This morning an article about my work is in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Style section, and I want to thank Michelle Parks for the well written story. There seems to actually be very little that is stylish about what I do so perhaps with help from the Democrat-Gazette woodworking and woodworking with kids will make a comeback, and become stylish once more.

Some of it all comes down to texture and the warmth of real things. Everything we buy these days is machined or molded to perfection. There are other textures that we've forgotten. The feel of the coarsely woven. The movement of fine pigment across canvas. The squeeze of wet clay. The wooden edges that scare of slivers. But we shape our world to be least offensive to senses. It is a world on Prozac... But me? I'll take bent nails. When nails are bent, they show evidence of learning. And they show the attempt, even when failed to connect things together.

If you have been lured here by the address in the Democrat-Gazette, welcome. If you are at all interested in hands-on learning, please come back. In the meantime, if you read no further but would like a small souvenir to keep and think about, look down now at your hands. We take them for granted. Acknowledge their wisdom, and your world may never be quite the same.