We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Aaron Johnson. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Aaron below.

Aaron, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

I’m a completely self-taught woodworker. As much hassle and heartache as it would’ve certainly saved me to study under a master furniture maker, I was just deluded and stubborn enough to think I could figure out furniture making with patience and wits. I’m not too sure how much of either of those things I really have, but 10 years later, I’ve got a catalogue of furniture to show my progress, and there’s certainly a significant jump in craft from the first piece of furniture I ever built to my latest.

I think my story as a furniture maker is indicative of how far resilience and determination can take us, especially in something like the trades. We all have within us the capacity to make things, so long as we’re willing to stick it out through the first handful of attempts that don’t go so great. Every project is a learning experience, and every mistake is an opportunity to learn and grow in the craft. There is skill involved in woodworking, of course; chopping a mortise, honing a plane iron, cutting joinery – these are all marks of a maker’s prowess, to be sure – but the most essential skill, in my mind, is resilience. Muscle memory builds with iteration; no one’s first dovetails are their best dovetails, but if the maker carries enough resilience to push through to the tenth dovetail, the hundredth dovetail, and on and on, I can guarantee that skill will develop.

As far as obstacles I’ve faced in my growth, they’re almost all mental. Being self-taught has at times left me feeling like an imposter. But honestly, when I’m thinking clearly enough to acknowledge it, that line of thinking is inherently elitist and frankly classist. A degree or apprenticeship or whatever is a means to iteration and practice, which are also achievable without a degree or apprenticeship. No one is an imposter who shows up with intent and authenticity.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Aaron and I run This Mortal Plane, making custom heirloom furniture out of my one-person shop in Dayton, Ohio. I design and build all of the furniture available from my website, thismortalplane.com, all of which is heavily inspired by Danish Modern makers like Hans Wegner, Kaare Klint, and others.

The world of furniture is a weird one; there is a panoply of factory-made furniture available for a low price that is readily available and largely disposable garbage. Then there are custom builders who can and will build a nice, heirloom table to order, but will charge thousands of dollars to do so. I think there needs to be room in the middle there, where the average person or family can afford to have a well built, hardwood piece of furniture that can be passed down across generations. That’s where I come in.

I’m not interested in making furniture that is only available to the 1%. I don’t want to do anything for them. I seek to make furniture and sell it for a fair price that allows me to live comfortably, practicing this craft I love, while not pricing out the average person.

Also, knowing where and how our stuff is made is crucial; the persistent exploitation of the global south for the sake of disposable, meaningless stuff is further alienating us from our world and each other. Every person deserves to live in dignity, and that includes having nice things, priced fairly, made with intention to help us feel comfortable and connected to one another. I hope to contribute to that in some way with my furniture.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

Well, this is a hot take, and I say this as a person who spent 10 years teaching in a secondary classroom, but I think our education system’s prioritization of STEM is leading the tide of anti-intellectualism in the West, so the first thing we need to do is refocus our educational goals to meaningfully include the Arts. Arts programming tends to be the first on the chopping block when schools are shaping their budgets, and that has to stop. This delegitimizes the Arts for students and in the eyes of the public, playing into the tired narrative of the starving artist. If we are to be creatively fulfilled, we need outlets to express that creativity.

Also, as consumers of art, we must be mindful of how we find and support the artists. I would like to see us shift socially back toward a model that prioritizes physical media. Obviously as a furniture maker, everything I produce is a physical product, but take music for example: the musicians making the music we listen to are not seeing a fair share of the value of their music from streaming revenue. Physical media provides a considerably higher return for the musicians making that music, so we as consumers should prioritize buying actual records from artists we admire, for example.

That is also to say that if society wants to support artists, we need to act with haste in response to climate change. Ignoring the coming crisis is to put future artists and creatives in peril, so if we want to support them, we need to act on climate change now.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Growing in my skills and in my confidence is easily the most personally rewarding aspect of being a furniture maker. I try with every project I build to try something new, be it a technique, adding a new element to my design vocabulary, or even just a change in my workflow. That enables me to always be learning, always growing, and hopefully becoming a stronger, better maker for it.

Additionally, I really like connecting with customers. I’m an introvert by nature, but I’ve enjoyed getting to know new folks when designing and building furniture for them, and I like the idea of leaving them with a piece of furniture, even if it is something existentially insignificant, that helps improve their lives in a small way. That’s very gratifying.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://thismortalplane.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/thismortalplane
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@thismortalplane