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Chrestensen Burghout Designs "Creating Original Art Through Wood"
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Editorial - April /07 by Toni Burghout
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Suit and Tie - What Would He Buy? April 2007 Normally these two magazines don’t hit my desk at the same time, but as fate would have it, here they are… side by side. My husband walked in the room and hesitated choosing which one to pick up. One had a cool fretwork motorbike on the cover, the other a puzzle vault resembling an item from the DaVinci Code. The puzzle vault won. I immediately asked him why he picked that one. Thinking it was obvious, the man is a fan of the DaVinci Code, very analytical, and in the bottom right corner was a photo of the project I submitted. His reply didn’t have anything to do with any of what I suspected. Instead, he selected that magazine simply because the cover was more appealing to him. I found this interesting because it was something I hadn't noticed. We placed both covers next to each other. One was covered in a wood grain, with a red topper boasting the accomplishments of the magazine. There were two fretwork projects on the cover, one large motorbike and a smaller inset of an eagle. Colours to this cover were red, white, black and wood grain. The second magazine, the one he chose, had a faded background with contrasting colours. The title of the magazine was in white on a darker part of the gradient background. The vaulted puzzle was the primary focus on the cover, with two hands holding the project. Bright bold yellow letters told you, “You too could craft a custom puzzle vault.” Personally I thought they were giving me more credit than I deserved because I know my skills would not produce anything like the one shown on the cover. J The colours of this cover were placed to contrast the gradient background which went from grey to white. A large prominent full colour photo takes up the majority of the cover and there is a small inset of a fretwork project in the bottom right corner. The colours include yellow, white, red, and black. Was it the bold yellow words that caught my husband’s attention? Now I was intrigued. I asked him to look over the magazines and tell me what he thought of them. Now I have to point out, my husband is not a scroller. However, he is married to one and has often had to pick up the magazines for me at the stores. I was curious to know which of these two he would have picked if he was to choose only one. Immediately he asked if they were the same price and had the same number of projects. No. One was 6.49USA / 8.49 Canada. The one he chose was 5.99 USA / 7.99 Canada. One boasts it has 22 great new projects, so he counted the projects in the other one…. It had 16. As a scroller, you may count every pattern bringing it up to around 24. He was quiet for some time as he looked through the magazine he selected first. He spent over 20 minutes looking through that one and commented on many of the projects. Once again he was impressed with all that could be made with the scroll saw. There was fretwork, and intarsia / segmentation which he is familiar with but in addition to that we had that Puzzle Vault (which I know was his favourite since he asked me to make him one just like it) , compound cutting projects and puzzles. Another item that caught his attention was a sundial. The winners and honourable mentions of the last design competition were in this issue as well. He enjoyed reading about them and found the magazine to be more community oriented because of articles and the competitions. The second magazine my husband looked at was the one he originally left on the table. He leafed through this magazine rather quickly and was only intrigued at the motorcycle on the cover. The article that caught his attention was on how scroll saw blades were manufactured. He figured this magazine was the one people started with since it had simpler projects in his opinion. He also mentioned that this magazine was laid out for beginners since it had all the steps of the projects shown and often photographed for the reader to follow along. He had seen this magazine around our house for several years. He asked how often they did eagles and wolves. I simply smiled and told him that folks seem to like them, so they are pretty commonplace. My husband is not a hunter but loves fishing. I honestly don’t think he’d ever get tired of seeing the fishing projects; however, to him there was enough similarity between an eagle which was on the cover of a previous issue of this magazine and the eagle segmentation that was in this recent issue. A whole new discussion began between us with my husband’s interest in why this magazine would have an article on the use of a laser type system. Was it not a magazine which promoted the use of a scroll saw? Were there not scroll saw manufacturer’s that bought advertisements in this magazine thinking they would have a secure audience? They probably didn’t ever expect to be advertising in a magazine that would have an article asking if it was time to upgrade from your scroll saw to a laser type system. To give you some idea of how heated this discussion got, as I mentioned my husband is a business man and would agree with the idea of “a quicker way to do it”, where as I prefer to “create” versus “produce”. Anyhow, that’s another story all together and the magazine comparison got a little off track. My final question to my husband was to ask him what he would buy if he were to see any of these finished projects at a craft show. I thought this would be an interesting view from a suit and tie kind of guy. He turned to the front pages of both magazines ….you guessed it… the Puzzle Vault. Overall the magazine of choice in this circumstance was less expensive and had a nicer cover. It’s true there were fewer projects in this magazine yet they were more detailed projects. There were more contributors to the magazine and this gave a sense of community and not simply a collection of a select few.
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