I received a wonderful package from UPS yesterday containing a basket by Leon Niehues. It was a piece I was able to commission last fall when we were together at a show. It is woodwork, or at least a form of woodworking in that it is made from thin strips of white oak, each piece rived by hand from solid wood. No piece of work could be more symbolic of the Wisdom of the Hands than basketry by Leon Niehues. He is one of my fellow Arkansas artists and one who's work I have admired for many years. My wife and I are incredibly pleased to add his work to our very small collection.

There is a particular matter of concern for myself and many of the other makers I've met in various shows. We look around, and wonder where all the young artists are. We wonder what it will take to encourage others to take our places when we fade from the scene. Will what we have studied and worked hard to develop end without being passed along to new generations?

To attain the high level of workmanship and artistic merit that you find in the piece shown above, or in the work shown on Leon's website requires a lifetime investment in vision and skill. If we don't encourage our children to find joy in creating with their hands, guess what?

I may be very slow in contributing to the blog at times. If so, please feel free to use the search box above. It is a valuable tool for digging into the recesses of over 6 months of blogging. One suggested search term that you might enjoy is "sloyd." Or type in "Sweden" and you can follow my travels to the home of sloyd. Also, the links at right will carry you into the archives. Pick a month, any month. It's all about the hands in education.

shaker and milkpaint

Today I have made a small amount of progress in the woodshop, working on both spice cabinets and shaker wall cabinets. I also was visited by a blog reader and friend from the University of Minnesota whom I had met in Sweden and Finland and with whom it is always good to talk Sloyd. Faith and her friend Marilyn who is a botanical illustrator and the founder of the Minnesota School of Botanical Art are here to take a class with Leon Niehues, making baskets at the Eureka Springs School of the Arts.

I am curious whether any of my readers are familiar with the works of David Henry Feldman on creativity. He is co-author of Creativity and Development (Counterpoints: Cognition, Memory, and Language). It seems that with corporations complaining about the lack of creative engagement and potential in the people they hire, they would want to do something about it. But creating schools in which creativity was a goal doesn't seem to fall within their range of interests... not when they can adhere to the gospel of standardized testing. Wood shop and other forms of the arts can help to put creative problem solving back in schools, but we will have to come to our senses for that to happen.

The Wisdom of the Hands is starting to catch on. Lee Valley has asked for articles about woodworking with kids that will be featured in their newsletters. American Woodworker has an article coming out about Clear Spring School, and they have asked for permission to republish my articles about Sloyd on their website. Since they are the new owners of Woodwork Magazine, that should be an easy thing to arrange. These opportunities are in addition to more materials coming out on the Fine Woodworking website.

The whole point, is of course, that all children require the opportunity to learn through their hands, not just by having fingers carefully arranged on keyboards, but by the manipulation of real materials in the making of real things.

Is that simple or what? Is there something in this simple formula that is hard to get? The lines have been drawn for too long, dividing us into classes, and groups, but the truth of the hands is that we are all smarter when they are in use, and there is no one on earth that wouldn't become more competent and more respectful of others if given the opportunity to learn in the way we, as a species learn best. Hands-on.

Ion Art Magazine published here in Northwest Arkansas has several articles that are of direct interest to me. The magazine is full of friends. The cover image shown above is by artist Leon Niehues, whose wonderful baskets I have featured before in the blog. The collector profile is one I wrote about my friends Robyn and John Horn. Page 2 is advertising showing the work of one of my very best friends, Jim Nelson. The achievement page is celebrating the retirement of an art teacher friend, Jack Clancey. I feel so well connected!

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.

Crystal Bridges...

Carved Redwood sculpture by Robyn Horn

My wife and I attended a preview opening of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art yesterday. The official opening will be 11/11/2011, or this Friday. Please don't think you can just show up, even though attendance will be free. For the first month or so the attendance is expected to be huge and you should reserve your tickets on-line through the museum website. A friend of ours got a 5:30 AM time slot, and found it worthwhile, even getting up at 3:30 AM to arrive on time. My wife and I had a lovely day, and will go back again and again.

The work is sublime. The building is exquisite, and will no doubt become regarded as an architectural tour de force. Curving glass walls and glue laminated curved ceiling joists form bridges spanning two lakes and a small watercourse through a natural hollow on land that had been a personal nature preserve owned by Neil Compton, father of the Buffalo National River.
My own small boxes are featured in the museum gift store along with works by other Arkansas artists, including basketry by Leon Niehues.
One of the first pieces we saw as we entered the museum was work by my good friend Robyn Horn. It is carved redwood and shown in the photo at upper left. At above you see curved glass forming the boundary between the interior and exterior space of the museum grounds. The grounds will become even more beautiful now that the major construction is complete.


And then of course within museums we find work of historic significance and emotional effect. At left is the famous Rosie the Riveter.

Readers of this blog will enjoy a piece written by Mike Rose, author of Mind at Work, Cognitive full throttle: When Education for work ignites the mind.

Also, I want to remind my readers that you can enter to win a signed copy of my new book, Building Small Cabinets on theFine Woodworking Website.

Make, fix and create...