Eli doesn’t know what he’s doing, and he likes it that way.
It all really started with his grandfather’s woodworking shop. He swears he really didn’t learn any skills then, but I suspect it was the spark that started everything. There were other places in his world as a child where he didn’t learn, like pretty much all of school, so he figured out ways to learn what he needed to in order to get by, without anyone else’s help. That’s an important distinction for him in being a self-taught creative. He also learned a lot by doing. That pattern repeated itself when he worked in the kitchen of a golf course in Central Ohio. Even though he ended up going to culinary school in Colorado, he said he didn’t learn much there.
When he and his partner Abigail moved back to Columbus, they bought a home in Merion Village. Eli wanted things to be nicer in the house, and also needed to save some money. That was when he really began to learn about woodworking. He also started collecting equipment, including British Wadkin RS10 Patternmaker’s lathe that burned up his pickup truck and resulted in a costly tow all the way from Texas. He says it was still worth it.
Like many people, 2020 resulted in a pivot for Eli. What does he value? Time to step outside of time in his garage, where he can watch the wood turn, where he can smell the shavings. Being able to spend more time with Abigail. Time to build connections with people in the community. Time to learn more about himself, and to accept who he is. Time to now build a vision for what he can do with wood.
At the end of our time together, woodworker Eli Lambert presented me with this gift of a beautiful elm bowl. The feeling at my fingertips was graciously smooth, and the oils and beeswax that he used to finish it smelled like heaven. Thank you, Eli, for allowing me to help tell a bit of your story.