This is the first time I've had anything in that magazine due to it being exactly what the title suggests, Woodworker West having works from the western half of the US. Arkansas doesn't quite make that cut.
Among the photos featured with the excerpt is this cherry cabinet that I did for the Horn Collection of American Crafts.
Make, fix and create... Assist others in learning likewise.
And then there are things that glow from an inner beauty in that they represent the maker's growth, a thing not seen quickly or at first glance. And then there's that beauty that's found in relationships that objects may represent. In other words, things are complicated, but we need ways of assessing what things we bring into our own lives lest we be overwhelmed by meaningless stuff.
A week or so ago the New York Times invited readers to share with them objects considered heirlooms, objects that carry meaning from on generation to the next. I submitted a photo of my father's WWII service watch that he'd worn through 199 days of combat in Germany.
After the war, my father watched as thousands of similar watches were smashed by a steam roller on an aircraft runway to keep them from being carried home and destroying the watch market in the US. Over the years, the chrome plated bronze case was deteriorating badly so I had a jeweler friend plate the watch in gold, and I recently had it cleaned so that it runs again, keeping perfect time. This watch is a 17 jewel Hamilton and the video shows that it still works. The tiny shaft that keeps the second hand moving is only a fraction of a millimeter in diameter.
Asked by the New York Times to explain the importance of the heirloom, I explained that my father had it on his wrist and kept it wound as he directed traffic on the Red Ball Express, as his division (the 104th) fought its way through the dikes of Holland, as they held a defensive position in Germany during the Battle of the Bulge, as they fought for the Hürtgen Forest, as he crossed the Bridge at Remagen, and as he witnessed the horrors at the liberation of Camp Dora, a Nazi death camp outside Nordhausen. It was there as they waited at the Elbe River for the Russian troops to arrive as arranged by agreement between FDR and Stalin.
In other words beauty can also be found in objects that connect us through generations. Cleaned, cased in gold and lubricated, my dad's watch is good for another 75 years, at least.
Make, fix and create...
https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/26/business/retail-returns/index.html
So how about this idea? Let's make the things we need or buy things of extraordinary beauty that thus offer deeper meaning. We can avoid time wandering isles to buy things we really don't need and invest that time in making our lives more meaningful.
I've written before about the half life of objects. Their time between manufacturing and deposit in landfills is brief. Their cost to the environment is enormous. And while the making and distribution of meaningless stuff keeps folks busy and employed we would find deeper meaning if we were to follow these simple rules:
If you buy something, be sure it's worth the time someone spent to make it. If you can make it yourself and learn from the process, do so.
There will be a temporary loss of meaningless employment while we move incrementally toward a sound relationship with the environment. But think of the amount of gas we'll save by not making so many trips to the store.
The jig shown is for making drawer pulls for a jewelry chest. It pivots to guide a rectangular piece of wood through the cut on the bandsaw. The same simple jig is also used with a disc sander to finish shaping the curved form.
Make, fix and create...
Steve uses a loose tenon technique for joining parts. In that technique, a solid wood tenon is formed that is inserted in mortises cut in both parts. When properly sized and glued in place the loose tenon technique provides as much strength as a conventional mortise and tenon joint. This article explains the technique:
https://www.woodcraft.com/blog_entries/joinery-class-loose-tenon-joinery
Make, fix and create...
Something I've noticed is that big things have a tendency to grow from small humble things. We can think of the wisdom of our hands in that light. Nourish them with good things to do, keep an eye on them and see what they can accomplish in time. The result may be no less than miraculous.
The jig shown is one that I use for making cuts in the corners of boxes to install contrasting keys that decorate and strengthen mitered joints. The box rests in the "V" as it passes over the saw blade. The position of the cut is adjusted by simply moving the table saw fence. Having a few tools and knowing a few techniques help to do good work.
Make, fix and create... Assist others in living likewise.
The small cube box illustration shown is one that was featured on the cover of my book Basic Box Making. https://www.amazon.com/Basic-Box-Making-Doug-Stowe/dp/1561588520/
It is made with a keyed-miter joint and mixing and matching woods is an ideal way to add additional interest. The design principle involved is contrast. Contrast lures the eyes into deeper engagement with the object.
Make, fix and create...
This illustration is another box from my book Beautiful Boxes: Design and Technique. The most difficult thing on this project was to make Brusso JB-102 hinges to fit.
You can buy or borrow the book for additional details on making a box like this for yourself.
I remind my readers and friends of my book signing on Saturday at Two Friends Book Store in Rogers, 11 AM on June 25.
Make, fix and create...
A second variation is shown here, also.
Make, fix and create. Assist others in learning likewise.
The map and address will help you find your way andTwo Friends Book Store is a place you will enjoy having discovered.
Make, fix and create... Assist others in learning likewise.
I checked pricing on two of my books on Amazon and learned that they've jacked the price up over the suggested retail. I don't know the reasons for it as most publishers find Amazon's strategies to be inexplicable. In the meantime, LeeValley.com has my Guide to Woodworking with Kids, Making Classic Toys that Teach, and my new book The Wisdom of our Hands available for immediate shipping. These are the links:
https://www.leevalley.com/en-us/shop/tools/books-and-dvds/111950-the-guide-to-woodworking-with-kids
and https://www.leevalley.com/en-us/shop/tools/books-and-dvds/114136-the-wisdom-of-our-hands-crafting-a-life
There are times when Amazon offers the best price and times when you'll want to ignore them and choose to shop elsewhere. In this case Amazon is hurting my sales by pushing the prices up to their benefit, but not mine.
And I would prefer that if you are buying my books, you get them at the best price.
Make, fix and create...
In the meantime I've been practicing and learning with sketchup, to create new box designs.
This box is a pen and ink box to hold both a bottle of ink and two pens. There's a compartment below the pen tray for additional necessaries.
Make, fix and create... Assist others in learning likewise.
The same applies in the use of tools as repeated use builds neural pathways to and from the brain. Let the tool fall into disuse for a time and when you pick it up again, it may feel a bit awkward at first, but the comfort of the grip will soon return and it will settle into your hands like an old friend.
The very first time a tool is used an early awkwardness sets in that requires a great deal of brainpower to overcome. And through repeated use, the impressions the tool leaves on the musculature and nerves of the hands refines the passage of information to and from the brain and even within the brain itself. That, of course, is why hands-on learning is so important, so engaging, and so powerful in comparison with online lessons, or lessons delivered through books, articles, lectures, and the like.
Field Marshall Rommel in WWII was described as having fingerspitzengefuhl, an intelligence of hand and mind derived from having done real things in real life and having been a careful observer of what he and others had done. For Rommel, fingerspitzengefuhl gave him a secure sense of the battlefield, even those parts at a distance that he could not see and so you can see that hands on learning is not just for those destined to spend their lives working in the trades.
There is a law in geology that falls somewhat akin. It's that the present is the key to the past. In other words, what you see now, going on around you, is informative. There's nothing in the world that you can't do mindlessly if that's your intent. And of course the difference between one thing and the other is the amount of passion you bring to bear. Are you blasé and dismissive of that which surrounds you, or are you willing to engage your attentions with passion and intent. If the present is indeed the key to the past, then or course, viewed deeply and with passion, that which surrounds us can be viewed in a new light... Even when it's a well worn path to the outhouse and back.
Today was my last day as the director of the Wisdom of the Hands program at the Clear Spring School. While I'm retiring from that job, I'm not retiring from woodworking, from teaching adults, mentoring teachers or from writing books and articles about woodworking or education. The work in those fields is far from complete.
The photo shows the lines used to lay out the carving of a sphere from a wooden cube. Known to be an amateur woodcarver, Friedrich Froebel would have carved such things as he walked from one village to the next. It is a form of contemplation.
Make, fix and create. Assist others in learning likewise.
I learned this morning that my Wisdom of Our Hands book is in its second printing. That's a good sign that the message within it is gaining traction.
This coming week will be my last as director of the woodworking program at the Clear Spring School. And so I hope to step into a broader but continued role as an advocate for hands-on learning.
Also this coming week, my Guide to Woodworking with Kids will be back in the warehouse and ready for sales with a reprint being complete. On Saturday I have a class on making spoon carving knives to be held for adults at ESSA. The class will involve both the blacksmithing studio and wood studio at ESSA. We'll make both straight whittling knives and my own improved version of spoon carving knives.
Make, fix and create...
With just a bit of help from a friend David Heim, who wrote a great book about SketchUp, I managed to made a 3D model of the Brusso JT-101 hinge. It's one I need to finish a box model for an article I'm proposing, and it feels great to be getting better at using the SketchUp 3D modeling program as it will allow me to better prepare for publishing a few extra box designs.
My big challenge that I had to ask David about was how to develop chamfers in the holes where the screws fit. He did them for me in one leaf and fortunately left the other for me to do with his instructions. So, now I can do them myself!
You can find David's book on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/SketchUp-Success-Woodworkers-Drawings-Accurately/dp/1950934063/
Make, fix and Create...
I am grateful to have made new friends.
Make, fix and create... Assist others in learning likewise.
My wife, Jean and our head of school Jessica Fitzpatrick, had arranged with the Eureka Springs Mayor to proclaim June 4th as "Doug Stowe Day," so this is my day. I want to thank all those who celebrated with me yesterday, and all those who supported my work over these years. And thanks to our mayor for making this my day.
On this special "Doug Stowe" day, I'll be gardening a bit, playing with Rosie, and getting ready for a five day box making class at ESSA that starts on Monday.
Make, fix and create. Assist others in learning likewise.
One of my students, Gabe, told me that he whittles nearly every day at home, and I can assure you that whittling is a meditative process that leads to a sharpened point, both in the wood and in the mind of the whittler. To whittle is not the simple minded activity one might assume. To whittle requires one to observe, hypothesize, and test one's hypotheses. As the hand becomes skilled, the knife becomes an extension of mind, and the powers of the mind are set free to explore the realities of life that surround us. We do that through the exploration and use of metaphor. Metaphor is a construction of mind built upon concrete experience. Without the concrete experience metaphor crumbles in abstraction when tested and measured against real life.
A friend suggested a book about chain carving and I ordered. Chain Carvers, Old Men Craft Meaning by Simon J. Bronner, having to do with the minds of old men, arrived in my mailbox on the same morning I was taking a wood carving friend to the clinic for tests. I passed it along for him to read during his recovery from surgery and will get it back later on. I'll read it myself and then pass it along to a friend who is busily crafting wooden chains in his retirement years.
I'm working on an article for Woodcarving Illustrated about children and whittling and so yesterday I took some good photos as the children brought their sticks, and minds to sharp points.
Make, fix and create...
"The ground of this business (education) is, that sensual objects be rightly presented to the senses for fear that they not be received. I say, and say it again aloud, that this is the foundation of all the rest; because we can neither act nor speak wisely, unless we first rightly understand all the things which are to be done and whereof we have to speak. Now there is nothing in the understanding which was not before in the senses. And therefore to exercise the senses well about the right perceiving of the differences of things will be to lay the grounds for wisdom and all wise discourse, and all discreet actions in one's course of life, which, because it is commonly neglected in schools, and the things that are to be learned are offered to scholars without their being understood or being rightly presented to the senses, it cometh to pass that the work of teaching and learning goeth heavily onward and offereth little benefit."
