Saturday, June 28, 2008

The Diablo Woodworkers in the San Francisco Bay area has held their first annual high school competition. From the slide show, you can see that it was a success! The Diablo woodworkers had been concerned that high school woodworking would become a thing of the past. The summer before last they completely restored a high school woodshop to prepare for my box making class. This year, the start of a high school competition was an amazing amount of work, but something they plan to do again in addition to all their other public service and community involvement efforts.
High School competitions are great ways to do two things. Stimulate quality work, and stimulate community interest. Congratulations to the Diablo Woodworkers, and to all the students and teachers involved. Each piece you see is not just an object made, but an embodiment of learning, effort and creativity. The Diablo Woodworkers just did a very cool thing. They informed students that others in the community are interested and supportive of their success, they told school administrators how important woodworking programs are to their communities and they informed all that the hands are still important in education. The competition was featured in the Contra Costa Times.

2 comments:

  1. Hello, Dear Doug!
    I'm a brazilian woodworker from Niterói, Rio de Janeiro.
    I wish some fine day we have here sites and blogs so amazing as yours, in USA. While surfing the WEB I feel jealous of the self-respect, dedication and comradeship
    among so many woodworkers in Your country.
    Thank's a lot for all You, guys!
    Sorry the bad English...
    Henrique Chaudon

    ReplyDelete
  2. Henrique, thank you for visiting. It is easy to set up a blog site and I know you have some beautiful woods in Brazil. Send me a photo of your work sometime. I would like to see what you make.

    People all over the world work with their hands to make beauty. Even in music, the hands accentuate the the beauty of the human voice and set the rhythm of the dance.

    It is just in places like the US where we have become stupid enough to take the hands for granted that we need blogs like this to put attention where it belongs.

    ReplyDelete