Hobby Envy: Wordle vs. Marquetry

So, now that you are retired what do you do with your leisure time? 

That’s what my dentist recently asked me while my mouth was wide open to accommodate a gurgling suction hose and high-pitched whining drill. Although I had no way to respond verbally, the question momentarily took my mind off my fear that the Novocaine (or whatever I was injected with) had not yet numbed the nerve that I was certain her drill was headed for.

It was just as well that I wasn’t able to say anything.   Asking about one’s leisure time may seem like harmless small talk, but – not to be too melodramatic – it’s a loaded question and raises some thorny issues about life choices and cultural values. 

I wonder what kind of reaction I would have gotten if I had answered with something like

Of course, even if all of that were true I would be reluctant to tell anyone. To understand why I would be reluctant refer to Julie Beck’s recent article in The Atlantic entitled How Hobbies Infiltrated American Life.

Although her focus is on the pandemic’s hobby boom (when an estimated 59 percent of Americans picked up a new hobby), her insights go beyond pandemic issues. She reminds us that in the pandemic’s early days people baked so much that all of the flour was gone from the shelves and that the surge in DIY home projects dramatically escalated the cost of lumber. There were other “popular” ways to spend time such as playing Animal Crossing, organizing Zoom happy hours, or watching Tiger King (Wordle wasn’t around yet!). Then she adds a big however:

A hobby, according to sociologist Robert Stebbins, can be labeled “serious leisure” or an activity that requires special “knowledge, training, or skill, and where people often try to make progress and get better at it over time.” I doubt that my struggle with Wordle qualifies in that regard, but I am absolutely sure that our good friend and neighbor, Stacey, can easily lay claim to “serious leisure” status with her woodworking pastime.

I knew that Stacey liked to work with wood and had even admired some of the amazing decorative boxes she has displayed in her home. They certainly are a step or two above my high school wood shop tour de force (which I blogged about earlier).

But it wasn’t until I had the opportunity to watch her in action in her workshop that I came to appreciate the amount of time, meticulous attention to detail, and creative talent that went into each box she created. Nor had I appreciated the artistic eye that it takes to select the right combination of wood varieties and design details to end up with a beautiful (and functional) piece of art. Furthermore, I had never heard of marquetry, the official name for Stacey’s serious leisure activity.

Marquetry, I learned, is an artistic wood decorating technique that dates back to the early 16th century and involves precise craftsmanship for assembling pieces of veneer to create decorative designs on furniture and other objects (here is a good source to learn more about marquetry). The below photos from Stacey’s workshop give you an inkling of just how much is involved in the process.

 

The outcome of all of this is marvelous. You can see why I consider this a step or two above my doorstop.

But the most exciting outcome of Stacey’s serious leisure activity (for us at least) is that she custom made a box especially for Ann and gave it to her as a gift. It is even more special because Ann’s favorite flower is Geum, which Stacey used for the design.

While my preoccupation with Wordle may not stand up to Stacey’s serious leisure pursuit of marquetry, I should report that this morning I solved Wordle on my third try (it took Ann four tries!). That should be worth something, although I still wouldn’t mention that to my dentist.