heading home...

I am in the airport at Indianapolis waiting for my return flights to Arkansas. Yesterday at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking I had a class of 19 students to explore the inside of a box. What do we want when we open one? To put things simply, we hope to be surprised. At the very least, we hope to not be disappointed.

As with my five day box making class, I began with the principles and elements of design.

One common mistake box makers make is to buy a bunch of the same stuff other box makers buy to fit out the insides of their boxes to hold jewelry and the like. When you do so, other box makers open the box and may know just where you got what. They may be impressed by how much money you spent, but that's beside the point. When you rely instead on your own creative inclinations, not only do you save money (a single brass post to hold a necklace can cost $5.00 or more at a Rockler store), you may offer the viewer something he or she has not seen before. My presentation yesterday was as much about thinking outside the box, as about finding things to put in it.

When I went to a Rockler woodworking store on Friday to scout out what they had for the insides of boxes, the clerk asked, "Do you want flocking?" Spray flocking to line boxes was the very last thing on my mind.

As an alternative you can go to a Michael's craft store and find an endless array of interesting papers that can do the same thing. The colors are much more interesting, and you can choose a texture that creates a sense of "I haven't seen that before."

Some of this reflects the difference between an "artistic" playful approach to woodworking, vs. a craftsperson's effort to color exactly between the lines.

It will be very good to be home in Arkansas.

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