York: Timber framing day, Malton and Eden Farm, 04-05.02.10

SO, the last couple of days have been really cool. Thursday and Friday were our timber-framing days with our Vernacular Architecture course. We learned to make wooden shingles and pins with traditional tools and how to use an axe and adze to hew a tree. We also did a "Timber Framing Museum" where we learned to look at pieces of wood and identify how they had been worked based on the markings on them. Was really, really cool. We learned all about carpenter's marks and tools used to make them. A good book to read, I hear is "The Village Carpenter" I hear it is interesting and also entertaining. I emailed a few people yesterday to find a dissertation topic. I still don't have one. I found the Timber Framers Guild for the United States and asked them if there were any projects they wanted done and they emailed me back the same day and were really excited. Apparently they have an affiliate in the UK, in Hereford, and he is going to talk to his staff to see what they can come up with. But they say it shouldn't be a big deal. I'm excited because I am really interested in timber framing "something" and I think it might also mean I can make some contacts in the field. I told them I might be able to do a comparative study of some sort between the UK and the US-- which would actually probably be ideal because as part of the Secretary of Interior's Standards and Guidelines an Architectural Historian in the US has to have coursework/experience with American architecture. As we all know, I don't have any of that except for one course in Modern Architecture, which turned out to be a "We love Frank Lloyd Wright and Only Talk about Him" class. As it turns out, I don't really LIKE Frank Lloyd Wright, but that is a subject for another blog post. Anyway, I'm hoping I hear back from these people soon and that they have some suggestions that my supervisor will like. I really appreciate my supervisor but she hasn't been the most helpful person in this "find a dissertation topic" experience. Very hand off... which is great, except when you don't really know what is expected of the dissertation and have little-to-no experience with medieval British architecture. Then it is very frustrating. Well, I guess she did give me three suggestions but they were all to do with the minster. Well, anyway. I'm excited to hear back from them and in the mean time I have a few back-up ideas on the burner. We'll see. Today I have to write a paper that's due on Monday and I haven't even started. Wish me luck!