carve...

carve (v.)

Old English ceorfan (class III strong verb; past tense cearf, past participle corfen) "to cut, cut down, slay; to carve, cut out, engrave," from West Germanic *kerfan (cf. Old Frisian kerva, Middle Dutch and Dutch kerven, German kerben "to cut, notch"), from PIE root *gerbh- "to scratch," making carve the English cognate of Greek graphein "to write," originally "to scratch" on clay tablets with a stylus.

In that mix, you will find the word kerf... another wood working term. scarf (n.2)

"connecting joint," late 13c., probably from Old Norse skarfr "nail for fastening a joint." A general North Sea Germanic ship-building word (cf. Dutch scherf, Swedish skarf, Norwegian skarv), the exact relationship of all these is unclear. Also borrowed into Romanic (cf. French écart, Spanish escarba); perhaps ultimately from Proto-Germanic *skerf-, *skarf- (cf. Old English sceorfan "to gnaw, bite").

I've ben told that escarvar in Portuguese is a verb referring to the process of connecting two pieces of wood into a continuous piece, while the verb escavar means "to paw,"as would a dog or a lover. The language of the hands touches nearly every aspect of our human verbal expression. And then there is the rest of what the hands do, connecting us with everything else.

Today on the radio, I listened to an interview with Jill Bolt Taylor in which she described an unbelieveable sense of bliss and connectedness that came as her capacity to speak and think in words was stripped away due to a stroke. I believe her experience was what Pestalozzi described as Anschuaang, a pre-intellectualized recognition of the wonders of reality that is often lost in formalized education.

Last night's White St. Art Walk was a booming success if one looked only at the number of folks attending. For me, sales were down, but with White St. out of the way, I begin preparing for my classes at Marc Adams School of Woodworking that begin on May 28. I heard there may still be spaces available in this class if you have time available to attend and learn box making.

Make, fix and create...