A Maker's Mindset

This is not a technical manual. You won't find project plans, tool specifications, or step-by-step instructions inside these pages. Plenty of excellent books already do that work.

This book is about what woodturning teaches you when you pay attention. Not just about the craft, but about patience, courage, focus, and what it means to care about doing something well for its own sake.

Martin Saban-Smith came to the lathe in his late thirties after decades as a photographer and designer, thinking he understood making. He was wrong. Over the years since, he has turned thousands of pieces, founded a school, taught hundreds of students, and built an international community of makers. None of it was planned. He just kept showing up, kept paying attention, and kept trying to understand what the wood and the work were teaching him.

Organised into five parts, from Hands to Mind to Heart to Meaning to Legacy, these thirty lessons explore the physical foundations of craft, the creative thinking behind good work, the emotional honesty it demands, the deeper meaning it carries, and the way knowledge passes from one maker to the next. You can read it straight through, or dip in wherever draws you. Some days you need patience. Other days you need permission to begin.

Written in Martin's warm, conversational style, with dry humour and honest reflection on the mistakes that taught him the most, this book will resonate with anyone who works with their hands, who shapes a material into a form, or who cares about doing something well for its own sake. The lathe is the starting point, but the lessons reach far beyond the workshop.

Published in the year of his fiftieth birthday, this is one maker's attempt to put into words what a decade of sawdust, shavings, and showing up has taught him about craft, creativity, and life.

'The learning happens in the doing, not in the preparation for doing.'