Your creative imagination deserves an starting point and simple is good. We now have 22 creative days yet to pass before Xmas. You can, of course, spend your time shopping, or better spend it developing skills and gifts to others. Featured in the photo is a pencil box I made for my own use, and as a demonstration box for the kids at the Clear Spring School.
Make, fix and create...
You've 25 shopping days before the Xmas holiday. May I recommend something from my Etsy shop? http://dougstowe.etsy.com
Make, fix and create...
Make, fix and create...
SETH (strategic engagement of the hands)
“My daughter loves school,” a friend confided. “She does well, she works hard. The problem is with my son.” And so it is that schooling works well for some, and less well for others. The problems are sometimes reversed with school being easier for sons, or for one son or daughter than another, but psychologists and educators have noted what some have described as an epidemic of underperformance by boys. It is nothing exactly new. Going to school in the fifties and sixties I was one of those boys myself. My grades were average. My test scores indicated I should have done better, and I can describe from my own experience what it means to be trapped in school, bored and disinterested. I graduated from college only due to the pottery class which provided a desperately needed dose of hands-on sanity.
Boys Adrift: the Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men, by Leonard Sax notes that boys naturally mature at a slower rate than girls, and are often less ready for sedentary classroom activities. He also notes that the rapid increase in the effect of video gaming and iPhone foolery lessens the physical activities that facilitate reading readiness. There are other environmental factors as well, having to do with chemicals in the environment that accelerate physical maturity for girls and retard the development of boys. Overall, the issues are complex. But what they add up to is that boys are often ill-served by the current model of education. And the effects are enormous. Major universities are admitting boys at a lower level of tested intelligence and college preparation in order attempt to maintain a gender balance. An article in a New England newspaper wondered aloud where young women would be able to find mates with an equivalent level of education and earning capacity.
And so, the question must be asked, "How do we create schools that will benefit all children?" Is there a formula for it? These questions are nothing new. John Amos Comenius (1592-1670), considered the father of modern pedagogy (the science of education) observed:
“Boys ever delight in being occupied in something for the youthful blood does not allow them to be at rest. Now as this is very useful, it ought not to be restrained, but provision made that they may always have something to do. Let them be like ants, continually occupied in doing something, carrying, drawing, construction and transporting, provided always that whatever they do be done prudently. They ought to be assisted by showing them the forms of all things, even of playthings; for they cannot yet be occupied in real work, and we should play with them.”
There is a rise in the use of Ritalin and Adderall to control classroom behavior and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Certainly, some girls are diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed medication for it or considered autistic. But the largest number affected are male. If Comenius were making his observations today, in observing boys, he would note the same qualities in them now as then and suggest that we make use of their natural inclinations to their and our educational advantage.
We should note that all the examples Comenius offers, carrying, drawing, construction, transporting, all are physical, concrete exercises involving all the senses, not at all what we find in todays’ schooling where children are confined in their seats. One parent was called in to a conference with the teacher’s complaint that her son kept falling out of his desk. But what else would a normal boy (or girl) do?
One cannot help but wonder if the structured learning in our schools is at least partially to blame for ADHD and the underperformance of boys. That schooling works for some may justify its existence, but that it doesn't work for others should call into question its methods. Howard Gardner popularized the notion that we learn in a variety of ways, that we each are smart in some ways and not others, and yet, there has been little direct implementation of his concepts in American classrooms. So, how do you go about such needed change? I call it the "strategic engagement of the hands" and create my own acronym "SETH." Make everything children learn "hands-on" meaning of course that it must engage the real world, the child's physical senses, and the opportunity to respond to learning through the arts. Simple enough. But it will take work, and it will take change. Again, going back to Comenius, "...inactivity is more injurious to both mind and body than anything in which children can be occupied."
Make, fix and create...
From the New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/24/magazine/youth-mental-health-crisis-schools.html?unlocked_article_code=1.3k8.AMiE.O-PyNWzFR4-i&smid=url-share
Children need to be doing real things in schools.
Do you have a few favorite quotes from this blog? links at the right will help you to navigate, back to October 2006, and every month up to today. I am trying to collect fifty, for publication in a small booklet, and you can help. Copy the quote, note the time and date where it can be found and let me know. Leave your comment below.
Make, fix and create...
These are a few of my online published works, 2022-25, collected for your reading pleasure, I hope.
http://eureka.news/wood-whisperer-turns-consumers-into-creators/
https://comment.org/considering-the-work-of-our-hands/
https://emerge-magazine.com/a-garden-of-children/
https://hedgehogreview.com/web-features/thr/posts/maybe-even-build-a-boat
https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2024/07/a-garden-of-children/
https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2024/01/ai-misinformation-and-manual-arts-training/
https://comment.org/considering-the-work-of-our-hands/
I was alerted this week to an article in Mortise & Tenon by Edward Bouvier that relies on my published materials. ‘A communal legacy; Handcraft as part of a holistic education’ lists an editorial I wrote for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in 2022 as part of its source material. It is nice that the message continues to get out.
Instilling a respect for all labor. From Otto SalomonA useful tool is offered by https://www.woodweb.com/cgi-bin/calculators/calc.pl to help calculate the amount of shrinkage that will take place in wood as it ages. Determine the moisture content, the species of wood, whether it is flat sawn or quarter sawn, the target moisture content and the dimensions and it will tell you final dimensions.
I am making matched solid wood doors that meet in the middle and need to determine the initial width that they should be cut. The calculator will not be exact.
On the other hand there are makers in our own communities and while multinational investors may be concerned with tariffs and all there are direct reasons to invest in our own communities and each other.
We are smarter when we apply our minds and hands in the making of the things we need. We are better communities when we have invested in each other. We have stronger families, better schools, safer communities when we have applied ourselves in the making of useful beauty.
I am in the process of selling a few hand made things, that I've placed for sale on Esty,(https://www.etsy.com/shop/dougstowe/) and shipped to the Arkansas Craft Gallery in Mountain View. I have also been making tables that are for sale. One of them is shown the photo.
How is this table different from what you might find in your mail order catalog? It is made from solid wood using a type of joinery that lasts for generations. The top is made from a single piece of wood that was grown here, on the same property upon which it was crafted. It is one-of-a-kind. It is locally grown and locally made.
Make, fix and create...
Today I'm making oversized finger joints as shown to form the sides, top and bottom of a small wall-hung cabinet. The joints are formed by ripping the stock to uniform width and then gluing back together with the boards offset from one another.
It's a technique that I first introduced in my book Rustic Furniture Basics. https://amzn.to/4htXiPR
Make, fix and create.
Make fix and create.
With two days of Viking chest class complete at ESSA (essa-art.org), students have their chests assembled, sanded and stained while they work for two days with Dale Custer in the forging studio to make the hardware consisting of hinges, hasp and handles.
Students have learned a lot and done great work. On Saturday I'll be at studio stroll to discuss the project, and do a quick demonstration. On Sunday I'll be with the class to finish up.
Make, fix and create...
As you can see in the photographs, this technique allows parts to be cut to exact length and then joined with less complicated measuring and cutting involved than a convention tenon that's cut and shaped at the ends of the stock. The loose tenon stock is milled to exact size, then rounded at the edges on the router table and after being cut in lengths will be glued in place.
Make, fix and create...
This one will also be for sale.
People need to be informed of the value of having tools. We are transformed by them. Each is an expression of power to shape and express.
We're not powerless consumers but makers and crafters. We'll not look to Wall Street for the redemption of the middle class, but to ourselves and each other..
Make, fix and create...
I have finished the hall table and need to move it out of house and home to make room for another, as I enjoy making them. Contact me if you're interested in owning work of this nature. All solid wood but for the screw clips attaching the single board top.
Other works of useful integrity are available.
Make, fix and create...
Make, fix and create...
Form finger joints, but unlike a conventional finger joint, index the stock from both sides, stopping in the middle.
Use a marking gauge to place an index mark for removal of the finger that will impede the completion of the joint.
Then use a chisel to remove it, chiseling in on the marking gauge line from both sides.
The joint will fit together as shown. In order for this technique to work, the parts must be rip sawn to the same width.
Make, fix and create...
What you witness are my own attempt of authenticity... Applying my time in pursuit of my ideals.
Make, fix and create...
Make, fix and create...
Take this lesson to heart. The things you make exist as skills in your own heart, hands and mind and nearly all else is some corporation trying to take advantage of you and your resources.
Today I have planed the stock for the table aprons and begin forming tenons on the table saw. The first step is to cut the shoulders of the tenons using the table saw sled as shown. The stop block makes certain that each cut is the same distance from the end of the stock. This is not AI. It's real life, and join me in some. It's infinitely rewarding.
Make, fix and create...
I have continued to read Mike Rose's book, Mind at Work: Valuing the Intelligence of the American Worker, https://amzn.to/47szxo9 and it should be noted that in addition to this book, Rose was a noted authority on writing. And for some, the urge to write emerges when one has something to say. Looking at a blank paper in sixth grade while the teacher stands over you expecting you to perform won't do.
We do not all mature at the same pace and many have discovered their inclination to write when they've matured enough to have something meaningful to say. While the teacher stands there putting the pressure on, relax.
Make, fix and create...
I work for a while and then go back to sit and rest... Then go back to work until I feel tired.
The white oak was harvested here on our small wood lot and stored in my barn to dry. I had to cut it down to 14 3/4 in. to pass through the planer, then shaped it, routed the edges and sanded to 120 grit.
Next come legs, aprons, mortise and tenon joints and a drawer. It is all slightly larger than the hall table I made last week and will fit nicely in an office or home. The wood is particularly lovely. Wide, free of defects and lovely.
There are those who do not experience the creative joy that making entails. Surely we can have the machine and imported labor do things for us, and be diminished by it.
Or we can make other choices.
Make, fix and create...
In the early days of manual arts Uno Cygnaeus in Finland sought a means of extending the Kindergarten method into the upper grades in his creation of folk schools. How-to was clear in that Froebel's distinction between "gifts" and "occupations" should be informing us in the decisions we make about education today.
The gifts, including sets of blocks and other creative devises were used by the children then put back in their boxes unchanged. The idea of the gift was to change the understanding in the heart and mind of the child, to incite curiosity about learning, and observation of life.
Occupations were the materials that were changed and no longer available to the box from which they came. Woodworking and other crafts were the occupations Cygnaeus had in mind. We should adopt that same understanding of technology. Kids can learn from their devices, but if they don't do anything tangible as a result of learning, then their learning is what educators once called, "one-sided". What goes in, must come out, and not only through testing but through the making of beautiful and useful things.
The occupations were to give children creative, transforming power through which they, too, were transformed. The distinction between Froebel's gifts and occupations was based on the recognition that education was not just what went into the child in the form of lessons and information, but must also be balanced by what comes out of the child in the form of tangible expression, in which each child discovered ways in which they could participate directly in community life.
Make, fix and create... offset the growing impact of artificial intelligence by doing something real.
Sculpture has a higher perceived value than more practical things but allows you to express things that some folks might miss. For instance a crafted wood object may fail to convey the craftsman's relationship with wood. Though it might be there, it might be missed or misunderstood, as wood is seldom regarded with the reverence it deserves.
This piece of simply done "sculpture" may not be valued by some. There is the speed at which it's done, but the message is simple and easy to understand. We fail to value all the wonderful things wood does for us, and we fail to protect the forests from which it comes. It's twisted, it is torn.
I took a piece of ash, too wide to pass through the planer and used the bandsaw to cut it into two narrower parts before planing.
I then used the compound miter saw to trim the ends, allowing them to rest stably on a base. After a base is made, I will use a rotary chisel to texture the inside edges and ends. An oil finish will bring the wood to life.
Make, fix and create...
Make, fix and create...
Make, fix and create...
In Schools we create artificial learning environments for our children that they know to be contrived and undeserving of their full attention and engagement… Without the opportunity to learn through the hands, the world remains abstract, and distant, and the passions for learning will not be engaged. --Wisdom of the Hands blog post of October 16, 2006
Make, fix and create...
Make, fix and create...
We live in a divided nation in which children mature at various paces and some are sequestered from the use of their hands in the exploration of the world while being told that they are the best and brightest, set apart for learning more advanced and abstract things, and while some erroneously are informed by their placement that they'll never measure up or be capable of more advanced thought. Little could be further from the truth.
I repeat. Not all mature to the same things at the same time. All need to be afforded the opportunity to grow at their own pace. And all schooling should be hands-on, and thereby enriched.
Make, fix and create...
Looking at my upside down table reminds me of the technique that Gaudi used to visualize his unfinished Church of Colònia Güell and the Sagrada FamÃlia.
https://dataphys.org/list/gaudis-hanging-chain-models/
Make, fix and create...
It is assembled with mortise and tenon joints.
Make, fix and create...
Skilled trades should be included in every person's educational opportunities: https://medium.datadriveninvestor.com/where-the-future-of-stem-will-be-built-from-2025-onward-02b1fdb6abfa and would help us face changes from AI and other disruptions.
Make, fix and create...
Do not worry about the color difference between old cherry and new cherry. Cherry is a photo-reactive wood that will quickly age and catch up.
Make, fix and create...
