my first read through...

I've made it through my first reading of Peter Korn's new book, Why We Make Things and Why it Matters, the Education of a Craftsman. The book is much more about his life than about the reasons that we make things, and so if someone is not particularly interested in his career as a craftsman and the course of events that led to the founding of the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship it could be less of an engaging read than one might want.

I am convinced that language is unlikely to convey the necessary motivation for one to turn the personal tide of one's life from idle consumer to maker of useful beauty. It takes having had some experience at some point in one's own life to plant the seed of hunger for future creativity. It takes work, after all. It takes long hours, practice and sacrifice, just as Peter Korn describes eloquently in this book.

I had some unreasonable expectations of Korn's book. He is a person I greatly admire. We've talked for years about the books we were writing, and I congratulate Peter on actually getting his done. On the other hand, I was hoping that he would do some of the heavy lifting for me. I would have made the title more insistent.... Why we must make things, for example... our humanity is actually at stake. There are moral consequences to our failure to understand the world through the looking glass that the hands provide. Idle ones are the devil's own. While Korn describes the journey of the craftsman as a journey of transformation, he fails to build a case for its universal imperative.

Today, I applied Danish oil to more boxes. Tomorrow I will spend mostly at the computer, editing chapters of the new box making book.

I have learned that there are still vacancies in my box making work shops in Clifton Park, New York Friday and Saturday, November 15-16, 2013. If you are interested, please contact Tom Moran.

Make, fix and create...