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On Prince Edward Island, a successful career as a craftsperson requires the perfect marriage between skill and sales. Hence the success of the husband and wife woodworking/craft vending team of Jacques and Diane Gaudreau. Jacques has consistently developed his skill as a woodworker, while Diane has traded in her time in the workshop to hone her business abilities—and together, they have built a business that has three full-time employees year-round and expands to include seven in the summer. Their clients number in the thousands, some of them children and grandchildren of customers who came to their shop when it first opened in 1983 in a spectacular location overlooking Rustico Bay.
What Jacques has best learned on the craft side is respect for his materials. Of course, that is evident in his perennial bestsellers, plates and serving trays in birds-eye maple, walnut, and cherry. But most of all, he says he’s learned “what you can do and what you can’t do with bird’s-eye maple!” The distinctive “eyes” in the wood’s grain are caused by a virus that affects parts of maple trees. “It used be discarded by mills in New Brunswick,” Jacques says, “but now designers use it as a design element in place of marble.” The bird’s eyes enhance the value of the grain, but complicate the woodworker’s job. “This is not a friendly material. This material is ornery.” While cherry or walnut or oak “will plane and give in an orderly fashion,” bird’s eye maple doesn’t necessarily conform to a woodworker’s plans for it. “Bird’s-eye maple keeps you humble,” Jacques laughs.
He takes me into his workshop, where he has stored some particularly ornery boards, “really peppered,” he points out, with bird’s-eyes. These he is “saving for special.” They might, for instance, someday become particularly special box lids. He says, “You try to use every board you can the best you can,” and he’s been as patient as to hold onto a special piece of wood a year or even two.
What Diane has learned best on the business side is respect and appreciation for the personalities of customers and the craftspeople whose work their shop sells. “I really enjoy working with craftsmen,” she says. “They are very individual. They have strong personalities. They are very committed in a certain direction and make it part of their lifestyle. They are never boring!” Being a craftsperson, she says, “takes a lot of risk, and craftsmen make a lot of sacrifices.” She continues admiringly, “I think it’s a kind of life that I think makes a pretty good basis for a good person.”
Their shop’s location, she says, gives her a view on “everything the Island incorporates, economically and visually.” Out her window in the course of a season, she sees eagles, osprey, herons, mussel harvesting, oyster raking, and dairy farming. The effect is not lost on customers, and it ties in to the experience they discover as they seek to make a connection with the Island through its craftspeople. “We are craftsmen, and we’re sharing a view on culture and the world. We’re also selling it, of course. But we show a lifestyle many people remember. They are maybe somewhat nostalgic for a time things were made locally, for your house, on a very basic level.” In that time, she reflects, “It was an asset to a community that a person was there to make particular items. People feel it from that perspective. They are buying a bit of the Island.”
I ask Jacques and Diane if the Island needs more craftspeople. “Good question,” Jacques says vigorously. “No,” Diane says, “not more. We need more craftspeople with vision . . . who can apply their knowledge to where they want to go. We need dedicated craftsmen, dedicated to being craftsmen first, then making it a business.” Jacques nods his head emphatically and goes downstairs to tend to a customer who has just entered the shop. Their shared dedication and synchronous values bring their crafts full circle, from being created in the workshop to being sold in the shop and appreciated in the world.