Is Adam Savage's Cave Messy on Purpose

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enC2 Lawson hello again C2 Lawson says at 46 years old I'm learning to be a machinist running multiple CNC Mills and learning CAD cam software I keep waiting for someone to tap me on the shoulder and tell me to get out and that I don't belong here especially on days when I make a mistake or run apart have you had days like that constantly constantly always always for my whole life I've had days like that um Less in the past few years much less in the past few years I I think that's a function of uh of age I something happened something happened over coven frankly uh and I'm still sort of parsing what it was but for me that that that feeling of being an imposter well it still happens from time to time it went away in a professional capacity like I go to conferences full of high achievers of all sorts of different stripes and for the longest time I felt exactly that way that someone was gonna you don't belong here you don't belong with these people you gotta go these are serious people you are not a serious person I have come to understand that I am a serious person I've come to feel in the making of things that I am part of a grand Continuum as we all are in all of the aspects that we exhibit are our expertise you know Summit an incredibly high level some at a medium level some at a low level I'm never going to be the 14 hour a day for months on end Bruce Springsteen making the Perfect album kind of Creator I'm unwilling to subserve my life to my efforts to that degree but but I've come to understand where what I have to contribute um so the real trick is to recognize that that feeling that someone's going to come up and tap you on the shoulder it's part of the process when it happens when it comes up just recognize that it's part of the process it's like I'm sure there are other emotional responses you have to stuff that that are irrational right there's a sound that makes you like that makes you emotionally crazy but it's not like you're gonna go take that emotion out or you know I'm sure we have all learned how to not take our temporal emotions out under certain circumstances on the people around us made us a lifelong journey um but that feeling I learned that it would happen about 70 percent of the way into every build and frankly there are still times here in the shop when I'm like I don't know why I pretend to say that I make things I'm an idiot no one's harder on our own brains than we are I know that I'm not an idiot I do wish sometimes this thing worked a little faster I've met people for whom this works faster and I'd love to be one of them I think I know I think I'm pretty clear about exactly how smart I am hahaha selling pictures can you talk about the influence sorry seller pictures is the user can you talk about the influence of your shop environment on your mindset and work many shops are pretty sterile all work Affairs but the cave is the opposite on purpose yeah it's totally on purpose the cacophony in here is part of what I need under ideal circumstances to feel creatively fertile a hundred percent I call this style of decoration visual cacophony we're at 49 on my dry box 12 in 40 minutes um we'll see how it goes uh I've also worked in I mean you know when I did when I worked on Savage builds and I worked on uh uh MythBusters Jr both of those were in shops that weren't mine with vastly different design schemes I mean I've spent a decade and a half in Jamie's two decades working in Jamie's shop um well Jamie's shop is actually also not he likes about he likes a certain amount of visual cacophony too um I don't have an issue with sterile all workshops I mean actually years ago I visited uh wet I think Mark Fuller is a proprietor of wet those are the guys that made the Bellagio fountain and they're amazing they're the designers of the water weenies that are like the laminar water flows that leap through the air at Disney World and Other theme parks and wet had built a shop for its employees which is one of the loveliest things I have ever seen was like big white rooms with walls of tools and every tool outlined on the wall woodworking tools measuring tools clamps saws ah absolutely gorgeous and I mean this was a shop in which someone had spent so much time and money making a like the platonic ideal of a usable shop that it itself engendered cleaning up because if one thing was missing you could see it from the door like it was a real philosophy uh I don't know how that shop is today it might be a total fight or it might still be that awesome but I I loved that idea and every time I visit maker spaces I'm often I often feel like they're a little too antiseptic and so I often recommend to maker spaces hang some failures on the wall there's nothing I like better there's nothing I think belongs more on the wall of a maker space than an inner than an a a a line of objects that makes it clear that it was failure failure failure less failure less failure success I want to see the line of succession of disasters uh the spaghetti Prince the the the the piece of wood that table saw got angry at threw across the room um because I think those failures they operate to me like hugs they say this is going to happen here it's not it's not a perfect process and it's not always it's not always all it's not always going to go according to plan I think that walking into a new maker space could be very intimidating it's a community you don't know that Community you don't know what they might think of you and your work and that can be fraught that can cause you to be inhibited in some of your creative output and frankly I feel like if there's a bunch of broken or iterations that aren't successful on the walls it tells new visitors that this is a place for iteration not just for making a perfect prototype um yeah years ago I realized that every single shop is the externalization of a philosophy about how to work now the visual aspect of my shop helps me work by making my creative uses flow I like the visual cacophony the other aspect of this shop that is an externalization of my philosophy of work is that I want the lowest possible threshold to my flow state and that means I want everything at Arm's Reach that's why I've got a blow dryer and a Dremel here under the workbench it's why my hot glue gun sits here too it's why calipers are right there and I have multiple sets of key handled bondhus Allen wrenches that the less I have to move to get the next thing that I need the more into the problem solving I am and there's nothing that makes me crazier than like being out of the one tool I need on a Sunday afternoon when all the stores are closed and so I seek to build a shop in which that never happens ultimately I end up treating this shop sort of like a hardware store um and then when things are flush when I've you know making good dough I will invest in more stuff to make this place feel even more like a hardware store and when things are not flush uh I just enjoy it as it is thank you so much for watching if you'd like to support us even further you can by becoming a tested member uh details are of course below But it includes all sorts of perks and we're building them all the time you get Advanced word and behind the scenes photos of some of our projects questions you get to ask direct questions during my live streams and we have some members only videos including the atom Real Time series of unbroken unedited shots of me working here in the shop they are weirdly meditative thank you guys so much I'll see you on the next oneC2 Lawson hello again C2 Lawson says at 46 years old I'm learning to be a machinist running multiple CNC Mills and learning CAD cam software I keep waiting for someone to tap me on the shoulder and tell me to get out and that I don't belong here especially on days when I make a mistake or run apart have you had days like that constantly constantly always always for my whole life I've had days like that um Less in the past few years much less in the past few years I I think that's a function of uh of age I something happened something happened over coven frankly uh and I'm still sort of parsing what it was but for me that that that feeling of being an imposter well it still happens from time to time it went away in a professional capacity like I go to conferences full of high achievers of all sorts of different stripes and for the longest time I felt exactly that way that someone was gonna you don't belong here you don't belong with these people you gotta go these are serious people you are not a serious person I have come to understand that I am a serious person I've come to feel in the making of things that I am part of a grand Continuum as we all are in all of the aspects that we exhibit are our expertise you know Summit an incredibly high level some at a medium level some at a low level I'm never going to be the 14 hour a day for months on end Bruce Springsteen making the Perfect album kind of Creator I'm unwilling to subserve my life to my efforts to that degree but but I've come to understand where what I have to contribute um so the real trick is to recognize that that feeling that someone's going to come up and tap you on the shoulder it's part of the process when it happens when it comes up just recognize that it's part of the process it's like I'm sure there are other emotional responses you have to stuff that that are irrational right there's a sound that makes you like that makes you emotionally crazy but it's not like you're gonna go take that emotion out or you know I'm sure we have all learned how to not take our temporal emotions out under certain circumstances on the people around us made us a lifelong journey um but that feeling I learned that it would happen about 70 percent of the way into every build and frankly there are still times here in the shop when I'm like I don't know why I pretend to say that I make things I'm an idiot no one's harder on our own brains than we are I know that I'm not an idiot I do wish sometimes this thing worked a little faster I've met people for whom this works faster and I'd love to be one of them I think I know I think I'm pretty clear about exactly how smart I am hahaha selling pictures can you talk about the influence sorry seller pictures is the user can you talk about the influence of your shop environment on your mindset and work many shops are pretty sterile all work Affairs but the cave is the opposite on purpose yeah it's totally on purpose the cacophony in here is part of what I need under ideal circumstances to feel creatively fertile a hundred percent I call this style of decoration visual cacophony we're at 49 on my dry box 12 in 40 minutes um we'll see how it goes uh I've also worked in I mean you know when I did when I worked on Savage builds and I worked on uh uh MythBusters Jr both of those were in shops that weren't mine with vastly different design schemes I mean I've spent a decade and a half in Jamie's two decades working in Jamie's shop um well Jamie's shop is actually also not he likes about he likes a certain amount of visual cacophony too um I don't have an issue with sterile all workshops I mean actually years ago I visited uh wet I think Mark Fuller is a proprietor of wet those are the guys that made the Bellagio fountain and they're amazing they're the designers of the water weenies that are like the laminar water flows that leap through the air at Disney World and Other theme parks and wet had built a shop for its employees which is one of the loveliest things I have ever seen was like big white rooms with walls of tools and every tool outlined on the wall woodworking tools measuring tools clamps saws ah absolutely gorgeous and I mean this was a shop in which someone had spent so much time and money making a like the platonic ideal of a usable shop that it itself engendered cleaning up because if one thing was missing you could see it from the door like it was a real philosophy uh I don't know how that shop is today it might be a total fight or it might still be that awesome but I I loved that idea and every time I visit maker spaces I'm often I often feel like they're a little too antiseptic and so I often recommend to maker spaces hang some failures on the wall there's nothing I like better there's nothing I think belongs more on the wall of a maker space than an inner than an a a a line of objects that makes it clear that it was failure failure failure less failure less failure success I want to see the line of succession of disasters uh the spaghetti Prince the the the the piece of wood that table saw got angry at threw across the room um because I think those failures they operate to me like hugs they say this is going to happen here it's not it's not a perfect process and it's not always it's not always all it's not always going to go according to plan I think that walking into a new maker space could be very intimidating it's a community you don't know that Community you don't know what they might think of you and your work and that can be fraught that can cause you to be inhibited in some of your creative output and frankly I feel like if there's a bunch of broken or iterations that aren't successful on the walls it tells new visitors that this is a place for iteration not just for making a perfect prototype um yeah years ago I realized that every single shop is the externalization of a philosophy about how to work now the visual aspect of my shop helps me work by making my creative uses flow I like the visual cacophony the other aspect of this shop that is an externalization of my philosophy of work is that I want the lowest possible threshold to my flow state and that means I want everything at Arm's Reach that's why I've got a blow dryer and a Dremel here under the workbench it's why my hot glue gun sits here too it's why calipers are right there and I have multiple sets of key handled bondhus Allen wrenches that the less I have to move to get the next thing that I need the more into the problem solving I am and there's nothing that makes me crazier than like being out of the one tool I need on a Sunday afternoon when all the stores are closed and so I seek to build a shop in which that never happens ultimately I end up treating this shop sort of like a hardware store um and then when things are flush when I've you know making good dough I will invest in more stuff to make this place feel even more like a hardware store and when things are not flush uh I just enjoy it as it is thank you so much for watching if you'd like to support us even further you can by becoming a tested member uh details are of course below But it includes all sorts of perks and we're building them all the time you get Advanced word and behind the scenes photos of some of our projects questions you get to ask direct questions during my live streams and we have some members only videos including the atom Real Time series of unbroken unedited shots of me working here in the shop they are weirdly meditative thank you guys so much I'll see you on the next one\n"