Member Val Parks crafts unique gifts for his loved ones

Val Parks became a member of Saratoga Joinery with a couple specific projects in mind, figuring he would join for a month and be done.

Seven months and many more projects later, he’s still coming in three times a week when he can. “It’s just so much fun here, and I have no shortage of ideas of things to build.”

The people, Val says, are his favorite part of the Joinery. Originally from Manhattan, he lived on Long Island, in Austin and Dallas, and in Germany before settling in Saratoga Springs, and much to his surprise, the Joinery even reunited him with someone from his past.

“I was very surprised that we have a member here – Andrew – who remembers me from Dresden, Germany,” says Val, a former engineer for GlobalFoundries. “There are so many nice people here.”

We asked Val a few questions about how he got into woodworking, what he likes to make, and what his time at Saratoga Joinery means to him.

‍

How long have you been doing woodworking?

I did some woodworking a little bit earlier in life, but not much. I never had a house, so I never had a basement or a garage to do it in, and I only bought something like that when I moved here in 2009. I never had any big power tools, so now I do. So about 15 years now.

When I was living in Europe, we saw some amazing things and I told my wife that I was going to build her this big old birdhouse we saw in Italy. So in order to do that, I had to buy a table saw and some other woodworking equipment for our basement. And I built her the beautiful birdhouse we saw in the mountains, and it turned out pretty good.

‍

Have you learned some new things from folks at the Joinery?

Oh, of course. That’s a really nice thing about this place. It’s always easy to open a conversation by saying, “What are you building?” And you make friends that way.

I’ve watched other people make boxes and I thought, I can do that. So here I am. Like Andrew. Andrew was the guy who knows me from Germany. He makes beautiful boxes and he’s motivated me.

‍

What else have you built?

I’ve made a lot of birdhouses. My wife and I have had these birds visit us − they’re called a tufted titmouse and they look like gray cardinals. They make an interesting variety of sounds and they’re quite friendly to humans. So I said, “They’re such nice birds, let’s build a house for them.” So I did. I built four birdhouses and then a winter hotel to overnight, for those cold winter nights when they like to find a little place in which to huddle.

‍

What do you like most about building?

When you’re in create mode, you’re kind of in a god-like mode. What I live for are those “aha” moments – when you figure how it works or you just feel enlightened on some topic. To me, that’s what heaven will be like – a continuous “aha” moment. Can you imagine?

‍

What do you look forward to the most when coming to the Joinery?‍

To be honest with you, the first thing I always do is I go to the computer and see who’s here. And everybody who works here is like a friend to me. I enjoy seeing them. 

I mean, I can do all this woodworking at home, but this is such a clean, bright, cheery place full of people and creativity and love. So I like hanging out here.