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In October of last year, we learned that after 21 seasons, “The New Yankee Workshop” was closing up shop and at the time, Russ Morash, executive producer and director of the show, told Editor Christopher Schwarz that he foresaw an online future for “New Yankee.” That future has come to pass.
The first episode (#101 from 1988) is available now for online viewing. The “New Yankee” site says the web episodes are an experiment, and that if there’s enough positive feedback, a different episode will be available every week.
It’s a bit of a time warp to go back 21 years and watch this first episode; there’s no gray in Abram’s beard, and there’s no wide-belt sander. In fact, the shop isn’t tricked out at all; the tools are what might be found in any decent 20-year-old woodshop , a table saw, a drill press and what looks to be a Craftsman radial arm saw (man does that thing scare me). And Abram is wearing a short-sleeved blue windowpane plaid shirt, not his signature red. Oh , and there’s not one mention of safety glasses.
But what I found most interesting was that the show opens with a visit to the Hancock Shaker Village in Pittsfield, Mass., from where Abram says he’s taking his inspiration, but the project looks decidedly non-Shaker and (if I’m being honest here) a bit generic. It’s a finger-jointed oak medicine cabinet with a plywood back, screwed-together half-lap face frame and a mirrored door attached with a brass piano hinge. Now, there’s nothing wrong with the project, mind you; it just doesn’t look Shaker. It’s a simple project that anyone with basic skills and a few pieces of machinery could build.
I kinda love that , because I didn’t start watching “The New Yankee Workshop” until about five years ago, and the projects Abram was building then were often decidedly more advanced and period authentic , his Windsor chair, for example, from season 16. But this first episode shows me that Abram’s talents and stylistic influences progressed along with the show, and perhaps along with his viewers (though it’s arguable his workshop became a bit more tricked out than most). Though he was certainly an accomplished carpenter when the show began, Abram’s work in later episodes was decidedly that of a craftsman.
I want the episodes to keep coming, and I posted a message to let them know (there’s a link on the show’s home page to do so). I hope you can take a minute to do the same (and perhaps 25 or so minutes to watch that first show).
