how things get passed along.

My own involvement in the Eureka Springs School of the Arts as one of the founders of the organization came as a result of my uncle Ron's involvement in Arrowmont, a school in East Tennessee that Ron and his wife Louise attended for years as I was busy launching my career as a woodworker and attempting to learn what I now do and teach today.

They would tell me about their attendance at Arrowmont, and that gave me the idea that we needed a school of that type here in Eureka Springs. This is ESSA's twentieth year, and today I'll take my uncle Ron's three sons and their wives on a tour of the facility their father and mother in a rather direct way helped to launch. This is an illustration of how things get passed along and a thing you can do in your own life and in your own community.

No craftsman is an island unto himself. I use the word craftsman while insisting that the term is not gender specific. It takes a community to make one. Even if you are not one or choose not to be one, there are ways you can play a part. One simple way is to support craftsmanship and woodworking as a thing children learn to do in school. Another simple way is to support craftsmanship and woodworking as a thing adults do in school. We are by nature, lifelong learners.

You can read about my experience teaching at Arrowmont here, "Turning Left at the Hard Rock Cafe:" http://www.dougstowe.com/arrowmont/arrowmont.htm

This week Steve Palmer is teaching furniture design at ESSA.

Make, fix, and create...