a thought about wood.

The highest paid youtube star is 8 years old and earned 26 million dollars. 500 hours of youtube video are uploaded every minute. The way someone gets paid is by attracting viewers and receiving advertising revenue. Corporations get paid additionally by gathering information on us, where we are, what we buy, what we're likely to buy next, to thereby make certain they're the ones to sell it to us.

Eighty to 90% of what's sold in the US is destined for the landfill or disposal within 2-3 years. We have a relentless appetite to have fresh stuff put at our disposal. The costs are enormous, both on the personal level and for the planet. We have a huge balance of trade deficit that puts our future ever more securely in the hands of the Chinese and other investors in American "prosperity."

And so the question arises, "what if we were each empowered to make beautiful, useful, and lasting things for ourselves?"

Yesterday I helped the staff of the Eureka Springs School of the Arts make boxes. While the boxes we made in a short period of time were not perfect, (Perfection can only come through time and repetition) each box made is a symbol of growth that will find a useful place in each maker's life.

While environmentalists race to remove the great Pacific garbage patch of swirling plastic and as it grinds its way into smaller micro-plastic bits that will be impossible to remove from the marine ecosystem or from intrusion into all life, wood's not like that at all. It is a natural, renewable component to the planet. It can be composted or burned without deleterious effect. Wood has always been an important part of the natural environment. Plastic has not.

Today I'll begin moving the benches, tools and cabinetry of the Clear Spring School woodworking studio into its new space.

Make, fix and create.