shaker and milkpaint

Today I have made a small amount of progress in the woodshop, working on both spice cabinets and shaker wall cabinets. I also was visited by a blog reader and friend from the University of Minnesota whom I had met in Sweden and Finland and with whom it is always good to talk Sloyd. Faith and her friend Marilyn who is a botanical illustrator and the founder of the Minnesota School of Botanical Art are here to take a class with Leon Niehues, making baskets at the Eureka Springs School of the Arts.

I am curious whether any of my readers are familiar with the works of David Henry Feldman on creativity. He is co-author of Creativity and Development (Counterpoints: Cognition, Memory, and Language). It seems that with corporations complaining about the lack of creative engagement and potential in the people they hire, they would want to do something about it. But creating schools in which creativity was a goal doesn't seem to fall within their range of interests... not when they can adhere to the gospel of standardized testing. Wood shop and other forms of the arts can help to put creative problem solving back in schools, but we will have to come to our senses for that to happen.