emphasized such traditional
values as family, closeness to
the land, thrift, resourcefulness,
and knowing your way around
a toolbox. All through his boy-
hood in Minooka, Illinois, he
worked on his grandfather’s
farm and learned craft the old-
fashioned way: making stuff,
out of necessity.
“My dad taught me to drive
a nail probably when I was 5,”
he says. Young Nick hung out
in the shed with the men of the
family, all hardworking, salt-of-
the-earth guys who could make
or fix just about anything. “My
uncles would make MacGyver
look like a schoolgirl,” he quips.
By high school, Offerman
was a skilled tradesman, but
his dream was to act. From
the beginning, his two talents
complemented and nourished
each other. To pay for theater
school at the University of Illi-
nois at Urbana-Champaign, he
spent summers blacktopping.
(“They called me ‘The Shovel,”’
he notes proudly.) As a fresh-
man, “I was very bad at acting.
I was a baby, and all these kids
came from Chicago and the sub-
urbs and they had done Shake-
speare - who was a playwright,
it turned out. I was like, ‘Oh.
I’ve seen
Happy D ays'
” In scen-
ery class, though, Offerman
was a star. “These kids had
not used a hammer. Everyone
would put me in their show
because I would build scenery.”
That’s how he learned acting.
After graduation, Offerman
worked as a professional scen-
ery builder in Chicago to sup-
plement his income while he
performed in plays. In the late
1990s, he moved to California
to pursue film and T V work.
To make ends meet, he con-
structed post-and-beam cabins,
decks, and, this being L.A.,
the odd backyard yoga hutch.
When he decided he’d rather
work on a smaller, more man-
ageable scale, he realized he could
apply the same joinery tech-
niques to furniture. He began
reading classic woodworking
books by George Nakashima
and James Krenov, and got
hooked on
Fine Woodworking.
“I just was astonished by the
Craftsman movement,” Offer-
man says. “There was an hon-
esty to that work, specifically
Gustav Stickley, where the parts
of the table that hold it together
are also the decoration. I loved
that aesthetic and philosophy.
As soon as I got to Nakashima
and [Sam] Maloof, I was like,
‘OK - I’m off and running.’ ”
Left: A gold-and-navy
slab of buckeye burl
from Offerman’s awe-
inducing woodpile.
It’s destined to become
the top of a coffee table.
“I love m aking a dinin g
room table, ” O fferm an says.
“ T m ’re m aking someone
the board o f f w hich they’ll
fe e d them selves. ”
Right: The top of this
Nakashima-inspired
walnut coffee table is one
massive slab. Offerman
invented a jig, featured
in
Fine Woodworking,
for flattening unwieldy
pieces like these.
dec/jani2 american craft 051
