard at creating or giving them that self-confidence and showing the direction that they can move in.

Joel: Can you think about a particular student that you've seen go through that transition over the last six months?

Mike: Yes.

Joel: Without mentioning names can you tell me about that?

Mike: It's people who students who don't have confidence in their ability but actually can turn out really, really good work, whether or not they… The concept of the fine furniture program where it's like absolute precision and it's all the rest of it is important, but I think on a personal growth level, showing people that, proving to people that they can do things and they are artistically creative and sometimes artistically brilliant, and they are learning a skill. And this is just the first stepping stone in what will hopefully be a long history. You're not going to reach perfection in this year, even though you got students coming into the program who've had lots of skills, students who have grown a lot, but they always have this sort of knowledge that they would grow. The ones I focus on are the ones who don't believe in their skill set but have really, really shown time and again that they are perfectly capable of doing it and they can just take it and run with it from here on in.

Joel: Last question is not really a question, but it's more of just an opportunity. What do you want people to know about this program, about your experience as a student, as a teacher that we haven't talked about? Maybe there's something you've been thinking about and I haven't asked the right question to get it out of you.

Mike: I don't know. I think the fact that it's here, the fact that this industry needs to change in the way that people, the greater world, respect it. I look at other trades and I see the wages, I see the awards, I see the money. And the cabinet furniture making industry is still treated as a hobby industry, and it's treated as an industry that's by people who have got money, they just do this for fun. The starting wage for a cabinet maker compared to a starting wage for, you know, a carpenter or, like, job site carpenter is so dramatically different, and that needs to change. And this yeah, it's got to come from the ground up and trade, the industry needs to start financing this.

Joel: Thank you very much, Mike. Appreciate it.