When Anna Sagan moved home from Chicago to Fayetteville in Arkansas, she must have thought that her life was over. She had just lost her job as a marketing consultant, was in the middle of the Covid 19 pandemic like everyone else, and was uncertain about her future.
Sagan didn’t know that this would be the beginning of a new journey of discovery, happiness, and fulfillment.
The 33-year-old from Los Angeles had just lost her job in 2020, sacked in the middle of the pandemic when everyone was struggling to stay afloat. With the confusion and uncertainty in the world, Sagan was almost sure that she would not get another job. Her only option at the time was to move back to her parent’s home and wait for things to settle down.
Anna Sagan on Her Big Discovery
While spending time with her parents and contemplating her life, Sagan discovered her late grandpa’s woodwork tools in the garage. She saw this as an opportunity to stay busy and so something meaningful. Sagan started using the tools to fix things around her parent’s hoe. Before she knew it, she was fixing old furniture and making wine racks for her friends and family.
The more Anna Sagan worked on small projects at home, the more she realized that woodwork was something she enjoyed and made her happy. She grew a career out of her pastime hobby and never looked back. She says that she is driven to do better by the comments she gets from her friends and clients. Whenever someone shows admiration for Sagan’s work, she knows she is doing something worthwhile and is driven to do more for herself and her clients.
Sagan hopes that her work will encourage and inspire people. She says that she has learned healing and life lessons from the woodwork that she hopes to inscribe in her work. For her, creating art pieces with wood is more than a career. It is a way of helping people see the unusual in the usual places.
How Has The Journey Been?
The woodwork journey has been filled with lessons, frustrations, and gratitude for Sagan. When she started, Sagan was n pro at what she did. She did not have any formal training to become a woodwork expert, but she had watched her grandfather at work. For her, that was a starting point. She started small and moved on to making things for sale. Sagan has made it her business to learn from every experience in her life to become a better professional.
However, it has not always been about beautiful lessons. Some of them come with frustration from other people in the industry. See, woodwork is a male-dominated industry, and Sagan is a woman trying to cut through it. She has been ridiculed by men who think she is not good enough. A man asked Anna Sagan if she was the cleaning lady at one company because he could not imagine her as a woodworker. In another company, she lost her job because she distracted her colleagues. She was not fired for not knowing her job or even dressing indecently. She was fired because her femininity distracted the men in the company.
However, Sagan is not giving up on her career because people think she is not good enough. She says that the biggest lesson she has learned is following her passion and doing what makes her happy. People would expect Sagan to be more female-oriented, but only she understands the gratification and fulfillment woodwork gives her.
Sagan hopes to build her woodworking business in Los Angeles in the future. She is currently struggling to find a way to do it full-time. Sagan does not have access to a physical shop, and she had to sell all her old tools and equipment to make a move to LA. She hopes to figure out a way to be profitable in the near future. However, even though all the odds seem to be against Sagan, she is optimistic that she will grow a profitable woodworking business.
Anna Sagan’s Productivity and Tools Hacks
Sagan says she is an early bird and doesn’t mind waking up early to start a project. She says that over the months she has been in the industry, she’s gotten good reviews for her work and believes that she will do better with time.
When asked about her most indispensable tools, Sagan says it’s a good Sander. Here’s how she puts it, “A good sander. Sanding is my least favorite thing to do. it can be time-consuming and mundane, so having a good sander (and one that doesn’t blast sawdust all over the place) is really a game-changer.”
Any Words for Upcoming Woodworkers?
Sagan’s final words to people starting in the field are, “Don’t doubt your ability. We are all capable of doing things we feel are impossible.”
If you’d like to connect with Anna Sagan, you can contact her on her website, blog, TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram accounts.
