what you see is what you get, but are your eyes open?

There is a difference between manufactured furniture and what you can buy from a curious and inventive craftsman, and the difference starts with the wood.

I joke sometimes that I am in competition with the Chinese, and now if you go to a furniture store you may find "Early American" furniture made with American veneers like walnut and cherry bonded to core material from Borneo, then assembled and finished in China and shipped here and sold to American consumers for prices American manufacturers can't match.

Add up all the back and forth shipping costs and fuel use, then the packaging and you begin to understand that if you want green furnishings that have less direct impact on the environment, you should order from a real person, have him or her make it start to finish with materials grown in your own community. A local craftsman will work without all the hidden costs to the environment that bargain hungry American consumers will never consider. Unlike American consumers, the global environment records every jot and tittle*.

When you have a real craftsman make something of beauty, it may last generations, becoming a family heirloom and treasure while sequential generations of meaningless manufactured objects have taken their places in landfills to defile our natural beauty and poison our waters.

The beauty of what you get from real work is multidimensional. First you have the beauty of real wood like the table tops I am applying finish to this morning and as shown above. In this case, the wood, with its character and interesting figure tells the story of the forest from which it came and stimulates regard and respect for that forest. This wood came from here in Eureka Springs, and thus describes the hidden beauty in our own community. Then when you buy work from a local craftsman, you have set in motion the transformation of character in which we are challenged and empowered in the direction toward personal growth. All this involves a very simple thing, craftsmanship... the non-religious foundation of all the great works of human culture.

Can a physical object be more beautiful and meaningful than the transformation of human lives, as we are shifted from mindless consumption toward alignment with creative spirit? When you have empowered transformation in your own community you have created real and lasting beauty. This is a no-brainer, but because we have grown so completely out of touch, I'm trying to explain it to a few people and working to get my language clear enough that anyone might understand. Since you are here, I assume you know most of this already, but perhaps you can help me spread the understanding, and put people back in touch with a more meaningful reality.

*A tittle is a small distinguishing mark, such as a diacritic or the dot on a lowercase i or j. The phrase "jot and tittle" indicates that every small detail has received attention.