quality school...

My wife and I have been undergoing a voluntary kitchen remodel over the last few months. It all started with planning, visits with architects, an engineer, and a kitchen designer. Six weeks ago the very serious work began with demolition of our existing kitchen while we were waiting for the kitchen cabinets to arrive, and as we were making necessary adjustments to plumbing and electrical.

We've been preparing meals in my office with a hotplate, toaster oven and crockpot, and doing dishes in the bathroom sink. So none of this has been easy.

This last week was a hard one, as we narrowed down choices of backsplash, and contended with a kitchen counter top that had the sink hole cut in the wrong place, and had to be redone.

This has been frustrating to me. As a craftsman, I attempt to uphold certain standards in my own work, and as a consumer of craftsmanship performed by others, I have been alerted to the amount of difficulty and cost that would be avoided if people paid greater attention to what they did, and if they were to have greater interest in craftsmanship as a way of life in pursuit of intrinsic values. I am not writing to place blame on those craftsmen with whom we have dealt. Our local electrician and local carpenter and local painters and plumber in our own small community have been great. But assumption in the world at the moment is that if the customer doesn't notice, then all things are great.

As a more egregious example, the installers came to put our new counter top in place. Without measuring, the installer took the stainless steel sink, traced around it and began cutting the sink base for it to fit.  Out of curiosity I walked outside with my tape measure and checked the distance from the sink hole cut in the counter top to the end where it would fit the wall, and determined that the sink would not fit without a near complete destruction of the sink base.  I stopped the installer, and asked, "don't you think you should measure before you cut?" And so after measuring, and checking and rechecking and calls to the fabrication plant, and the boss, we determined that the whole thing had to be done again. I was left with the notion that had I not interfered, the whole sink base would have been destroyed before the mistake was noticed and had I not been home, the counter top, would have been installed whether it was rightly done or not. There is a hurry and an impatience about how things are done, and there is a great need in the world at large for education in the application of mind that would lead to an overall honing of craftsmanship and its application. The cost of incompetence is enormous.

Earlier, when the cabinet installers were finishing their work, they asked us to go through and write a list of things that needed to be fixed. A person trained in craftsmanship, and experienced in the intrinsic rewards of craftsmanship and the application of hand and mind would not need a list, and the standards for completion would not be so limited by a customer's often low standards.

But why should industry pay for what the customer is unlikely to notice and call out? And why should industry pay for a higher level of craftsmanship when most customers are ill equipped to serve immediately as quality inspectors and may feel awkward about doing so? There are intrinsic values in doing a job well, and when workers are not granted those rewards and are not trained to receive those rewards, costly mistakes happen, and employee turnover can be disastrous. Imagine a situation in which craftsmanship is continuously discovered by a client, instead of reminders of inattention and lack.

This overall problem is not confined to kitchen cabinet installation. A good friend is facing cancer treatment starting on Monday. And the depth of engagement and delivery of service by specialists of all kinds, including in the medical profession, is affected by the power to observe critically, to think outside the box, and to uphold the kinds of intrinsic standards that a person learns effectively through the exercise of craftsmanship. I hope and pray that my friend's life is in good hands.

Several years ago I was approached by the county in which I live, concerning a building they owned and grant funding that might be available to start a vocational training program. From their end, they were trying to get money from the state and federal government. From my end, I had to ask, "trained to do what?"

If the idea is simply to teach a few kids to hammer nails, and go from that into employment as carpenters, that might be a good thing. But best would be an intensive program that would give students the tools to reach for quality in their own workmanship, and to apply hand and mind in ways unfamiliar to them, and to seek the rewards of craftsmanship, that can actually be applied to all fields of endeavor.

So what would a quality school be like? First, it would have inspirational teachers, willing to uphold high standards of workmanship. Secondly, it would introduce students to the intrinsic rewards of meeting high standards. Third, it would sell the concept, that attainment of quality is its own reward.

The idea is that craftsmanship and the application of craftsmanship is transforming in that it enhances one's ability to observe and make decisions based on both intrinsic and extrinsic values. And that the values learned through craftsmanship are universal in that those very same values apply to all human endeavors.

Make, fix, create, and assist others in learning likewise.

community and craftsmanship...

I live at the edge of a small tourist town. Living here at the edge of Eureka Springs, pursuing my career here as a woodworker, and marrying my wife Jean, a public librarian, were the three best decisions I made in my life.

When I moved to Eureka Springs in 1975, it was a small town recently discovered by hippies. Those of us who gathered here found instant community with each other, and with a few older open-minded residents who saw our arrival as a good thing. That sense of community made Eureka a place worth proselytizing about. We were all excited about this place as though we'd discovered paradise. Some were just here to grow pot, but others were here to build lives outside the main direction of things as craftsmen, potters, painters, poets, writers, musicians, storekeepers, teachers and every possible niche one can think of when we think about small town life. Within that matrix of aspirations, we gave aid and comfort to each other. Many of us had grown up in cities where we'd been anonymous. In our midst and welcoming us were nationally known senior artists like Louis and Elsie Freund, Ely De Vescovi, and so many more who opened their homes and hearts to us. As they listened to our aspirations they offered to us a sense of our own personal credibility as though we fit here.

After first trying out as a potter in a town rich in potters, I found my own niche in making small wooden boxes, display cabinets for shops and galleries all up and down Spring Street (most of which can still be found in use today) and a bit of furniture for the homes of artists and friends. Woodworking is on my own personal list of best things because in it, I found the opportunity for life-long learning. Each day there was some new joint to cut, some new skill to master, and it was not just what I could learn in my head each day but in my hands as well. After having found myown place in the community, I called the meeting of artists on the shores of Lake Leatherwood that led to the forming of the Eureka Springs Guild of Artists and Craftspeople. Through along shaggy do story we later morphed that organization into the Eureka Springs School of the Arts. I'm telling you that not to brag, but just to point out that in a small community, one person can truly make a difference, and what we all found here was a small pond in which we could each join forces, offer our best and be encouraged to do so.

I will not attempt to describe what being married to a public librarian has meant for me. And so, rather than make a feeble attempt, let it be known that being in the heart of community, woven in, warp and weft, is a profound experience that too few in this day of upward, downward and cross-lateral mobility know enough about.

The creative work of one man is seldom the craftsmanship of one man alone, but is instead related to the community in which he lives, and the support he or she receives within that community, and the way forward that I am attempting to describe on the entry to the new year is of those things. Craftsmanship and community.

As I reflect back on those early times, my companions in the discovery of this community I see hearts beating on shirt sleeves. We were each filled with deep personal aspirations not having much to do with money, but rather with growth toward fulfillment in deeper things. We were lucky to find each other for support.

These days, I wonder how we can apply this example set by this small community in Arkansas to bring about a transformation in American life. I have this day and one more left in 2011 to spell it out. In your own life and as the best starting point wherever you find yourself:

Make, fix and create...

greeting the new year...

As we welcome the end of 2011 and greet with hope the arrival of 2012, which of course are only mental constructs in the first place, some will be making resolutions about what to do next and how to improve our lives. My apologies, first of for not being as clear and concise as I would like.

Yesterday I listened to an NPR radio program, Talk of the Nation, with interview guest Roy Baumeister, co-author of Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength. His suggestion with regard to New Year's resolutions was not to try to change everything at once, but rather to address one small thing at a time. The successful change of one small thing can have major impact on the sense of self and the growth of confidence to change other things. Baumeister suggested that even the effort to change one's posture could be enough to awaken latent will.

So here, as I address the change necessary to bring a new age of American Craftsmanship we will start simple things.

For instance, set up a regular pattern of interchange with others. Most Americans are strategic shoppers looking for the best deal. But if we did our shopping based on the simple objective of establishing relationships instead, we would find different results. If instead of focusing on the objective of getting the stuff as though the maker and source of supply did not matter, we were to look toward building the foundational relationships of local supply, the fabric of our communities would be dramatically changed.

First is that instead of rushing from place to place seeking the best deal, one would build relationships with those in the store of choice, and build relationships with other customers likely to be shopping at the same time. This idea is based on observation here in Eureka Springs, where there are just three places to shop for food, and each has its own niche. We have the farmers market, where we meet the actual producers of the food, we have the health food store, and we have Harts Grocery. Each is a social center, each offering opportunities for social engagement within the community. You can drive 20 minutes to Walmart, and you may meet one or two friends who are also there shopping for the best deal, but if you are shopping for meaningful relationships instead, you will find your truest bargains at our local stores, as you can see in the graph.

After living in this small town for as long as I have, it is near impossible to go to any of these three stores at any time of the day without a chance encounter with friends and conversations that assure deep roots in community. By understanding the need for community development as being greater than getting the best deal assures greater things.

If you live in a larger community than Eureka Springs, you will need to refine and narrow choices, whereas here in order to build community, we simply need to make the choice of not driving to Berryville. Of course there are other ways to build your community. For instance regularly attend your local public library, or join civic groups. These things are free.

Another key to being successful in either craftsmanship or the building of community is to wear your heart on your sleeve. Instead of being armed, let others know your kindness, your accessibility and availability, and your hopes and aspirations. They will often arise to enable your progress and be encouraged in their own.

The article for which I was interviewed in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette came out this morning and I will try to get a link through which it can be read. The point I hoped to make is that if we want craftsmanship we need community. As we develop skills, our communities may grow wider. At this point, my own community due to the sales of my products and publications, my teaching and this blog is rather wide, but it was not always so, and even now, it is the participation in local life, and local community that is most real and offers greatest depth. In order to create a society in which craftsmanship is encouraged and supported as a wide foundation, and to present the widest possible opportunity for our children we need the fabric of narrow deep community to do so.

My simple notion of change is built on the model of progressive education. Start with the interests of the child. The first community is that of the family, then the child is brought through gradual awakening to greater, wider things. Blog reader JD sent photos of his grandchildren in his workshop, showing the projects they had completed together. Such things are the foundation of our future.

Make, fix and create...

What we do next...

If you've been reading what I've been reading, you will know that manufacturing in America is not what it once was and will never become again what it once was. For a long time we had watched manufacturing shift overseas in search of cheaper unskilled labor, but as machine tools have become more capable and complex, and the human hands-on labor contribution to the value of the product has diminished, some manufacturing is returning to the US where the stable political and social environment offers greater safety for the investment required. But this manufacturing that is making its comeback takes far fewer workers than ever before. While in my own work as a craftsman, the labor component to the value of my work is approximately 70%, the labor component of more modern manufactured products is only 5-7%. That level of efficiency is a boon for investors, but not great when you think of providing meaningful employment opportunities within a diverse community.

And so, the question becomes, "What are we all to do?" Will just a few workers and a set of fast and accurate machines make everything while the bulk of society twiddles their thumbs, grows obese, mindless and lazy in front of the boob tube while being dependent on food stamps to survive? I think it is time to chart a better course. I refer to Jane Addams' 1902 quote from yesterday's post:

"The schools do so little really to interest the child in the life of production, or to excite his ambition in the line of industrial occupation, that the ideal of life, almost from the beginning, becomes not an absorbing interest in one's work and consciousness of its value and social relations but a desire for money with which unmeaning purchases may be made and an unmeaning social standing obtained."

I want to draw a distinction between the consumer society Addams predicted, and the culture of craftsmanship which had long been our human heritage. We can each surround ourselves with meaningless things made thoughtlessly and without human care, or we can adapt to a new and more meaningful age with roots sunk deep in a heritage of human creative craftsmanship. We get to choose.

When the industrial revolution hit Sweden, a nation of small towns, villages and farms, the traditional objects that the common folk made during the winters to add economic value to their lives were no longer of value in relation to the well-crafted objects made by machines and imported from Germany and the UK. People stopped making their handcrafted items for sale and exchange, and suffered a significant loss of self-esteem within their communities as a result. It seems the pride we feel in ourselves is closely linked to our capacity to create. And so leaders in Sweden and the other Scandinavian countries understood crafts in schools to be the path forward toward the restoration of human dignity.

There are things and will always be things that are best made by real folks. The challenge therefore is to find ways of helping all citizens find meaningful lives through the exercise of skill, and to lead them toward making choices in their acquisition of the objects that fill their lives that also fulfill their own aspirations for community and self.

David Katz in Israel, sent me a book called Working Knowledge Skill and Community in a Small Shop, by Douglas Harper. It is currently out of print but used copies can be found. It appears a gold mine on this subject. For instance as follows:

"The general transformation of technique in a society is part of an ever-widening split between the envisioning of a thing (engineering) and its production. With each stage of production the complexity of knowledge increases with the role of the single individual in relation to the overall task of engineering and production decreases. The result has been, as explained in many familiar analyses, the alienation of the worker--his or her separation from a sense of purpose, separation from self as well as community. This process of alienation can, from one perspective be summed up as the separation of the worker from the knowledge that once guided the work.

"The result of the ever-increasing division of labor, wrote Max Weber, is rationalization. Rationalization describes the process through which social organization becomes more systematized as the division of labor becomes more elaborate. Rationalization makes the worker an ever-smaller cog in an ever-larger social organization. Although the organization of a rationalized society is more efficient, the human experience becomes every more routinized... While all work is touched by rationalization, certain kinds of work are more easily made routine than others. Making for example, evolves to mass production, a fully rationalized system. Making the machines that guide and control the mass production (the work of the millwright), however, depends on the method and mind of the artisan, and thus it preserves that earlier method. Fixing in a general sense, extends a yet earlier mind and method, that of the original fashioner.

"Making and Fixing are eventually guided by different kinds of knowledge, making being dominated by the limited knowledge of the machine tender and fixing by the knowledge of the earlier mind that stood in the same relation. as its inventor to the technique."

Interesting stuff, and I am looking forward to the whole book. But there is an interesting and engaging path forward that will lead each man and woman toward more meaningful and prosperous lives in spite of our being overwhelmed with manufactured goods. Choose a path of artistry and craftsmanship and...

Make, fix and create...

It is best not to over romanticize manufacturing. In many cases, the plight of the workingman was intense and destructive of physical health. One of the places I visited in Sweden in 2006 was Olofsfors south of Umeå. Google Earth resolution there is very poor, but the location is: 63°34'53.77N, 19°26'39.51E

The building shown in the photo above housed the furnace. The blocks used in building the foundation were made of slag, a by-product of the making of iron. Today, a small adjacent building is the studio of a blacksmith who demonstrates his techniques, making tools and decorative objects and sells his work through a small gallery. Another building nearby holds a water powered hammer and anvil. To see it in operation is amazing. If you are lucky enough to be there for a demonstration be sure to wear ear plugs. The noise is deafening. Most of the men who worked there were deaf and disabled within just a few years. The water driven hammer is huge. The old school house in the community houses a museum, and gift store. The other buildings are used as studios by artists.

this day...

Hinge parts marked for sawing.

Today I have a reception for the Wisdom of the Hands program at the home of Jim and Susan Nelson in Eureka Springs. The purpose is two-fold. On the one hand, it is important for us to show the foundation that provides funding for my program that it has community support. On the other, it will offer the chance for me to explain the purpose of the program, and how the hands impact learning to people in our community. Clear Spring School and the Wisdom of the Hands program serve as a demonstration for the value of hands-on learning. It has become rather easy for me to talk in public about the Wisdom of the Hands, because I "talk" about this daily in the blog, and practice what I say when I have guests visiting the school.

Last night I watched as folks on TV tried to understand how a young and vigorous black man could have 3 vertebra crushed and his spinal cord nearly severed as he was carried around town in the back of a Baltimore Police van whose sole destination was the police station. The shame of it all is that when it comes to police and black youth in cities, black lives seem to not matter and this same set of tragic attitudes exists among some in cities throughout the US.

In Sweden and Finland in the midst of the industrial revolution, the proponents of educational Sloyd had recognized that craftsmanship was the foundation of community, and that to build strong human values required the application and development of human skill.

William Jennings Byran, a famous Christian demagogue had said, "Outside of the church are to be found the worthless; the criminal, and the degenerate, those who are a burden to society rather than an aid." I think that religion as a factor in the shaping of moral values is a myth. We can look at the long history of the church and its role in subjugation, slavery and destruction for clarification of its role in history. Instead we might say with greater accuracy, "Outside of skilled craftsmanship are to be found the worthless; the criminal, and the degenerate, those who are a burden to society rather than an aid." To that, I would add also that there are some outside the realm of craftsmanship who are rich and careless for the rest of humanity.

In this, I recognize that craftsmanship is not a term applied only to wood working and similar crafts. It describes a steady application and evolution of skill and artisanship toward societal good. Even lawyers, computer  programmers and poets can practice craftsmanship. The Swedes and Finns saw such value in craftsmanship that they founded schools to provide teacher training so that all students would discover their own value to family and community through craftsmanship. I visited one of those schools during my trip to Sweden in 2006 and you can learn about it by typing Nääs in the search block at upper left.

A small Scandinavian bent wood box.

I will be setting up for this evening's event, and rehearsing my remarks. In the wood shop, I've made a bit of progress on making wooden hinges for my new Scandinavian bent wood boxes, as you can see in the photos above.

Make, fix and create...

making days til Christmas...

They always talk about the number of shopping days remaining, and we have about a week. What they don't talk about is the number of making days, and we still have time. With tools you can make a beautiful box, or even several of them in a day. This is Saturday and you have one whole week left.

I will be working on small cabinets, hinging doors and applying finish. My wood shop is a wreck, so I will also be cleaning and getting things back in order so I can keep my head on straight.

Last night I saw a bit of the movie Wall Street, which my wife watched more attentively while I was coming and going and creating a spread sheet of a cutting list of cabinet parts. The movie was a no-brainer. We all know that greed has been oversold as the foundation of a healthy society. Our modern notion that greed is a VERY good thing started with Reagan. He wanted to strip society of the safety net, and leave every man standing alone on his own, and modern conservatives want the same thing. They have the notion that government is bad because it comes between man and his money. Those of us who partake respectfully of the services of libraries and take notice of the services provided by people in our communities see things from another angle.

There are things to be said about community. Last night we went to a free public performance in our City Auditorium, in which local musicians entertained simply for the joy of it. No greed in sight. As my wife and I looked around the concert hall, we saw hundreds of faces of people in our community who are known to us. At the Clear Spring School holiday program the night before, we looked around the room and saw hundreds of people known to us. Our beloved.

As we live in a time in which people are on the go, finding temporary anchors in connections that don't last, I would direct those who seek more than greed as their primary ambition to stay put for the holidays. Make a few small connections in your community, so that when you go out, you will know a few people. I have lived in Eureka Springs for 35 years now, and know the value of staying put and making lasting connections. You won't find research to prove my point, but since everything about life is an experiment, and there are no guaranteed results, you might want to give it a try and experiment by adding community to your own life. I'm not talking about adding friends on FaceBook.

One angle on life insists that it is all about the money. Another angle insists that it (meaning life) is all about friends. Some say it's all about friends with money, and you will know they are trying to fool themselves and are using one  in a misguided effort to get the other. In their ambivalence they are missing an important point. Money friends can buy are no friends.

Bernie Madoff's son committed suicide this last week. I pray that brought him some relief. I am sad for us all that some live with such despair. Much of it boils down to a simple choice about community. In which do we invest? The wrong investment can have lasting effects with the price being paid by generations. As my cousin Lawrence says, "even the worst of us can serve as a bad example." But then we would all hope to be so much more.

If you live in a wonderful community, make the best of it. If you live in no such place, build the community you need, by expressing friendship and generosity to ALL those real people you meet. Friends can get you through times of no money better than money can get you through times of no friends. Community is the most wonderful of human riches.

We've got one week before Christmas. Make, fix, create. Share with others this holiday season. If you are looking for a gift for a child that will last long after the batteries are dead and the bells and whistles of most gifts have become a bore, try Vaughan and Bushnell's Little Pro Hammer. Along with that gift, spend some extra time with your child over the holidays. Making things of useful beauty is an important building block in the foundation of community.

If you are curious about the role of craftsmanship in the development of community, which for me is a no-brainer, you can read a few of my earlier posts on the subject, here. Just in case you find yourself in a position in which you have no skill in making things, and have no inclination to try, there are still things that you can do. When you buy a beautiful and useful object made in your community you are encouraging your neighbors in the growth of their skills and raising their status within your community. We have the opportunity to foster each other's growth, or or damn well ignore it. You can buy things right off the shelf, one-size-fits all, lacking in personal personality, and lacking in meaning to your community. Or you can do much more. The choice is yours. My own collection of small boxes and furniture is available through galleries in Eureka Springs, Washington, DC and Little Rock, through the ETSY link at right, or by appointment here in my own home.

As you can see in the photo at left, I have attached the doors on my cherry display cabinet, inching it closer to taking beauty shots of the finished cabinet.

draft testimony

This is long and not my usual. It regards the efforts to run a major 345 kV powerline through our community and may explain why I don't have anything specific to say today about hands-on learning.

Q & A Draft testimony for Doug Stowe

Q. Please state your name title and place of residence? My name is Doug Stowe, or to be more formal, Douglas R. Stowe, Jr. I live at 412 Sandrock Road, just outside the city limits of Eureka Springs, 72632

Q. How long you have lived in Eureka Springs? Since the fall of 1975, almost 38 years

Q. What are your experience and qualifications regarding the arts? I have attached my resume at the close of this testimony.

I moved to Eureka Springs as a studio potter and soon thereafter adopted woodworking as my primary art form. I became friends with many of the great predecessors in the arts here, including Tommy Thomas, Louis and Elsie Freund, Ely De Vescovi, Glen Gant, and many more. I found myself part of a growing arts community that had roots going back into the 19th century. I’ve kept active in the arts by participating in local craft shows and serving on the Eureka Springs Arts Council.

 In 1976 I was one of the founders of the Eureka Springs Guild of Artists and Craftspeople and was the organization’s first president. I served again as president in the late 1990’s during the time in which the organization was brought to a close and we used its remaining resources to form the Eureka Springs School of the Arts, ESSA, which was formally organized in 1998.

As a self-employed woodworker I spent years developing my skills and marketing my work and at one time had 30 galleries selling it throughout the US. I was one of dozens of Eureka Springs professional artists producing works for a regional and national market. In 1995 I began writing for publication in woodworking magazines, and began writing books for the woodworking market. Between then and now, I’ve completed seven books, 3 DVDs and published over 60 articles in woodworking magazines in the US and the UK. I am currently working on my 8th book.

During the fall, winter and spring months, I teach woodworking grades 1-12 in an independent school. My program, Wisdom of the Hands is one I started in 2001 to integrate woodworking as an activity to promote hands-on learning in all subject areas. With regard to that I often lecture for educational conferences related to hands-on learning and the arts, and have presented at two international conferences for arts education. During the summer months and on occasional weekends, I teach adult woodworking at various craft schools, and for woodworking clubs throughout the US. In addition, my work is sold through 4 galleries in Arkansas including the Crystal Bridges Museum Gift Store, and the Historic Arkansas Museum and is also sold at Appalachian Spring Galleries in Washington, DC.

I serve on the Board of the aforementioned Eureka Springs School of the Arts and was one of three founding board members. In 2009 I was named an Arkansas Living Treasure by the Arkansas Department of Heritage and Arkansas Arts Council for my involvement in woodworking and the advancement of crafts.

Q. Why did you choose Eureka Springs as a place to live? I moved To Eureka Springs in 1975 drawn by the scenic beauty, the abundant hardwoods, the pristine ecosystem, the quaint galleries, and the wonderful outdoor recreation opportunities this place offers. The town was like no other place I’d visited in my life. I soon discovered Eureka Springs to be a place in which artists and craftsmen were encouraged in their work by a strong network of elders and peers.

Q. How is the natural beauty of the area affecting you in your work as an artist? As a woodworker, much of the inspiration for my work is drawn from the forests that surround my home, and that serve as a buffer toward the harsher realities of modern life. My wife and I live on 11 acres that we regard as land held in preserve and in trust for future generations. I work almost exclusively with woods from Arkansas, as woodworking with beautiful woods is a way I can make known the beauty and value of our native species. I sign the boxes and furniture that I make, not only with my name, but also with the names of the species that have been used, as I regard the woods as being given voice in the creative process through my work and careful craftsmanship.

I can clearly remember the day friends helped me move into my current home and wood shop. As we stepped out of our trucks carrying my tools and equipment I heard the cry of two hawks circling overhead. We all looked up and watched having received such a strong confirmation that I had arrived with my tools and my work to just the right place.

My office and wood shop windows look out on the forest that would be destroyed if SWEPCO and the Arkansas Public Service Commission were to choose route 91, and I can hardly express the turmoil that prospect would cause to my creative life. Each of the windows in my shop and finish room are arranged so that when I look up from my work, I look to the forest inspiration upon which my work depends.

I know that artists can work under the worst of circumstances, and will find ways to proceed with their translations of physical and cultural realities despite what other folks choose to do to the natural environment. But artists serve as canaries in a coal mine. We tend to be more sensitive and more quickly disturbed when massive disruptions take place in the visual realm. Folks come to Eureka Springs in part because they hope to find something more than concrete and power lines. And those of us who’ve come to love this place, take very seriously our responsibility to preserve it for others to enjoy long after we’re gone.

We were not the first to feel this way about this place. Louis Freund was an early friend of mine here in Eureka Springs. He and his wife Elsie purchased the old Carrie Nations home and founded the first Eureka Springs Summer School of the Arts. Louis was also the tireless driving force for our entire city of Eureka Springs being put on the national Historic register and his work as a social activist led to the founding of our historic district, protecting the architectural integrity and beauty of Eureka Springs. Elsie Freund and I worked with the Guild of Artists and Craftspeople education committee planning programs to enhance learning opportunities for local artists.

Q. Do you know other artists who choose to live and work in Eureka Springs because of its natural beauty? I can give a long list of artists I know personally and each can tell the same thing. Beauty of the natural environment is the first hook connecting us to Eureka Springs. First, and as I mentioned, Louis Freund was well known as an advocate for the protection of our city’s visual resources. His friend, famous Arkansas writer, John Gould Fletcher, had written to him in the 1940s, “not much happening in Eureka, but it sure is laid out pretty.”

Even before that, when the city was founded, spring preservations were established to protect our city’s springs in perpetuity, considering the quality of water, but also the protection of their scenic beauty. Nearly every day of the spring and summer visitors will find artists set up with easels and watercolors, sketching the beauty of this place. Plein Air painting where students and professionals join in outdoor painting exercises is one of the favorite activities at the Eureka Springs School of the Arts.

Q. What types of artists or art institutions and establishments are present in Eureka Springs and surrounding areas? In addition to the Eureka Springs School of the Arts, our neighboring community of Holiday Island has an art guild, painting competitions and an active group of amateur and semi-professional artists. In the City of Eureka Springs, we celebrate May Fine Arts Month and have an active Eureka Springs Arts Council with participation of the Mayor, city government, the chamber of commerce and tourist promotion commission in addition to an appointed group of active professional artists and gallery owners. We have dozens of galleries, and gift stores specializing in the arts, some of which specialize in locally produced work. In 1998, following years of planning by the Eureka Springs Guild of Artists and Craftspeople, two friends and I founded the Eureka Springs School of the Arts to offer weeklong classes to adults and children in various forms of artistic expression.

The location of the school near Inspiration Point in Eureka Springs was chosen because of its beautiful setting. The school is between two of the proposed routes. These routes may or may not be visible from school, but they will impact the overall impression as one arrives on campus. The school currently serves about 250 part time students annually, 58% of whom come from outside the local area. We recently purchased 60 adjoining acres for expansion and have new studios under construction.

The president of our ESSA board noted the following in regard to SWEPCO’s plan: “The proposed routes by SWEPCO would also adversely affect part of a beautiful horizon that draws millions of tourists to Eureka Springs and the surrounding area. Such a landscape-altering project would have a distressing effect on the regional economy and our School’s viability. Tourists, some of whom are our students, generate vital revenue that allows the School to be able to serve the public. "
 
In November 2011, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art opened in Bentonville, AR, founded by Alice Walton, heir to the founder of Walmart. It is a several billion dollar venture and has from the outset sought a relationship with Eureka Springs as its partner in regional promotion of the arts in Northwest Arkansas. I was personally involved early at the start of the museum’s construction following a conversation with Alice Walton when we were introduced at a local arts and craft fair. She asked me to serve as a consultant in the processing and use of the timber harvested from the site. I helped the museum director in that task and was invited to make a bench for the museum from walnut that is on display in the administrative office of the museum.

In September of 2012, I was asked to make boxes for the first year staff from woods harvested from the museum site. When those 300+ boxes were completed, Alice Walton asked me to make another 500 boxes for the first year volunteers. All of the artists in Eureka Springs are excited about the promising future of the arts in the region that the presence of this major museum offers, and most particularly about potential collaboration with the museum on projects of importance to the arts. If anything, the presence of this new museum will increase, rather than decrease, the economic importance of the arts for Eureka Springs.

Q. What is the economic importance of the arts for this area? Zeek Taylor who manages the Eureka Springs Artist Registry* estimates the number of visual artists at over 200, which is almost 10 percent of the city’s population, and the number doesn’t include other types of artists.

Eureka Springs ranks number 8 in the 2012 American Style survey of the Top 25 Arts Destinations (small city category, under 100,000) Eureka Springs whose population hovers around 2,000 is one of the smallest cities on the list.**

With the arts, outdoor recreation and the scenic beauty of the area to draw tourists, Richard Davies of Arkansas Parks and Recreation Commission reports Eureka Springs as one of the most important players in a 5.7 billion dollar statewide tourist industry.

There are two primary industries in Eureka Springs, the arts, and tourism, and if you’ve read any studies you know that arts and tourism are deeply entwined. The West Virginia Craft Study *** 2003, explaining the economic impact of craft noted the following: “There is also a very strong linkage between crafts and tourism. Recent studies indicated that thousands of individuals come to craft communities or destinations each year. This includes artists, instructors, students, collectors and craft enthusiasts as well as traditional tourists. The constituents of each group contribute to the local economy in a variety of ways from the local purchase of arts, crafts and supplies to the purchase of retail items, gasoline, groceries, food and lodging. It appears that crafts can be a major travel attraction that generates tourism and overall economic development.”

In addition to the arts and crafts sold through local galleries many of the artists are involved in regional and national sales through travel to craft shows. They bring money home to spend in the local economy. A typical artist may make as little as 10-15 % in local sales with the balance of his or her income derived from out of area sales, wholesale sales to galleries, direct to customers , through craft show sales or over the internet. The arts culture of Eureka Springs draws new artists each year, and for every new artist, there seem to be more who want to move here. I don’t have statistics on this phenomenon. People inclined to participate in the arts recognize the beauty of the area and are inspired to move here to become more deeply involved in the arts. And this is a thing that I’ve been able to observe during my 38 years as a participant in the artist community of Eureka Springs.

Q. How would your work as an artist, and the work of other artists in this area, be affected by the construction of the powerline? The clear-cut right of way would be within 75 feet of the deck at the back of my home. A 150 foot tall pole would tower almost directly overhead. Presently a forest buffer exists between my home and the noises from Spring Street in Eureka Springs. That buffer would be gone. In the summer, leaves on the trees isolate us visually and acoustically from town. The power line would remove all that and replace it with a hostile environment kept perpetually sterile of normal forest growth. Instead of the wind rustling through leaves, we would hear the hum of wind over wire and possibly worse.

At the present time, I live and work in a state of sanctuary… That sanctuary would be lost and never come back. Artists throughout Carroll County who live within view of one or more proposed routes face the same threat, the same potential loss. We are a close-knit community of artists who care deeply for each other. The losses sustained by one, affects others and we have a long-standing tradition of charitable art auctions used to help those in need and to raise money for worthy projects and for each other. We have a well established sense of obligation and responsibility to stand up for each other in times of personal crisis. With this powerline proposal, I have never known a pending crisis to be more widespread.

As an author and well-known woodworking teacher, I frequently have visitors wanting to visit my shop and to purchase some of my work or some of my books and see where I live and work. I’ve had busloads of visitors from the Arkansas Art Musuem, the Oakland (CA) Art Musuem, and the Los Angeles Folk Art Museum. Visitors always comment on the beauty of this place. That beauty would be gone.

The simple mechanism is this: Artists choose to live and work here because they are attracted by the natural beauty. They’ve formed a thriving art community that spurs creativity, attracts other artists to move and work here. The arts are the bedrock of our community. And the visual beauty of this place is the foundation for the arts. It’s why we gathered here in the first place. For SWEPCO to take our visual landscape so lightly is a sacrilege and a shame that the artists of Eureka Springs would not forgive. The danger that SWEPCO poses to our economy is not just a loss of tourism, but also a loss of artists and the arts.

Q. Have you read the EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) for this powerline project? Yes.

Q. Did the EIS address possible impacts on the artist community of Eureka Springs and their livelihood? No. Not at all.

Q. In your opinion, did the EIS adequately describe and analyze, the impact of the powerline on the artist community and its economic impact on the region? It did not. By failing to address the arts, it failed to address the vital economic concerns of this community.

*http://www.eurekaspringsartists.com/

**http://www.americanstyle.com/2012/06/top-25-small-cities-for-art/

***www.economicoptions.org/WVCODAreportcomplete.doc.

Make, fix and create...

Memory lane

I ran across this draft testimony in my blog. 

We should be looking at my home town as an example.

https://wisdomofhands.blogspot.com/2013/06/draft-testimony.html

draft testimony

This is long and not my usual. It regards the efforts to run a major 345 kV powerline through our community and may explain why I don't have anything specific to say today about hands-on learning.

Q & A Draft testimony for Doug Stowe

Q. Please state your name title and place of residence? My name is Doug Stowe, or to be more formal, Douglas R. Stowe, Jr. I live at xxxxxxxxxxx, just outside the city limits of Eureka Springs, 72632

Q. How long you have lived in Eureka Springs? Since the fall of 1975, almost 38 years

Q. What are your experience and qualifications regarding the arts? I have attached my resume at the close of this testimony.

I moved to Eureka Springs as a studio potter and soon thereafter adopted woodworking as my primary art form. I became friends with many of the great predecessors in the arts here, including Tommy Thomas, Louis and Elsie Freund, Ely De Vescovi, Glen Gant, and many more. I found myself part of a growing arts community that had roots going back into the 19th century. I’ve kept active in the arts by participating in local craft shows and serving on the Eureka Springs Arts Council.

 In 1976 I was one of the founders of the Eureka Springs Guild of Artists and Craftspeople and was the organization’s first president. I served again as president in the late 1990’s during the time in which the organization was brought to a close and we used its remaining resources to form the Eureka Springs School of the Arts, ESSA, which was formally organized in 1998.

As a self-employed woodworker I spent years developing my skills and marketing my work and at one time had 30 galleries selling it throughout the US. I was one of dozens of Eureka Springs professional artists producing works for a regional and national market. In 1995 I began writing for publication in woodworking magazines, and began writing books for the woodworking market. Between then and now, I’ve completed seven books, 3 DVDs and published over 60 articles in woodworking magazines in the US and the UK. I am currently working on my 8th book.

During the fall, winter and spring months, I teach woodworking grades 1-12 in an independent school. My program, Wisdom of the Hands is one I started in 2001 to integrate woodworking as an activity to promote hands-on learning in all subject areas. With regard to that I often lecture for educational conferences related to hands-on learning and the arts, and have presented at two international conferences for arts education. During the summer months and on occasional weekends, I teach adult woodworking at various craft schools, and for woodworking clubs throughout the US. In addition, my work is sold through 4 galleries in Arkansas including the Crystal Bridges Museum Gift Store, and the Historic Arkansas Museum and is also sold at Appalachian Spring Galleries in Washington, DC.

I serve on the Board of the aforementioned Eureka Springs School of the Arts and was one of three founding board members. In 2009 I was named an Arkansas Living Treasure by the Arkansas Department of Heritage and Arkansas Arts Council for my involvement in woodworking and the advancement of crafts.

Q. Why did you choose Eureka Springs as a place to live? I moved To Eureka Springs in 1975 drawn by the scenic beauty, the abundant hardwoods, the pristine ecosystem, the quaint galleries, and the wonderful outdoor recreation opportunities this place offers. The town was like no other place I’d visited in my life. I soon discovered Eureka Springs to be a place in which artists and craftsmen were encouraged in their work by a strong network of elders and peers.

Q. How is the natural beauty of the area affecting you in your work as an artist? As a woodworker, much of the inspiration for my work is drawn from the forests that surround my home, and that serve as a buffer toward the harsher realities of modern life. My wife and I live on 11 acres that we regard as land held in preserve and in trust for future generations. I work almost exclusively with woods from Arkansas, as woodworking with beautiful woods is a way I can make known the beauty and value of our native species. I sign the boxes and furniture that I make, not only with my name, but also with the names of the species that have been used, as I regard the woods as being given voice in the creative process through my work and careful craftsmanship.

I can clearly remember the day friends helped me move into my current home and wood shop. As we stepped out of our trucks carrying my tools and equipment I heard the cry of two hawks circling overhead. We all looked up and watched having received such a strong confirmation that I had arrived with my tools and my work to just the right place.

My office and wood shop windows look out on the forest that would be destroyed if SWEPCO and the Arkansas Public Service Commission were to choose route 91, and I can hardly express the turmoil that prospect would cause to my creative life. Each of the windows in my shop and finish room are arranged so that when I look up from my work, I look to the forest inspiration upon which my work depends.

I know that artists can work under the worst of circumstances, and will find ways to proceed with their translations of physical and cultural realities despite what other folks choose to do to the natural environment. But artists serve as canaries in a coal mine. We tend to be more sensitive and more quickly disturbed when massive disruptions take place in the visual realm. Folks come to Eureka Springs in part because they hope to find something more than concrete and power lines. And those of us who’ve come to love this place, take very seriously our responsibility to preserve it for others to enjoy long after we’re gone.

We were not the first to feel this way about this place. Louis Freund was an early friend of mine here in Eureka Springs. He and his wife Elsie purchased the old Carrie Nations home and founded the first Eureka Springs Summer School of the Arts. Louis was also the tireless driving force for our entire city of Eureka Springs being put on the national Historic register and his work as a social activist led to the founding of our historic district, protecting the architectural integrity and beauty of Eureka Springs. Elsie Freund and I worked with the Guild of Artists and Craftspeople education committee planning programs to enhance learning opportunities for local artists.

Q. Do you know other artists who choose to live and work in Eureka Springs because of its natural beauty? I can give a long list of artists I know personally and each can tell the same thing. Beauty of the natural environment is the first hook connecting us to Eureka Springs. First, and as I mentioned, Louis Freund was well known as an advocate for the protection of our city’s visual resources. His friend, famous Arkansas writer, John Gould Fletcher, had written to him in the 1940s, “not much happening in Eureka, but it sure is laid out pretty.”

Even before that, when the city was founded, spring preservations were established to protect our city’s springs in perpetuity, considering the quality of water, but also the protection of their scenic beauty. Nearly every day of the spring and summer visitors will find artists set up with easels and watercolors, sketching the beauty of this place. Plein Air painting where students and professionals join in outdoor painting exercises is one of the favorite activities at the Eureka Springs School of the Arts.

Q. What types of artists or art institutions and establishments are present in Eureka Springs and surrounding areas? In addition to the Eureka Springs School of the Arts, our neighboring community of Holiday Island has an art guild, painting competitions and an active group of amateur and semi-professional artists. In the City of Eureka Springs, we celebrate May Fine Arts Month and have an active Eureka Springs Arts Council with participation of the Mayor, city government, the chamber of commerce and tourist promotion commission in addition to an appointed group of active professional artists and gallery owners. We have dozens of galleries, and gift stores specializing in the arts, some of which specialize in locally produced work. In 1998, following years of planning by the Eureka Springs Guild of Artists and Craftspeople, two friends and I founded the Eureka Springs School of the Arts to offer weeklong classes to adults and children in various forms of artistic expression.

The location of the school near Inspiration Point in Eureka Springs was chosen because of its beautiful setting. The school is between two of the proposed routes. These routes may or may not be visible from school, but they will impact the overall impression as one arrives on campus. The school currently serves about 250 part time students annually, 58% of whom come from outside the local area. We recently purchased 60 adjoining acres for expansion and have new studios under construction.

The president of our ESSA board noted the following in regard to SWEPCO’s plan: “The proposed routes by SWEPCO would also adversely affect part of a beautiful horizon that draws millions of tourists to Eureka Springs and the surrounding area. Such a landscape-altering project would have a distressing effect on the regional economy and our School’s viability. Tourists, some of whom are our students, generate vital revenue that allows the School to be able to serve the public. "
  
In November 2011, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art opened in Bentonville, AR, founded by Alice Walton, heir to the founder of Walmart. It is a several billion dollar venture and has from the outset sought a relationship with Eureka Springs as its partner in regional promotion of the arts in Northwest Arkansas. I was personally involved early at the start of the museum’s construction following a conversation with Alice Walton when we were introduced at a local arts and craft fair. She asked me to serve as a consultant in the processing and use of the timber harvested from the site. I helped the museum director in that task and was invited to make a bench for the museum from walnut that is on display in the administrative office of the museum.

In September of 2012, I was asked to make boxes for the first year staff from woods harvested from the museum site. When those 300+ boxes were completed, Alice Walton asked me to make another 500 boxes for the first year volunteers. All of the artists in Eureka Springs are excited about the promising future of the arts in the region that the presence of this major museum offers, and most particularly about potential collaboration with the museum on projects of importance to the arts. If anything, the presence of this new museum will increase, rather than decrease, the economic importance of the arts for Eureka Springs.

Q. What is the economic importance of the arts for this area?Zeek Taylor who manages the Eureka Springs Artist Registry* estimates the number of visual artists at over 200, which is almost 10 percent of the city’s population, and the number doesn’t include other types of artists.

Eureka Springs ranks number 8 in the 2012 American Style survey of the Top 25 Arts Destinations (small city category, under 100,000) Eureka Springs whose population hovers around 2,000 is one of the smallest cities on the list.**

With the arts, outdoor recreation and the scenic beauty of the area to draw tourists, Richard Davies of Arkansas Parks and Recreation Commission reports Eureka Springs as one of the most important players in a 5.7 billion dollar statewide tourist industry.

There are two primary industries in Eureka Springs, the arts, and tourism, and if you’ve read any studies you know that arts and tourism are deeply entwined. The West Virginia Craft Study *** 2003, explaining the economic impact of craft noted the following: “There is also a very strong linkage between crafts and tourism. Recent studies indicated that thousands of individuals come to craft communities or destinations each year. This includes artists, instructors, students, collectors and craft enthusiasts as well as traditional tourists. The constituents of each group contribute to the local economy in a variety of ways from the local purchase of arts, crafts and supplies to the purchase of retail items, gasoline, groceries, food and lodging. It appears that crafts can be a major travel attraction that generates tourism and overall economic development.”

In addition to the arts and crafts sold through local galleries many of the artists are involved in regional and national sales through travel to craft shows. They bring money home to spend in the local economy. A typical artist may make as little as 10-15 % in local sales with the balance of his or her income derived from out of area sales, wholesale sales to galleries, direct to customers , through craft show sales or over the internet. The arts culture of Eureka Springs draws new artists each year, and for every new artist, there seem to be more who want to move here. I don’t have statistics on this phenomenon. People inclined to participate in the arts recognize the beauty of the area and are inspired to move here to become more deeply involved in the arts. And this is a thing that I’ve been able to observe during my 38 years as a participant in the artist community of Eureka Springs.

Q. How would your work as an artist, and the work of other artists in this area, be affected by the construction of the powerline? The clear-cut right of way would be within 75 feet of the deck at the back of my home. A 150 foot tall pole would tower almost directly overhead. Presently a forest buffer exists between my home and the noises from Spring Street in Eureka Springs. That buffer would be gone. In the summer, leaves on the trees isolate us visually and acoustically from town. The power line would remove all that and replace it with a hostile environment kept perpetually sterile of normal forest growth. Instead of the wind rustling through leaves, we would hear the hum of wind over wire and possibly worse.

At the present time, I live and work in a state of sanctuary… That sanctuary would be lost and never come back. Artists throughout Carroll County who live within view of one or more proposed routes face the same threat, the same potential loss. We are a close-knit community of artists who care deeply for each other. The losses sustained by one, affects others and we have a long-standing tradition of charitable art auctions used to help those in need and to raise money for worthy projects and for each other. We have a well established sense of obligation and responsibility to stand up for each other in times of personal crisis. With this powerline proposal, I have never known a pending crisis to be more widespread.

As an author and well-known woodworking teacher, I frequently have visitors wanting to visit my shop and to purchase some of my work or some of my books and see where I live and work. I’ve had busloads of visitors from the Arkansas Art Musuem, the Oakland (CA) Art Musuem, and the Los Angeles Folk Art Museum. Visitors always comment on the beauty of this place. That beauty would be gone.

The simple mechanism is this: Artists choose to live and work here because they are attracted by the natural beauty. They’ve formed a thriving art community that spurs creativity, attracts other artists to move and work here. The arts are the bedrock of our community. And the visual beauty of this place is the foundation for the arts. It’s why we gathered here in the first place. For SWEPCO to take our visual landscape so lightly is a sacrilege and a shame that the artists of Eureka Springs would not forgive. The danger that SWEPCO poses to our economy is not just a loss of tourism, but also a loss of artists and the arts.

Q. Have you read the EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) for this powerline project? Yes.

Q. Did the EIS address possible impacts on the artist community of Eureka Springs and their livelihood? No. Not at all.

Q. In your opinion, did the EIS adequately describe and analyze, the impact of the powerline on the artist community and its economic impact on the region? It did not. By failing to address the arts, it failed to address the vital economic concerns of this community.

*http://www.eurekaspringsartists.com/

**http://www.americanstyle.com/2012/06/top-25-small-cities-for-art/

***www.economicoptions.org/WVCODAreportcomplete.doc.

Make, fix and create... 

 

what can you do? what can you do well?

Been there, done that. Been there, done that. Hey kids, let's do that again... Sound like a recipe for boredom? Not when craftsmanship is involved. Things get refined, new insights are achieved, through the process of conscientious repetition. This applies to music, and it also applies in the crafts. It is often ignored in schools except when it comes to athletics, and might explain why basketball is so popular among parents and kids. In athletics children are encouraged to practice at physical operations to the point of achieving excellence.

Yesterday, I mentioned Thomas Friedman's op ed in the New York Times, emphasizing the need to make kids innovators and inventors of their own futures. And yet the article offered no insight into how this might be accomplished. True invention is no one trick pony. Try riding one time around the ring on the back of a horse, and you will discover your face flat in mud your first time out.

When I was a kid, I read Popular Science each month and dreamed of becoming an inventor. I also grew up in a home filled with medium quality antiques. Not only had I become curious about how things were made, but also about how things were made well. And so, I became an inventor of processes, jigs and tools, that helped me to do things well, and provided a means through which I might share a few ideas with others so that they too, might improve craftsmanship.

It's not enough to get kids making stuff as an encouragement for their inventive spirit. They need to be making things of value to family and community, and learning that what they do, needs be done well, with care to express merit through actual craftsmanship. Educational Sloyd taught that. And if anyone thinks they can instill this spirit of craftsmanship and integrity about how things are done well without getting kids going at an early age, they've missed a thing or two.

I've been reading Thorstein Veblen's text, The Instinct of Workmanship, and it's a tough slog. Not an easy read, and children these days, with Harry Potter and all, are finding an even greater challenge in reading non-fiction material. Fiction leads you forward toward the suspension of disbelief. Non-fiction leads you to carefully reflect on your own life if you are conscious and able and may even call for change. If things don't come easy to the hand, easy to the mind, children have little interest in going deep in learning. But there are things worth the slog. My children who found sawing to be a challenge have found that it has gotten easier for them and still more fun. Reading can be just like that. And what kids learn in the wood shop can serve as a model for all that they will learn in their whole lives.

A few years back one of my students kept responding "I know that," whenever I would attempt to get him to witness a new process using a particular tool.  I knew that while he might be able to understand what I was trying to demonstrate as a concept, there were subtleties and nuances of the operation that he could only understand by watching closely and then attempting to do things himself. So I challenged him, "You show me." And the tool in hand quickly brought both humility and deeper engagement.

As long as we address American education as an intellect only operation, neglecting the challenge of building real skill in the performance of doing real things, we will suffer failing creativity, and push our children toward a future in which they cannot compete as entrepreneurs. For real learning is not just about knowing things, but about being able to do a few things well. Very well. And there is a great lesson in doing even one thing well... that you can apply yourself, and with practice, do other things well, too. And most importantly, that there are huge psychological rewards for doing so.

This afternoon, I fly to south Florida to teach a few box makers how to make boxes more easily, more beautifully, and to have fun. This is a repeat class, with hopes to take their box making to a new level. The video above was suggested by JD and shows the making of basswood pliers. The Warther family has made and given away over 1.5 million pairs of wooden pliers. It's what practice and skill can do for you. "Trial and error and a bunch of band aids and you can do it," too.

Make, fix and create.

community and craftsmanship...

Last night I attended the screening of "Eureka the Art of Being" at Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville, Arkansas, and participated in a panel discussion about the arts, and about my home town of Eureka Springs. The movie is a good one and destined for showing on our Arkansas Public Television Network. My own part in it is to explain as best I can, the relationship between craftsmanship and community, and what it takes to build strong communities. There's a whole lot of egotism that must be pushed aside to make things work.

I was reminded last night of an old friend, Hal Mallett, who was a Presbyterian minister, and painter. Years ago (1978), he took over for me as President of the Eureka Springs Guild of Artists and Craftspeople when I wearied of the position after launching the organization in 1977. Hal's daughter Sarah came up to me after the panel discussion and thanked me for using words in my comments that reminded her of her dad. What I had said would have been something he would have enjoyed had he still been with us. And so, life is an unfolding. We are never alone, even though we think we are, and we are interconnected with each other in ways we will never fully understand, both in the present and from the past.

Today I ship works to the Historic Arkansas Museum for an exhibit of works by the designated "Arkansas Living Treasures." In addition, I'll finish my school conference reports and spend just a bit of time on the lathe turning a box or two from maple and walnut.

The story I told last night concerned my old friend Virginia Carey. She had been a child from a wealthy family in Savanna, and had homesteaded with her first husband on 40 acres of land near the Buffalo River in Gilbert, Arkansas in the 1940s. She began missing some of the fine things that she had brought with her, and asked a neighbor about it. The neighbor explained that "when you move here, everything you bring is ours, and everything that you earn when you are here is yours." My first impulse at hearing the story was shock. It sounded like a rationale for theft. But as I explained last night, I learned upon deeper reflection that what the neighbor was so bluntly explaining, was the key to full participation in their community, or any community for that matter. It doesn't work for you if you hold back. To be woven into the "fabric" of community takes a form of surrender to it. In some cases that might mean giving up those symbols that separate us from others.

As I explained in last night's film, I call myself a woodworker, not an artist. The word artist itself, implies pretense, whereas the word woodworker, does not, though I was careful not to state that in such a blunt manner.

Make, fix, and create...

css commencement address

Welcome to the Clear Spring School 2009 commencement. We are here to celebrate the successful completion of a 4 year course of Study at the Clear Spring High School, and we are all gathered here also to wish the future success to our graduates. I think it is reasonable at this time to ask the question, what is success?

I have been reading a few books lately that are related. One is Malcolm Gladwell’s, Outliers, The Story of Success which explores the success of a number of world renown individuals, another is Richard Sennett’s the Craftsman and two others are by author Illustrator Chris Monroe and are called Monkey with a Tool Belt and Monkey with a Tool Belt and the Noisy Problem. These may seem an odd collection of books.

Sennett’s Craftsman and Gladwell’s Outliers have a simple thing in common. Both mention what has become known as the 10,000 hour rule... that it takes approximately 10,000 hours of practice to get really good at something, to become world class in skill and professional understanding. As an example, offered in Outliers, Bill Gates had logged nearly 10,000 hours of programming time before he dropped out of Harvard to found his company Microsoft. In the case of the Beatles, over a thousand performances in clubs in Hamburg, Germany provided the necessary practice time before their introduction on the world stage. One observer noted, “They were no good onstage when they went there and they were very good when they came back.” Now, here’s the math... you apply yourself to something for 40 hours per week and for 50 weeks per year and that takes 5 years to equal 10,000 hours. That’s a pretty big commitment of time. And or course it makes a difference whether or not the commitment is made to something worthwhile. You could, if you wanted, spend 10,000 hours watching the Simpsons, (here I’m not offering a suggestion) have Bart’s every word memorized by heart and have little new meaning to share with others.

Richard Sennett’s book is about Craftsmanship, rather than success but offers a bit more understanding of what success really is and what gaining it really requires. Whether working in wood, writing words on paper, logging lines of code or shaping musical notes to travel through the air into the ears and hearts of others, practice of craftsmanship involves a constant dialog between success and failure, testing what works against what won’t... finding a balance that leads you onward toward new development and growth. It is a matter of testing things. They either work and work well or they don’t. If we were never to risk failure, success would never come. Success and failure are inseparably entwined in the exercise of skill. And so, success is really a small thing that is best measured and observed moment by moment.

As parents and teachers, we might feel inclined to offer our children and students the perfectly paved path to success with a big capital S, but to do so would deprive them of something very important, that of imagining and creating a future of their own crafted of all those small successes involved in the development of craftsmanship. Worse, it would deprive them of the rewards of self-satisfaction and confidence that arise facing obstacles on their own and of their own making.

Finnish Neurophysiologist Matti Berström notes that what he calls the black game and white game are both required in raising children. The white game he describes as the game parents and teachers want children to play for reasons of their own... the rules of the white game are established by the preceding generations and based on assumptions from the past. The black game is the seat of the pants game in which the rules are made up as kids go along. In the black game, limits are pushed and tested, mistakes are made, and risks and failure are as just as important as safety and success. Berström notes that human culture must arise anew in each generation and that the black game is as essential to each generation as those values the preceding generations would wish to impart. The black game prepares our children for the future that those of previous generations cannot imagine.

Monkey with a Tool Belt and Monkey with a Tool belt and the Noisy Problem are intended for children from 3 to 10 years old and offer some important life lessons for us all. The Monkey wearing his tool belt at all times, even to bed, goes through life in his small community solving problems, fixing things and making life better for others with his imaginative and always handy tools. You may be able to guess that of these books, Monkey with a Tool Belt books are my favorites.

In Outliers, Gladwell’s examples of success are big names like Bill Gates, the Beatles and Yo Yo Ma, but I suggest that the real meaning of success is not often found on the world stage or national arena, but within small communities in which we, like Monkey with a tool belt spend thousands of hours making life better for each other. All these books, Outliers, the Craftsman, and Monkey with a Tool Belt express the important role of community in the individual’s attainment of success. In Outliers, we learn that Bill Gates commitment of thousands of hours in programming time was made possible by his attending an independent school with unprecedented access to one of the world’s most advanced computer networks. In Monkey with a Tool Belt, nothing brings greater joy than to have fixed things or made things, improving the quality of life for others.

And so, I have wishes for the graduating class of 2009. I wish you small failures in equal measure with small successes that drive you on to serve and be served, forming your very special place within community. If you happen to spend 10,000 hours at something, may it be a commitment that imparts great meaning to your life, and may your success be measured in things you have solved, fixed, improved and made better for others and yourself.

craftsmanship and the moral development of children...

In Kindergarten, the children were to build with blocks, but not knock down. When changing forms they were to move and manipulate one form into another without exercising their destructive impulses. The purpose was to give children the opportunity to develop their own creativity, not their destructive force. The following is from the Paradise of Childhood written by Edward Weibe and published by Milton Bradley, concerning gift number 7, a series of flat tablets with which the child could create patterns of life, knowledge and beauty.

"Although to some grown persons it may appear as if the images produced do not bear much resemblance to what they are intended to represent, it should be remembered that in most case, the children themselves have given the names to the representations. Instructive conversations should also prevent this drawing with planes as it were, from being a mere mechanical pastime; the entertaining, living word must infuse soul into the activity of the had and its creations each representation, then, will speak to the child and each object in the world of nature and art will have a story to tell to the child in a language for which he will be well prepared.

"We need not indicate how these conversations should be carried on, or what they should contain. Who would not think in connection with the pigeon-house, of the beautiful white birds themselves, and the nest they build; the white eggs they lay, the tender young pigeons coming form them, and the care with which the old ones treat the young one, until they are able to take care of themselves? An application of these relations to those between parents and children, and, perhaps those between God and man, who, as His children enjoy His kindness and love every moment of their lives, may be made, according to circumstances--all depending on the development of the children. However, care should always be taken not to present to them, what might be called abstract morals which the young mind is unable to grasp, and which, if thus forced upon it cannot fail to be injurious to moral development. The aim of all education should be love of the good, beautiful, noble and sublime; but nothing is more apt to kill this very love, ere it is born, than the monotony of dry dull preaching of morals to young children. Words not so much as deeds--actual experiences in the life of the child, are its most natural teachers in this important branch of education."

People tend to think that morality is a thing best taught by preaching at kids and by telling them what to do rather than by trusting the inherent nature of children to actively lead them to an understanding of their relationships and responsibilities to family and community. Kindergarten teachers were thus warned not to use their positions of power to preach at kids. Kindergarten and craftsmanship have this in common. When we are given creative tools, we learn of our creative responsibilities. We come to an understanding of ourselves as creative force. That force is measured directly by our abilities to create useful beauty in service to family and community. Kindergarten and the Educational Sloyd wood shop were intended as places in which children would develop moral character, intelligence and a sense of beauty.

I have been going through my second round of edits for my new book and there will likely be a third as we work to find mistakes and clarify text.  School is out today because of the weekend snow storm that left road icebound and dangerous. Rural roads in particular are hazardous in our mountainous terrain.

Make, fix and create...

Furniture making

I had an interview yesterday with a writer from the Arkansas Democrat Gazette newspaper on the subject of furniture making. A couple of my friends who are also furniture makers had suggested that she contact me. There aren't many professional furniture makers in the state despite our abundance of beautiful woods. She wanted to know why.

First, it can be a hard way to make a living. Homeowners can buy what they want at a price they can afford from any number of suppliers foreign and domestic. It takes plenty of imagination for most customers to walk into furniture stores and choose ready-made things that will look nice in their home. When it comes to having something made by a craftsman, it will most likely cost more money, the customer will have to wait for it, there are no exact guarantees that it will work the way they've conceived it, and most customers don't have quite the visual imagination to know how it will look. Most are so used to thinking in words, not pictures, and will have great difficulty applying their imaginations to how a custom-made piece of furniture will fit their home or office decor.

It can be hard for a craftsman to sell enough work to keep in business and get good at making furniture. I was reminded of Joe Doster, one of the furniture makers who had given my name to the reporter. For years, Joe and I sold our work at the same craft shows. He would travel with a truckload of furniture that he hoped to sell in addition to the cutting boards he made. I would always travel with a piece of furniture or two along with my boxes just to let my customers know that I could do so much more. Loading work in and out of exhibit halls is work. Keeping customers aware of our skills as furniture makers was a challenge. Even with all the shows, taking time away from our wood shops, few would know that our skills were available, and selling fine furniture at craft shows did not work for for either of us.

There is an upside. From the craftsman's perspective there are few occupations offering more potential for growth. For customers, there can be no better chance at making their home environment unique and uniquely expressive of personal relationship with fine craftsmanship and materials. Imagine having furniture made from real woods that were grown in your own state or community instead of particle board. A few still care that there is a difference.

But here we come to the crux. Commissioning work from a real live craftsman in a customer's community, fosters growth within that community. Ask a craftsman to make something unique and of great value, and you've asked that craftsman to arise to his or her highest standards, greatest creativity and to a lofty place within human culture.

Perhaps we've all had the experience of being in a major city where buildings are no longer crafted with such care as they once were and seeing beggars in the street. That is the choice we made by going cheap and neglecting craftmanship.

Comenius (1590-1652) was the first great theorist of education. He said, "We give form to ourselves and to our materials at the same time." In other words, the maker of beautiful and useful things busily shapes him or herself at precisely the same time. Thus the woman with paint and brush becomes the artist, the potter at the wheel, hands wet with clay, a craftsman, and in the vast scheme of humanity there are no greater values than those expressed through the arts. It is an alchemy of the truest sort... turning lead lives into the purest gold.

People gripe that they see a dearth of values in our nation and within our communities. We spend our dollars in other countries and understand that our commerce in foreign lands may lift their poor to higher standards, but we have no shared notion that the same principle works amongst our own. As we've given up on craftsmanship in our cities and towns, we've given up on the effort to arise as a culture of caring folks. We were once a nation of craftsmen. Now we are a nation of consumers, and the great pity is that there are some who do not know the difference or care that there is one.

Make, fix and create...

In an alternate universe...

Here in the US there is a vast and growing gulf between rich and poor. According to one political party the rich are "job creators".  But then if that's the case, a significant part of the American social fabric has been failing at its job. Money itself knows no patriotism, no debt of loyalty nor sense of responsibility to nation nor community. And while we may celebrate money above all other things, there are values beyond money that in an alternate universe, we would consider as well.

Last night I joined members of the Eureka Springs UU church in serving dinner at ECHO, a volunteer healthcare organization designed to serve the poor and those many who cannot afford health care. Echo operates every 2nd and 4th Thursday night of the year. It is staffed by volunteers including many of the best health care workers in the community who use it as an opportunity to give something extra back and fulfill a sense of duty to the foundation of community. Would it not be wise, if all so gifted were to act on their own sense of responsibility to give back? It is claimed that the rich are holding back in the employment of the poor because we have not made things lucrative enough. But enough! Aren't there greater things at stake? And better examples of who and what we might become?

Sadly, a nation untrained in craftsmanship fails to perceive the uplifting social effects of craftsmanship.

Yesterday my daughter and I ate at the Oasis, a small restaurant in the heart of downtown Eureka Springs. There are those who walk in, and thinking themselves as having arrived in a 3rd world nation by mistake, will turn around and walk out. But the Oasis is actually one of the finest restaurants in the US in near perfect disguise. My daughter, having spent 4 years in New York will rank the Oasis as one of the top restaurants in her rather broad dining experience. But part of the appeal of the place is not just its food, but that it is at the heart of the community experience.

When we wander into the world without roots, we miss the depths. In my alternate proposed universe of community and craftsmanship, our eyes are opened to other things. Beyond money charted on spreadsheets, there are people putting people to work doing their finest.  I can hardly explain to those who have not lived in Eureka Springs or someplace like it, how being a part of such a place, being woven into the fabric of community, feels and what it means. I have been so lucky. And in these first days of 2012, I wish the same for you.

Make, fix and create...