| ||||||||
| ||||||||
|
Besides making things, Marks was also teaching. He still gave occasional gilding and patination classes in his shop. Also, a friend had started a business selling gold leaf supplies, and he hired Marks to demonstrate these products at trade shows around the country. And finally, the Baulines Craft Guild had a program through which an apprentice would pay a Master Member to study with him or her, and David took on apprentices on a regular basis. He says: “I love woodworking, and I love sharing it with other people. I’ve been fortunate to have learned from some great teachers, and I just feel obligated to pass on whatever has been shared with me.” At this point his work was represented by del Mano Gallery in Los Angeles, and they gave him a “featured artist” exhibit and took one of his major pieces to the 2000 SOFA (Sculptural Objects & Functional Art) Show in Chicago. “Being at SOFA was very exciting. I really got my hopes up, because one couple was very interested in one of the big pieces I had there. Del Mano had the sculpture priced at $20,000…and this couple still wanted it. Well, we went out to their home to measure the space where they wanted it to go…and it turned out to be 4" too big to fit over their mantel. One thing led to another, and the whole deal fell through.” It was a major let-down, and Marks flew back to California feeling depressed. When he got home, his wife told him about an odd phone message. “I’m pretty sure it was one of your woodworking buddies playing a joke on you,” she said. “I almost erased it, but I know you’ve told me never to erase your messages so I left it on the machine.” “Well, what was it?” Marks wanted to know. “Oh,” she said with a laugh, “someone wanted to know if you would like to host a TV show.” It was in fact a producer who had called; her production company was doing a national search for a host for a new cable show to be launched along the lines of the wildly successful New Yankee Workshop with Norm Abram. Marks was one of several hundred nation-wide who they were contacting; if he was interested he had to submit slides of his work and take an on-camera test. At the time Marks had what he describes as “a generally scruffy look” but he did the screen test anyway. Time passed, he heard nothing, and forgot about it. Three months later, the producer called to tell him he was a finalist. “But,” she said, “we can’t go any further unless you get a haircut. This is the Home & Garden Channel. They’re pretty conservative, and they’ve got a look they’re going for.” “Well, I’ll tell you right now,” Marks replied, “I’m not putting on a baseball cap, and I’m not wearing suspenders and a plaid shirt.” But he got the haircut…and he eventually got the job.What clinched the deal was that Marks had a large, well-photographed portfolio of widely varied work, perfect for a program that would present lots of styles and techniques. And most importantly, the years of speaking and demonstrating at shows had given Marks a good deal of poise in front of an audience. What followed was a protracted struggle negotiating all the details. The initial budget was unrealistically small; they increased it, though never quite enough. When they discovered that Marks had a comfortable, well-lit shop, they agreed to film there instead of making him fly to a location in Knoxville, Tennessee. The money they offered wasn’t great, and they flatly refused to give him any royalties, but he got the rights for everything he designed for the show. And, he reasoned to himself, HGTV then had a viewership of over 75 million households, more visibility than a woodworker could even dream of. The nagging problem was that after months of negotiations Marks still didn’t have a signed contract, even though he had hired a Los Angeles entertainment lawyer right from the start. The legal fees were adding up, which only increased his stress. The producers were eager to set a date to start shooting a pilot. Marks told them that he needed three months to prepare. They assured him that it would only be a test run. A closer date was set. Still no contract. As the date approached, Marks stayed up late into the night, for many nights—he still had a full load of commissioned work to do during the day—building a small table for them to shoot. Eventually the day arrived. Ten people—producers, executives, cameramen and sound techs—all showed up at his shop, ready to go. And he still had no contract. The producers gave him an ultimatum: Either they shoot right then, or the deal was off. Marks just looked at them, took a deep breath, and said to himself, “Alright, I’m going to go for it.” That pilot went well, and everything took off from there at a furious pace. As Marks explains: “When they show up to shoot, they’ve got two days to capture everything on videotape. They have no time to wait for the glue to set or finish to dry. You’re allowed 15 minutes between each scene to do whatever you’ve got to do—reset the tablesaw, position something for the next shot, memorize your lines. We had to strip everything down to the bare essentials, make things as minimalistic as possible, and have them prepared in advance in as many steps as possible. They gave me a very small budget, and I had to pay lots of subs good money—often more money than I was making—to keep everybody on a tight deadline.” In addition to long days of shooting—there were sometimes as many as 20 takes for a single shot—there were days of doing voice-overs, meeting with producers, writing and memorizing scripts, designing projects, overseeing the work of subcontractors, making sure the shop was stocked with sharp tools and whatever materials might be needed for a scene. Marks was working 75-80 hours a week; it was, as he puts it, “a rapid plunge into insanity.” After seven or eight episodes he finally got a signed contract. But then there was a new rub: they decided not to air the show on the Home & Garden Channel after all. Instead, it would be on the newer and relatively unknown Do It Yourself Network. The other consequence was that all of his own work went on a very long “hold.” It eventually got better. By the time they had done 20 or 30 shows Marks was feeling more experienced and comfortable. And while the studio wanted control over how he looked and dressed, when it came to the projects they gave him free rein. He also got to keep all the furniture that he built on the show. He ultimately did 91 episodes, shot during a three year period. They began airing in 2002 and have been rerun endlessly since then. The show also has been syndicated in Australia on the How To Network and appears on the Internet via www.diynetwork.com. The visibility has indeed been a big boon to his career. This has been especially true for his teaching; as he points out, “I’m not on the network that is being watched by architects and designers, I’m on the network whose audience is the do-it-yourselfer. We started getting inundated with emails from people saying, ‘Love your show. Is there any way I can take a class with you?’ So I started setting up one-on-one classes here at the shop.” Then, in 2004, he and Victoria decided to start their own school. “When we began to set up some group classes, it became apparent that I really needed to make the space bigger. So around 2005 I built an addition to the shop. It’s now 2,200 square feet. We’re wheelchair accessible. We’ve got a bathroom there. We’ve got the woodshed. Everything’s well lit. We’ve got an automated vacuum system hooked up to the various machines. And I’ve bought a lot more machines and hand tools to accommodate a number of different classes.” Now, in 2008, things have developed into a pattern: two weeks of teaching each month, either at his shop or on the road, and two weeks developing designs and making new pieces. Marks couldn’t be more pleased…or more surprised. “What’s amazing to me is that you can really create your own vision if you keep putting it out there. I mean, all my classes are completely booked until early 2009. I’ve built a small gallery by the shop because some of the students who come here for classes have expressed a desire to purchase some of my work, and I’ve already sold a number of pieces through that. I’ve got sales at other galleries and commissioned work as well. “It’s been a long time since I was making burl tables and thinking, ‘Wow, $100. Do you really want to spend $100?’ I guess that’s how it goes. You pay your dues, pay your dues, pay your dues. And then, all of a sudden, you’re an overnight success…35 years later.” John Lavine is the editor of Woodwork magazine. | |||||||
|
| ||||||||
