Swartwout’s sample balluster collection has shrunk, but there’s still a wide range of skill exhibited.
SWARTWOUT from previous page
during the Vietnam era. After being discharged from the military, Swartwout explored various fields through college programs and employment, including electronics, manufacturing, X-ray technology and journalism, but didn’t get hooked on anything. He even started an art gallery with a friend in New Haven, which failed. Finally sick of bouncing around, he settled on a furniture repair job in New Haven.
“I had a pile of work that needed parts that had to be turned. I didn’t have a lathe. I didn’t know how to do it. I didn’t take shop in school. But I
Working with gouges
of all shapes and sizes,
Swartwout turns miles
a day on his Hapfo
tracer lathe.
found a lathe for sale,” he said.
An opportunist in his early 30s, Swartwout invested in the lathe and basically started teaching himself. His first job was three small oak turnings for a chair. They were so horrible that the client didn’t pay and walked out disgusted. The incident taught him a good lesson: keep practicing.
He was well into making a living at turning by his early 40s. He had a small storefront shop, named “ Sawdust,” on State St. in New Haven. Business was good, but the neighborhood eventually became gentrified. He moved to a less-desirable location in another part of the city and clients stopped visiting.
In the mid-’90s, he rented an 1,800- sq.-ft. shop in Old Saybrook, Conn., and purchased his current home in Andover, Conn. The commute was impractical and became a burden, so he set up shop at home eight years ago. It so happens that 2001 was a particularly bad year for getting work. Swartwout says if he hadn’t down-sized to his shop at home, the business would have suffered.
Swartwout says that if he’d been making the same “widget” for 30 years, he’d have shot himself by now.
“The joy of this is every job is different from the last one. One: You’re working for somebody different. Two:
PHOTO: JENNIFER HICKS (BOTTOM)
Swartwout creates detailed spirals with a Killinger router jig.
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