Back in the summer of 2000, I began working on the book, Wisdom of the Hands, by first exploring my own directions and needs for research. At that point, I realized that my own way of learning, wasn't to get out the books, but to throw myself, sink or swim in waters over my head. I had talked with publishers about the project, and the answer was either, "that book won't sell," or "send us the finished manuscript and we'll look at it."

In the fall of 2001, we started the Wisdom of the Hands program at Clear Spring School. It had two purposes. It was designed to serve as a model of what woodworking can do in general education. It was also designed to allow me to engage in the kinds of learning I do best...from actual experience.

In 2002, in conversation with John Lavine, editor of Woodwork Magazine, I told him of my need to begin working on the book. He suggested that I write and submit portions of it as articles for the magazine. That would give me an audience and deadlines to keep my writing in motion.

This September, my wife came home from a class at the library on blogging. She said, "this sounds like something you would enjoy." I thought, "what a great way to get my thoughts down on a regular basis!" I realized that in just a few months I could have enough text for a good editor to shape into a book.

Two weeks ago, I contacted a literary agent who has asked for the following: A chapter of the book, and a synopsis. Armed with those two things and this blog, she will help me find the publisher I'll need to take this message to the streets. The 7 or 8 articles I've written for woodworking magazines and educational journals will serve in lieu of chapters. John Kelsey, founding editor of Fine Woodworking has expressed willingness to be editor. John Lavine is gathering the articles I've published with Woodwork as .pdf files and those will be provided as supplemental material.

The synopsis will be something you can help me with over the next few days. This will be a rather unique opportunity. I want the synopsis to be no more than 4 pages, providing an outline of the important but neglected role of the hands in learning. Tomorrow, I will begin presenting the rough outline in the pages of this blog. Feel free to contact me with your suggestions. Tomorrow, come hell or high water, the synopsis begins.

I mentioned that I spent the weekend at University of Texas, Dallas with my daughter Lucy. At the finalist weekend for potential McDermott Scholars, I met a few of the brightest students in America and spent time with some of their parents. For some, this is a time of monumental stress. It's the time of year in which high school seniors are getting the word...notices from universities whether they are in or out, but with little or no conveyance of understanding why. There is vast potential for disappointment and heartache, both for the children and their parents. It is important for most of us to bring things into perspective, and it would be best to understand the process before disappointment sets in.

One of the schools in the Midwest had 22,000 applicants for 1500 openings for incoming freshmen. The application process for many universities is more like booking the seats in a jetliner than what our loftier imaginations would allow.

In pricing of tickets, the airlines know that they can sell this many tickets at this price, that many at that price, and they know that at the last minute, there will be plenty of travelers left in the marketplace to fill those last few seats at full fare. It helps if you realize that at many colleges and universities, scholarships are like discounts. As in any business, understanding the customers and the dynamics of pricing, is an important element in continued success.

There are differences between booking a flight, and attempting to enter a prestigious American university. At the university, you can be ejected in mid flight. If your circumstances change, your fare may change also. In regards to need-based financial aid, you have to provide irrefutable evidence of what you can afford. Just imagine having to share your most vital financial information with an airline before being quoted your best price.

To all those waiting with their children for the news, hold fast. At times it may feel like the airport shuttle in the Dallas/Ft.Worth Airport. Don't let the process jerk you off your feet. You will need a grip on the rail. Please rest assured that there will be those who will recognize your son's or daughter's incredible qualities and assist in the flight.

Free books anyone? Over the past couple years, after my first article on Educational Sloyd, I have received a number of emails from interested readers wondering how to get their hands on books about Sloyd. There have been a limited number of old books available, and once articles had been published about Sloyd, the number of volumes dried up. Lately three books have been made available by Google for free download, and these should help with the lack of general sloyd reading material for interested parties. B.B. Hoffman's Book, The Sloyd System of Woodworking is a classic, containing writings by Otto Salomon and the Eva Rohdes Model Series. Sloyd or Educational Manual Training by Everett Schwartz and Scientific Sloyd by Anna Molander are two books that I haven't seen before that I have downloaded for my library. Have Fun!

John Grossbohlin sent me the photo at left, which shows the kind of planer my post the other day described. The vertical shaft has a disc with cutters attached that rotate in the same plane as the surface of the lumber while the boards pass underneath. Interestingly, Craftsman Tools (Sears) used to sell a "safety planer" which mounted in a drill press and worked (though not well) on the same principle.

My daughter Lucy is a finalist in the McDermott Scholars Program at UT Dallas, so we are in Dallas for the finalist weekend at which she was interviewed today for possible selection for this special program. Tonight all the finalists and their parents went to the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. I need to tell about this because I'm usually talking about woodworking, and the wisdom of the hands is actually much more.

We listened to performances of Poulenc's Concerto in G minor for Organ, Strings and Timpani, then to a special performance of Edgar Meyer's Concerto No. 2 for Double Bass and Orchestra, with Edgar Meyer performing. These were followed after intermission by Rossini's Overture to Semiramide, and Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 4 in A major, Op. 90 ("Italian")

Was it hearing the music that made the difference, or the use of the hands in playing the music? It would take more extensive research to prove one way or the other, but there is research that indicates that the playing of instrumental music has significant impact on the learning of math. I strongly suspect that both have effect, the music and the hands that play it. The book describing the research can be found for download at The Arts Education Partnership Website. "Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Social and Academic Development," was sponsored by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the United States Department of Education and was written by James Catterall, Karen Bradley, Larry Scripp, Terry Baker and Rob Horowitz. It is truly astounding how rarely the United States Government is able to take its own advice. It is a clear case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing.

Support for the arts, including symphony orchestras, has significant impact on the lifting of basic intelligence in America. Listening is wonderful, as I can assure you after a wonderful night at an incredible performance. Greatest and most wonderful, however is for young people to have the opportunity to play. It is wisdom of the hands.

The following appeared previously in Woodwork, No.80, August 2005
The Sloyd Knife. by Doug Stowe

A blind man stands at the rear of an elephant and while holding the tail proclaims, “The elephant is a rope!” It is ironic that the simple Sloyd knife, one of “half a hundred tools” used in Sloyd training came to be its strongest symbol; the very slender tail of a complex educational system. In fact the use of the knife was controversial even before the dawn of the 20th century and the knife we associate with Sloyd today is not even the one most recommended by its founder.

S. Barter, in Woodwork, The English Sloyd (MACMILLAN & CO. 1892) disparaged the knife in explaining the differences between the course of study in England and its Swedish origins. “ One of the most important tools used in the Slöjd course, and certainly the most unique is the Slöjd knife. The advantages of this knife are not clearly brought out, though the importance of it is so strongly insisted upon; and moreover, it has been found that in this country that all work done with the knife can be more efficiently performed with a chisel. Under these circumstances, there seems to be no adequate reason for adopting an ‘unfamiliar’ knife in preference to a tool which is in such common use by all classes of workmen.”

In the United States, Gustaf Larsson at the Sloyd Training School in Boston observed: (Elementary Sloyd and Whittling, SILVER, BURDETT AND COMPANY 1906) “As a general rule, children under twelve years of age have not sufficient strength or control of the hand to use the knife correctly. Whittling is recommended only when it is not possible to have the Elementary Sloyd, which requires a special room fitted up with benches and a variety of tools. Such an outfit is more effective educationally, but economically it is more expensive. Whittling can be done in the regular schoolroom by the regular teacher and with a comparatively inexpensive outfit.”

I had my own experiences with children and knives long before I learned about Sloyd. As a parent at the Clear Spring School, I went several times on the annual school camp-outs. To the surprise of many young parents, children are encouraged to bring pocketknives (with locking blades) and are taught whittling. The teachers keep the knives until there is a safe time for the students to carve with instruction and careful supervision. It is a primal experience to sit at a campfire as boys and girls with freshly sharpened sticks heat-harden their points as our distant ancestors might have hardened their spears.

Despite the reluctance of many practitioners of Sloyd to teach use of the knife, my experience with the young whittlers tells me a great deal about what Otto Salomon had in mind. Educational Sloyd, in its planned progression from the known to the unknown begins with and builds upon the interests and experience of the child. Looking back even farther in my own life I can remember my own first interest in knives. Being allowed to have one and use one was a symbol of parental trust and growing maturity.

According to Otto Salomon in The Theory of Educational Sloyd, “Every boy has many times, in a more or less elegant way, cut a stick with a knife, and is therefore more or less acquainted with the earliest exercises. We begin, then, with the instruments and exercises best known to the child, in order that our method of procedure may be as educational as possible.”

The use of the knife as proposed by Salomon offers insight into Sloyd’s foundation in educational theory. The English word education comes from the Latin root educe, which means to draw forth. While education in today’s world often seems bent on pushing knowledge in, regardless of the interests of the child, Sloyd reminds us that much can be drawn forth from the child by engaging the child’s innate interests and potentials.

I recently found a Sloyd book for sale on the Internet. In the ad were the seller’s words,

“As if we could trust kids with tools, now.”

And the great shame of it is we don’t. We don’t trust them and we don’t teach them the creative and responsible use of tools. We stand at the shoulders of the great beast of American education, blind to our children’s natural inclinations, and too often we fail to engage their interests or unleash their full potential. Fortunately, the problem is one that can be fixed with pocketknives and other sharp tools with guidance by parents, grandparents, and teachers. Just think of it! Children spending time in the woodshop!

There are some great organizations that might further your interest in the wisdom of your own hands.

The Early American Industries Association is an organization founded in 1933 whose purpose is: "to encourage the study and better understanding of early American industries in the home, in the shop, on the farm, and on the sea; also to discover, identify, classify, preserve and exhibit obsolete tools, implements, and mechanical devices which were used in early America." As part of membership, you receive an interesting periodical called, The Chronicle which features articles written by members on early tools and processes. They also publish books on occasion, and one to get you acquainted is called Selections from the Chronicle-The Fascinating World of Early Tools, Trades and Technology

Another organization that supports the role of the hands in learning and education and adopted the Hands in Education resolution is the Society of American Period Furniture Makers. My Sloyd brother Joe Barry writes articles for their Journal.

A third organization that is involved in activities very much related to the Wisdom of the Hands and has adopted the Hands in Education Resolution is the American Association of Woodturners

A fourth organization is one of which I am currently president, The National Association of Home Workshop Writers

You may not feel inclined to join all these organizations, but all are engaged in promoting a better understanding of the essential role of our hands in both maintaining our culture and finding greater meaning in our own lives. We find strength and encouragement in numbers and through association with those working toward similar goals. Saddle up, join up, hitch yourself as part of a team.

By learning hand skills... "... they will become qualified to decide between what is good and what is bad work, and thus avoid the misfortunes which befall the ignorant and credulous through the impositions of knaves."

This quote from Otto Salomon is one that I love because it describes what happens in museums when curators know more about the classification, left brain aspects of their work than of the actual making of things. We are watching a dramatic intrusion of fantasy into the understanding of how things were traditionally done, due to the current lack of hand skills and practical experience in the general populace.

One example is the understanding of the original use of half-models in boat building which was the subject of an article I wrote for Woodwork Magazine, No. 90, December 2004 called "Making Sculpture from the Half Model". Another example was when a friend of mine invited me to stop in his antique store to examine a chair made in the "17th Century".

I picked it up to look at the inside of the seat stretcher, and noticed huge spots of rotary planer tear-out. Now if you know anything about woodworking, you would know that they didn't have power planers in the 17th century, and if it were planed by hand, there is no way that a hand plane and operator, or even a large plane pulled by a horse (they did that, too) would apply enough force to remove such large chunks. You would never plane against the grain... you would know better. When the plane meets any level of excessive resistance, you turn the wood around and plane from the other direction.

"The planing machine was one of the many wood-working devices invented by General Bentham. His first machine, patented in England in 1791, was a reciprocating machine, that is, it worked back and forth on the boards to be planed. But in 1793 he patented the rotary form, along with a great variety of other wood-working machinery.

Bramah's planer, patented in England in 1802, was about the first planing machine of the Nineteenth Century. It is known as a transverse planer, the cutters being on the lower surface of a horizontal disc, which is fixed to a vertical revolving shaft, and overhangs the board passing beneath it, the cutters revolving in a plane parallel with the upper surface of the board. The plan­ing machine of Muis, of Glasgow, patented in 1827, was designed for making boards for flooring, and presented a considerable advance in the art."

There were a couple very important things I learned about myself in College. One was that I love learning, but have little interest in being taught in a formalized, artificial structure. The second was the necessity for me of working with my hands. I was so depressed by the experience of school that I nearly dropped out. I was smart enough for it, but there was little in it that engaged my interest or enthusiasm, until I decided to take a pottery class. It was that class, the threat of the draft, and the fear of disappointing my parents that kept me in school my senior year and through to graduation.

I was reminded of my own experience the other day when I was listening to part of a series on National Public Radio about college education. They interviewed a young man who told of his mother's expectations that he become a doctor because his uncles were engineers and other professionals. The young man said, "But I want to work on cars."

Otto Salomon, in The Theory of Educational Sloyd, 1907, quotes M. Jules Ferry, in opening a School for Manual Training in France in 1883:

"In order that the nobility of hand-work may be acknowledged, not only by those who engage in it, but by the whole community, we have chosen the surest and the only practical means: we have introduced it into the school. Do you not think that when the plane and file have taken a place of honour by the side of maps and histories, and handwork is taught in a rational and systematic manner, that many old prejudices will die out, and the traditional division into castes will disappear?"

A mother who wants the best for her child is not at fault in having aspirations regarding his or her education, but a society is deeply at fault for limiting the allocation of dignity, respect, and economic resources based on an academic divide. And schools are deeply at fault for failing to provide for the education of the hands and heart.

On the qualities of failure... Two years ago when the Rogers, Arkansas superintendent of schools made his beginning of the school year remarks to returning teachers, he said that they essentially failed every student who did not go on to a 4 year college degree. I wasn't there to hear his speech, so I may have missed some subtle nuance of his intention, but if you look around you will discover that we have become obsessed with college education to the point that students are thrust into life on their own with huge debts while their parents spend years trying to recover.

A couple of years ago, furniture design programs were attacked in the media because they didn't provide their graduates with all the knowledge required to compete in the furniture design world. I graduated with my degree in Political Science, and it is odd that no one ever raised the issue of colleges preparing political scientists with what they will need to compete, or even what we could possibly do with our degrees upon graduation.

(We can see clearly that graduation from Yale offers no special qualifications, except to position oneself for magnification of one's personal failures to global proportions.)

I would like to sit the superintendent of Roger's schools down for one moment and discuss real failure. If we have failed to offer our children the opportunity to discover the joy of learning through the hands, we have indeed failed. If we fail to offer our children a full insight into their potentials, both of hand and heart and of intellect, then we have failed severely and miserably. If we have failed to instruct them in the dignity of all labor, then we have failed our society for many years to come. There are many wonderful human beings that don't need a college degree to discover their own best potentials, joy of service and fulfillment in life. Neither he nor his teaching staff should be held to task for their "failure" to push these children into college. His true failure is that of closing doors of opportunity for the thousands of his children who do not have the opportunity to experience the wisdom of their hands.

I know you've seen enough pinwheels on this blog, but have you seen enough fun today? This is the first day of my spring break, so there will be few pictures of students at work for a few days.

The photo at left is of Johan with his finished platter.

Immediately after my college graduation, I felt like hanging out for a time in my college town of Hastings, Nebraska. I took a job at a manufacturing plant, operating a punch press. It was a way to make a little money and see a bit of the life I had hopefully avoided by getting my college degree. Besides, like most of the students graduating from college that year, I still didn't have a clue what I wanted to do with my life.

Operating a punch press was almost interesting work for the two weeks I was there. There was a mindlessness to it. Once you got your hands into the rhythm: picking up a piece of steel, placing it generally in the right spot on the machine, and then stepping on a pedal to set the huge cast iron wheels into motion, you could zone out in some degree of idle fantasy. A small device would sweep in front of your hands to keep them from being smashed when the die came down onto its mating piece on the table of the huge tool, in case your mind was to wander too far to keep your hands safe.

When I took time to look up from the operation, the room was full of similar machines, each with an operator whose hands swept in and out placing or removing parts and whose feet kept a steady rhythm, stomping pedals and setting the wheels in motion. Each machine added significantly to the noise level in the room. I felt that I was a small part in something larger that had not been explained to me and that I couldn't fully understand, but that was all about time and money.

This was the nature of unskilled labor in America. Each person in the plant was an extension of the machine which was an extension of the brains and planning of engineering and management.

I was a shy young college man at the time, mixing at lunch with blue collar. At lunch time, sitting on stools and eating sandwiches, I listened to the conversations, about quitting time, retirement and resentment. I had found myself in the company of men who had little interest in their work. One had noticed me working efficiently and quickly and noted that I should slow down. "Some would resent things if I made them look bad," he said. There was no sense of higher purpose or involvement. After about 2 weeks, I was ready to turn in my resignation and draw my pay. It was that day that an efficiency expert came by to watch me at my work. He stood over my shoulder and timed my motions. After standing there for a few minutes, he said, "You are really working fast. I wish everyone here would work like you." "Give them a good reason," I replied. "Today is my last day."

There is a difference between being unskilled labor, trading time for money, and being a skilled craftsman and learning new things each day. I am grateful for that difference and the opportunity to learn. But as Otto Salomon suggested, anyone willing to make a contribution to the betterment of our conditions, whether skilled or unskilled, deserves the respect of all.

From Otto Salomon's Theory of Educational Sloyd 1907

As corporal labour has generally been performed by those who lacked culture, it came to be regarded as something in which cultured persons should not engage. From a social point of view, if we would get rid of the antagonism between different classes of the community, and bring about a good understanding between them, it is absolutely necessary that each should respect and appreciate the work of the other; and that everybody alike should understand that all work, mental or manual, gives dignity to all who engage intelligently and properly therein. All work, rightly so called, is good, honourable, and valuable... It is necessary for all classes rightly to appreciate manual labour, whether they make their living by it or not...

They may think it more difficult to solve a mathematical problem than to make a table. It is not an easy thing to make a parcel-pin or a pen-holder with accuracy, and when students have done these things they will be better able to estimate comparatively the difficulty of making a table or chair; and what perhaps is of still greater importance, they will become qualified to decide between what is good and what is bad work, and thus avoid the misfortunes which befall the ignorant and credulous through the impositions of knaves.

It is interesting what happens when we fail to engage the hands in learning. Craftsmanship and quality of work is no longer considered important in the development of art, which is now only for the intellect and not for the soul. We live in a world in which manual labor is deprived of the respect it deserves, and those who stand tall and proud while perched on the thickness of their diplomas are left feeling incompetent when faced with a material world in which things break, wear out, or quit.

Finding a balance... this morning I have the 3rd and 4th grade students in the woodshop to do paper sloyd, and then the 1st and 2nd grade students to make abacuses (I'm not sure what the plural form should be.) There is a balance there. One project is easy for me. I get out the supplies and the students pick up where they left off last week. The second project is more demanding. To prepare for this class we made over 400 wooden beads to fit on about 40 wooden dowels. Add to that the pre-milling of 24 parts and precise drilling of 80 holes and you get the idea. Some things require skill and time in preparation, and some things just take time that can be more relaxed and leave you feeling under less pressure. The secret is in the balance. We need to feel the stimulation of demanding work under pressure, and we need the times to go ahhhh.

In my work as a craftsman, it is the same. While the making of small boxes seems like it would be an intense operation, I have actually done it so many times, and worked out the processes to such a point of refinement, that to spend a week making boxes is like taking a week off from my more demanding work. The balance comes in my making of custom furniture. I make things that I've never made before, engineering each piece which often involves learning new skills and developing new approaches to get the look I and my customer want. And then there is the money end of things. I know how long it takes to make a box and how much I can get paid for one. I've been making and selling similar boxes for 30 years. When I make a piece of furniture, it is extremely unlikely that I've made anything much like it in the last 20 years. It is hard to estimate costs and actually come out without losing money.

There are important things to be found in the balance. Human labor in the natural world has always been within a range from highly skilled and demanding, balanced with times and labors less demanding and requiring less skill and attention.

Something very tragic happened to work when manufacturing divided labor into skilled and unskilled. The long, long hours of repetitive, mind, heart and hand numbing work gave manual labor a bad name, stripped it of its dignity, and similtaneously, stripped those lucky enough to fall into the upper classes of the motivation to engage in the discovery of the full range of their human potential.

I hope to talk more about this ...but for the moment, it is off to school.

Last year about this time, I taught a class of "Practical Philosophy" Students in a course on making Shaker tables. The idea was somewhat different from the classes I usually teach to adults, where the objective is to teach specific techniques.

The course for Practical Philosophers was planned to give a hands-on component to work in meditation. While the making of 16 shaker tables, one each for the students in the class, provided the structure and plan for the class, its real intent, consciously shared by all was for students to use their hands to engage "the working surface." It is interesting that as one masters a skill, the mind is liberated to wander while the hands move unconsciously through the motions they have been programmed to perform. It is not surprising that the hands are nearly forgotten in education. It is the way they work in seamless harmony with thought.

Most people these days, have developed skills allowing the brain to process thoughts into words and words into sentences and sentences onto the computer screen with little thought to the fingers moving on the keyboard. Keyboards, and the keys themselves are designed to offer little resistance or little sensory response that would interfere with the process.

It is common for human beings to look for work that can be done in an unconscious state, allowing our minds to wander through endless cycles of circling thoughts, often bordering on neurosis.

So, what if the hands were more consciously engaged, to feel the surface of the wood and its transformation without being pushed aside into subconsciousness and refusing the mind its typical wander? Have you heard the mantra from Ram Dass, "Be here now, Now be here?" What if the hands were used as tools in meditation to keep the thoughts and consciousness in the present moment?

It is what craftsmen do. Some once in awhile, some all the time. We push ourselves to learn and master new techniques requiring that the totality of our attention be placed squarely on the task at "hand." It is called growth. It keeps the body and spirit in the moment, allowing for the full blown dimensions of life to swell within the heart, and the spirit to take wing.

It was extremely interesting to hear from the students what they learned and what they discovered about themselves. The photo above is of students sanding and assembling their tables.

Clear Spring School junior, Johan is turning a platter on the lathe. It is abut 12 inches in diameter and he has turned it down to a uniform 3/16" thick. It is held on the lathe using a Super Nova Chuck that locks in a recess on the underside. Tomorrow comes sanding and finish.

Fellow woodworking teacher, Paul Ruhlman of Buckingham, Browne and Nichols School in Cambridge, MA made mention in an email of Pulitzer Prize winner, E.O.Wilson and his concept "biophilia".

"Paraphrasing Wilson’s work, Biophilia is the innate need to connect and affiliate with the natural living world. Deep within us, we as woodworkers and furniture makers feel an affinity with this beautiful living material, wood. For tens of thousands of years trees have made up an integral component of our lives. Living with trees and working with the wood they provide, allows us to maintain the bonds to our arboreal past."

Following Paul's lead I became interested in E.O. Wilson and biophilia and found the following article that you might enjoy. Of Ants and Earth. from Harvard Magazine. Edward O. Wilson is a powerful voice for environmental conservation, and what Paul has brought up is the woodworker's direct role in it. By sharing the beauty we find in wood, we awaken others to that beauty, and perhaps even love. By bringing people to love, we may also encourage them to protect and preserve.

Another bit of reading of late concerns the 10,000 year old ice man found in 1991, frozen in a glacier in the Alps. In his posession were objects made from 18 individual species of wood, suggesting intimate personal knowledge of the forest and the best specific application of the materials that came from it.

There are some who question Wilson's biophilia concept. They ask how we can come to love that which is distinct from our own kind. My own question is how can we love that to which we have never been exposed? Is biophilia inate even for those who have never engaged in exploration of the outdoors? Many children don't play outdoors anymore unless it is a supervised activity. How do you become engaged in the study of ants like E.O. Wilson, without being left loose and unattended as a child to make your first discoveries?

Our survival is closely linked to our interest and engagement in the natural world. It always has been. Once, in the age of the age of the iceman, personal survival required it. In this age, survival of our culture depends on it. The survival of species barely know to us depend on it. Woodworking is a doorway to greater understanding, opening our attentions to the details of greater life and our involvement in it. It is our choice. With the natural world, we either love it or lose it. If we lose it we have lost the most important part of ourselves.

Decisions, decisions, simple decisions...The use of wood to connect people with the natural environment is something that I started in my work in 1976. I make inlay from a variety of Arkansas hardwoods and use the inlay in the lids of boxes. With each piece I include a product card explaining the beauty and value of our native woods. When I sign a piece, the signature includes identification of the species used, so it that informs, educates and helps the owner to know and recognize the various native species and understand their value and diversity.

I thought that was a good thing I was doing for the environment. I didn't realize when I started that it was also a good thing for my career. After a period of time, because my work reflected the natural beauty of my home state, Arkansas officials started using it as gifts and promotional items. The last 3 governors of Arkansas used my boxes as international gifts of state and one of those governors became president.

As an illustration of how things work, I'll share the following:

One day I got a call from Barbara Harvel at the Arkansas Commission for Quality Excellence about designing the Governor's Award for Quality. She had gotten my name from the Arkansas Economic Development Commission which had sent a large order of my work to Japan as part of an event to encourage trade. When she asked me about the kinds of work I did, I mentioned my small boxes. She looked down and realized she had one, right on her desk. It clinched the deal. I was selected to design the award and have made the award bases for the Governor's award now for about 8 years.

Her husband, Paul, who had given her the box was the director of the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce and had frequently purchased my small boxes as gifts. We became good friends. When the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce decided to build a new office over-looking the Arkansas River in downtown Little Rock, the chamber director commissioned me to do the furnishings for his office.

These are things that happened for me, due to my simple decision of using my work to promote the beauty and value of our native woods. Of course, telling the story of the woods in poor and uncaring craftsmanship wouldn't have conveyed the full understanding of their value, so I also had to put attention into the development of skill. I can't offer assurances that things would work in the same manner for others, but my personal choice to use and promote the woods of Arkansas was the most important simple decision I've made as a craftsman. Also, instead of having questions about my own impact on the world's forests, I can look out every day and see the woods growing to replace what I use.

Sometimes a very small decision can make all the difference.

Save the planet, make art. It is my new project, campaign, social/environmental movement. Of course the planet isn't really endangered. After we have ruined it for human life, it will still be whirling around the sun, and rodents will survive. I know that because we have a mouse in our attic that I've been trying to trap for weeks.

The idea of my new movement is to have a planet that is hospitable to mankind, one that has polar ice caps, glaciers in Greenland, cities in place where they are currently located, and agricultural regions instead of deserts across the vast plains of the United States.

We can stop global warming, protect the planet's resources and it involves the arts. (though I'm not holding my breath.)

It seems that when human beings have the essentials in place, a steady, secure food supply, shelter and protection from danger, they start strutting their stuff to gain the notice of others. It fulfills a secondary need. We all need acknowledgement. We all need to see evidence of our reality. It provides a sense of psychic security that is almost as essential as food itself.

You can see the extreme lengths to which we go. We spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, or in some cases millions to live in the right neighborhoods. We might choose to drive a Hummer when a Civic would take us to the same destination safely and at less cost. If you begin measuring the time and expense applied to maintain an outward display of persona having no purpose greater than that of shameless flaunting to gain the attention of others, you can begin to measure the impact of the unnecessary environmental degradation we impose on the earth. Here in the U.S. our shameful consumption of the earth's resources seems to go unnoticed, but do you think it goes unnoticed by the rest of the world? If we could see ourselves from other eyes, we would feel ashamed.

Here in Northwest Arkansas, the home of Walmart, Tyson's and a number of other global companies, the MacMansions are popping up like mushrooms in spring. And yet, from the eyes of the artist, one can see the emptiness that incites such extreme hunger for attention.

So, what does this have to do with the arts? A simple thing happens when one engages in the making of things from simple raw materials... Instead of being dependent on notice by others for a sense of well-being, we find validation and security in the movement of our own hands. We find success in the creation of objects that can be shared with others.

It is a very simple concept. By placing one's attention on this moment, and fully engaging heart and soul in the process of making art, one finds fulfillment greater than what can be found in the hollow, selfish, flaunting of material wealth. If one is dependent on outside validation, there is no validation great enough to fill the emptiness within. Those dependent on that course move to larger homes, bigger cars, the endless chain of newer meaningless objects and it will never be enough.

On the other hand... (I like using this phrase.)

Those who shape the reality of their own world through the creative power of their own hands, have the opportunity to engage in endless growth, and continuous revelation of their own creative power. So, is it an environmental movement? or is it art? It is the real meaning of think globally, act locally. You make art for your own spirit and the world keeps spinning unchanged.

The photo below: a new home in Northwest Arkansas being sold under the come-on, "your castle awaits." It is one 29 from one realtor priced at over $750,000. When you have grown weary of this one, there are larger environmental disasters to choose from.

Today, Joe Barry offered the following observation/question:

...a lot of people re-assessed their lives after 9/11. You may have seen the same influx into your rural area after a number of people left the city and the corporate rat race. Oddly enough, there was no influx into the crafts of those people. I guess the Vietnam war along with the counter cultural movement of the 60's is what sent so many of us looking for meaning in what we do. I wonder what it would take to swing our society away from all the cheaply made Chinese Walmart junk to a Swedish aesthetic of only buying well made and long lasting goods?

I can't say we had many come to our community specifically as a result of 9/11. Land and home prices are significantly lower in the Ozarks than in California or the east coast, and the internet is allowing some corporate people to work at home... virtually anywhere. They've been moving here for years, but they aren't artists or makers. They just want to be some place pretty where there is less crime and better lifestyle. The internet has allowed them to bring their work along on the move.

They're doing what I would have done if I had moved to the mountains with money, but in my move to the Ozarks, I had to make a living. I actually moved here knowing I wanted to work with wood, but as they say in Zen, "Poverty is your greatest treasure, never trade it for an easy life." I had to be a craftsman or wait tables, and making things was my preference. It also captivated me. To see an object created from start to finish in my own hands and from my own imagination was a powerful incentive to keep going. But without poverty to drive my effort and productivity, I doubt whether I would have found any success.

I remember having cousins visit from out east, and I could see that they were clearly shocked by my living standards and conditions. They were relative high-rollers at the edge of the computer boom, and they looked at my life as a self-employed craftsman as something either from Mars or the 17th century. But they could see I was following a dream and never expressed anything but admiration and respect. At the time, I lived alone in a one room basement apartment with the woodshop in the one car attached garage. The open flame gas heat made the apartment a torture chamber for finished work, allowing me to quickly learn the nature of the materials, its expansion and contraction from changes in humidity.

That Zen saying explains a lot. We can be lazy. We have to run for awhile before the endorphins kick in and we find pleasure in the run. We have to be driven by hunger and made hungry by failure before we find the motivation to succeed. We live in a time in which parents attempt to shelter their children from the disappointment opportunities they need most. So, your question, about how to swing us away from cheap stuff? A bit of voluntary poverty might help, and a better understanding of the real needs of our children.

I have a couple zen-like sayings of my own making, just to keep me rolling through hard times.
Confusion is the source of subsequent enlightenment.
When what you make and what you spend are exactly the same, you are in harmony with the universe.

I couldn't resist sharing one more view of Leon's basket. Since you can't hold it, you might as well get a close-up view. What you see is a section about 1 1/2 inches wide x 2 1/2 inches high.

At one point the term "art" referred only to those things traditionally used for the adornment of churches and cathedrals. So today, when people talk about "fine arts," they are generally talking about painting, sculpture and architecture. The rest need not apply, despite the quality of the work or its artistic vision. Whether it is wood or clay, or basketry by Leon Niehues shown in the photo at left, it seems the proper term is "craft."

Last night as my wife sat on the couch reading the local paper, I picked up Leon's basket, feeling compelled to hold it and feel the intensity of attention that went into its making. While paintings may be best viewed at a distance, a finely crafted object like the basket presents an invitation to closer scrutiny. It must be held to discover its essential qualities. In holding the object one cannot escape the more personal connection with its maker and his or her intent.

There is a difference between what is called "art" or "artistry" and what we might call "craft" or "craftsmanship." While "art" is considered the higher term, the fact of the matter is often reversed. While art is often engaged in concept, egotism and pretense, craft is often where the higher dimensions of human intentions and aspirations unfold.

I can give you a couple examples.

On my 50th birthday, I went to the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City. It is a long drive, from Eureka Springs but I wanted to spend a special day with some of my favorite objects in the Museum. On display that month was a collection of very large wooden sculpted bird nest like objects, nailed together from common building material. As museums often do, there was a video playing, showing the artist at work, using a large gouge to "sculpt" the wood. As a craftsman, and being well versed in the processes of shaping wood, I went over to the real work to look for the markings from that tool. Guess what? The video was just for show--an effort to suggest integrity in work for which there was no excuse. I went from piece to piece and never found the markings of the gouge on any piece in the exhibit. There were the markings of grinders, skill saws, and recipro saws.--all marks of expedience. The work had all been done with coarse tools, quickly, carelessly and without regard for craftsmanship. Of course, being the only craftsman in sight, I was probably the only one to know. I felt like the child viewing the emperor in his new clothes.

More recently, I attended a sculpture exhibit and was awed by the craftsmanship present in a large marble carving. But the piece that won the competition was a piece that occurred by accident when a kiln shelf collapsed in a potter's kiln, congealing pots, old glazes, kiln shelf supports and broken slabs of kiln shelf in an interesting and colorful mass. It is important to find beauty in the surprise occurances; the serendipity of the creative process. It is even important to salvage what we can of our failures and laspses of attention. Both the artist and the judge found beauty and merit in that work. But to elevate the random happenstance of beauty over the conscious intent of well crafted work explains a lot about the state of the arts in America. Form and pretense are valued over substance and integrity hands down.

It is important that our culture recognize and reward attention to detail, caring craftsmanship and the personal integrity that one finds when heart, soul, intellect are equally engaged through the work of the hands. I wish you could hold the basket in the image above. There is no better way to engage with the essential qualities of an object that to hold it in your own hands.