Home...

It is lovely to be home in Arkansas after a full seven days of box making at Marc Adams School of Woodworking. I started with a weekend class on making Scandinavian bent wood boxes, and then made boxes for five days with 16 students.  Each student went home with several boxes using various joinery techniques. Students in both classes learned new skills,  renewed creativity and gained greater confidence.

I 'm grateful for my assistants, Jerry Forshee and Doug Dale who kept my students safe during all their labors. This last week was amazing.

I will return to Marc Adams School on July 24 more days of box making. Students need not be experienced box makers to participate and learn from  either the weekend or week long class.

As I turn my attention back toward my current book projects, I wish to share an understanding of the relationship between Kindergarten and the hands. Each illustration from Mother Play, Froebel's book about games and songs that mothers could play with their children, has the image of a hand or hands at the top, and each song used the engagement of the the fingers, the hands and body benefit the child's understanding of community and the surrounding life to be found in nature.

And so Kindergarten was not intended as a time to prepare children to read. It was to prepare all children to live as human beings. At one time the central role of the hands in learning was unspoken, as it was abundantly clear to all that the hands were central to every facet of human life. Then mechanization and dehumanization began to take place, separating the hands from learning and from life to the point that the centrality of their engagement has become less clear.

If you played pat-a-cake as a child or with your children, you have Friedrich Froebel to thank for it. Click on the images to see them in a larger size.

Make, fix and create...