the creator/craftsman

There is nothing more important to the human race than that its members become involved in the creation of useful beauty, and there is no more useful and beautiful connection between human culture and the natural world than the beautiful and useful things we craft from wood.

The truest purpose of making things, however, is  not to have them, hold them or sell them, but to reshape ourselves and our own lives to align with a higher image of self... Man the creator/craftsman, for in that form we are aligned in service to the rest of humanity.

I know there may be a sense of awkwardness and egotism in laying claim to a sense of moral superiority in relation to the practice of making beautiful and useful things. But please look around you and see what's happening to the real world when caring about the making of useful beauty has been in decline for some time.

Today in my wood shop, I'm cleaning and beginning to make a number of tiny bentwood boxes to sell when we have guests arriving from New York's American Folk Art Museum in September.

Make, fix, create, and extend to others the understanding of the necessity of learning likewise.