Meet your Maker

How cool is this: I build and sell 'antiques from a parallel universe'.

More on that here...

A typical workday involves (among other things) woodworking, metalworking, chemistry, drafting, mechanical engineering, and cheese tossing.

I have no formal training in any of these subjects. I don't let this fact get in the way

I'm the product of an unorthodox career path, an overused library card, an oblique imagination, and wonderful parents who never discouraged even my most absurd interests. I was born in Paisley, Ontario (population 550), and escaped at the earliest opportunity to embark on an appallingly intellectual Liberal Arts education (Greco-Roman history and Philosophy of Religion, since you asked).

I then entered the workforce... repeatedly.

I've worked as a graphic designer. As 'The Bureaucrat' in the production engineering department of an electronics manufacturing company. As a ceramicist, a glass cutter, a chef, a bodyguard, and I have played drums in rawk bands, dammit.

You are well advised to avoid getting me started on my 7 year career working the midnight shift at the Main Sewage Treatment Plant in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Conversely, Makers of all ilk are encouraged to engage me on the sublime joys of toiling as a scrapyard grunt.

That said, I cannot remember a time when I didn't build stuff. Lincoln Logs? Mechano? Technik? I cut my teeth on 'em. With "the Maker way" ingrained from an early age, I've built an unholy amount of stuff over the years, usually due to poverty, often because it was the only way to get just the right thing . I accreted the requisite skill set from trial and error, libraries, the Net, and from relentlessly picking the brains of anyone with useful knowledge to share.

I do not hesitate to RTFM.

My philosophy of life in three lines:

• Learn when you can, teach what you can.
• Pay attention.
• Practice, practice, practice.

I'm Kaden.