One of the most boring and challenging duties I had as a boy was breaking land with a mule-drawn turning plow. In a field of several acres, the first furrow—often begun before sunrise—was around the sometimes odd-shaped periphery of the field, as close to the surrounding forests, fences, or hedgerows as possible. Clinging to the unpredictably plunging handles of the plow and struggling to guide the two mules with the rope lines to the bridle bits was a constant challenge for my small frame. Loud cries of “gee” and “haw” helped as verbal directions for my leaders to move to the right or left. Encompassing several acres, each long circumference would advance a little less than a foot toward the center of the field. At first it would seem that this goal would never be reached, but, although slow, the progress was inexorable.
My mind was relatively unfocused, so I was often free for idle thoughts. We had no tractors on our farm, and a well-sharpened and balanced steel blade cutting through the soil seemed like a perfect instrument. Both physically and psychologically, I had to be in tune with the mules, accommodating their idiosyncrasies and hoping that I could prevail in most of the inevitable disagreements. We needed a proper environment, involving the current weather and the effects of previous rainfall and sunshine, and the comfort level was very high when all the factors were compatible.
With my limited high school math, I would sometimes try to compute how many miles I would have to walk before completing this task and moving on to the next chore assigned by my father. Later, I would check my mental estimate by noting the time required and, assuming that the mules and I walked an average of two miles per hour, adjusted for turning corners and brief rest periods.
Invariably, the drudgery was overcome by looking back at the end of a day and seeing how much cropland had been prepared for planting. I enjoyed a sense of accomplishment and self-satisfaction, knowing I had done all that was humanly possible, even as a young boy, and had left behind me the visible proof of my work.
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I still have some of these similar emotions while working in my wood shop. Periods of drudgery that come with the repetitive use of chisel, drawknife, spokeshave, plane, rasp, scraper, sandpaper, or paintbrush fade into relative insignificance when I can examine the result of my labor. The excitement of an original design, the meticulous detail of precise measurements, accommodation of the characteristics of the chosen wood, the heft and beauty of the hand tools—some of them ancient in design—are all positive aspects of crafting a piece of furniture. I like to see what I have done, what I have made. The pleasure does not fade as the years go by; in fact, my diminished physical strength brought about by age has eliminated some of the formerly competing hobbies and made woodworking even more precious to me.
Having led a relatively public life for almost half my years, as a submarine officer, businessman, public office holder, and college professor, I have always relished the rare opportunities for privacy. Despite my enjoyment in the company of other people, there are some things I prefer to do alone, including woodworking, painting, and writing. My shop is a delightfully lonely place, I’ve produced my more than two dozen books without reliance on co-authors, and I’ve always worked in private with oils and acrylics. These times of solitude are like being in another world.
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All of us school classmates who were farm boys became members of the Future Farmers of America when we reached the eighth grade, and one of our responsibilities was to improve the skills we had learned at home. For the finer aspects of woodworking, such as making furniture, the school shop was much more spacious and better equipped than the one we had at home, having a small planing mill and special kinds of glue, and I learned how to make relatively simple chairs, tables, and cabinets. There were local, regional, and statewide contests in some of these skills.
Later, as a young naval officer with a growing family, I had to do everything possible to stretch my salary of $300 a month to cover the cost of uniforms, my food onboard ship, and the living expenses of Rosalynn and our children. There was a lot of difference between rent for furnished and unfurnished apartments, and I made full use of the elaborate “hobby shops” on the large navy bases, usually manned by warrant officers who were expert cabinetmakers. From them, I learned the finer points of working with different kinds of wood, making well-structured joints, using proper glues, and the art of finishing the surfaces. I enjoyed designing and building chairs, beds, tables, and cabinets. I left most of the furniture behind when we changed duty stations and finally resigned from the navy, but we still own a few pieces from those early days.
Back at home in Plains, I had limited access to proper tools and facilities and made cruder but serviceable furniture, but I still had a desire to improve my skills. As president, I found a nice wood shop at Camp David, which I used mostly to make small items as presents for friends and members of my family. When we prepared to leave Washington in January 1981, my White House staff and cabinet members took up a collection to buy me a going-away gift. When I learned that they had money enough for a Jeep, I sent word back that this was not something I wanted, with a hint that furniture-making was what I would like to resume. My friends then gave the same funds to Sears, Roebuck and Co., with directions to supply me with whatever tools and equipment I needed for a completely furnished woodworking shop in what had been our garage.
This has turned out to be one of the best gifts of my life, and I have devoted a good portion of my spare time to developing my skills with designing and building furniture. I traveled very seldom during my first year at home and had time enough to read my voluminous personal diary notes, write my presidential memoir Keeping Faith, and design and build all the furniture needed for a log cabin that we erected in the North Georgia mountains. Popular Mechanics magazine published an article about this project and even sold the complete collection of the plans that I had drawn for beds, tables, chifforobes (armoires), and other pieces. Later, I did another article on how to build furniture from green wood, and one for Fine Woodworking on a porch swing.
Most members of our family have joined Rosalynn and me in our annual building of homes for Habitat for Humanity, so we’ve had wide experiences in construction projects that include both wooden and steel framing and also masonry. Over a period of three decades, we have joined other volunteers and the new homeowners in erecting homes in many American communities and also in Africa, Europe, Canada, Mexico, Korea (including the Demilitarized Zone), the Philippines, India, Vietnam, China, Thailand, Cambodia, and Haiti. The finished homes must be compatible with local needs and customs, so we have had to accommodate great diversity in designs and building materials.
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When I was stationed on my first ship, the USS Wyoming, I was appointed to be the education officer, responsible for the continuing education of the other officers and the enlisted men. Some of them took lessons from the U.S. Armed Forces Institute (USAFI), either to earn a high school diploma, to gain college credits, or just to probe new facets of a hobby. I would conduct classes when several men were taking the same course, or just order the study materials and assist on an individual basis as requested. One of the quartermasters ordered a beginner’s kit to learn how to paint but left the navy before the materials arrived. I “inherited” the paints, brushes, and instructions and began experimenting with a few simple pictures.
Much later, after leaving the White House, I regained my interest in painting and soon acquired a collection of art books, paints, canvases, and an easel, which I set up in a corner of my wood shop. I soon learned that making furniture and painting a picture, especially with slow-drying oils, were incompatible because of the sawdust that often filled the air from the sawing and sanding. So now I either paint a picture or make furniture, but not both at the same time. This still gives me a pleasant choice of reading, writing, painting, or building furniture during my spare time at home in Plains.
With practice, I’ve become more proficient, and I have completed about a hundred paintings, beginning with acrylics on Masonite boards and progressing over time to oils on canvas. My landscapes have included scenes from the farm where I spent my boyhood, and various buildings around the town of Plains. I take photographs when traveling and have used some of them as a basis for paintings. I’ve also done portraits of famous people, members of my family, and African American friends. More recently I’ve begun a series of Georgia birds. Most of the original paintings are displayed in our home or at The Carter Center or Presidential Library in Atlanta, and we make copies of some of my favorites. The most popular with visitors is of me painting a copy of a painting. The originals, or their copies, are also good auction items for The Carter Center, with the bids usually higher than for the pieces of furniture.
I am not being falsely modest when I admit that I don’t have any special talent for carpentry or art, but I just decided to make an all-out effort to study and practice until becoming reasonably proficient at both. This is what all the laborers did on the farm, and how apprentices have been successful in acquiring professional skills for many generations. I hope that my experiences will encourage other people to explore their own talents and interests, and that they will derive as much pleasure as I have from their craftsmanship.