from 3/12/2010

 3 characteristics of narrative

The first characteristic of narrative is what Jerome Bruner describes as its "inherent sequentiality: a narrative is composed of a unique sequence of events, mental states, happenings involving human beings as characters or actors." Bruner's second feature of narrative is that it can be "real" or "imaginary" without loss of its power as a story. Hence the power of well crafted fiction. Bruner's third crucial feature is that "it specializes in forging of links between the exceptional and the ordinary." That which is canonical or normal and by the rules, or noncanonical, breaking or transgressing the expected norms.

My point, in case you didn't already guess, is that narrative may be as strongly present in hand crafted work as in speech and written discourse, and in some cases can be more powerful. We place far greater value as a culture on written or spoken narrative and place far greater emphasis in education on discursive narrative than on that which is expressed by hand. And so part of coming to better terms with the value of crafted work lies in understanding its narrative role in human culture. Our objects describe who we are, where we are going, and the means through which we will arrive at our greatest potential.

These photos above and below of a recent piece of furniture showing narrative qualities in conformity with what Bruner outlines above. 

You will note that this table connects normal and unusual or exceptional elements in the same work. The contrast between the natural edged top board and the more conventional mortised and tenoned base is an example. While some viewers familiar with the process of crafting such work would know the sequence of operations the work records and describes, a casual viewer is drawn to skim or read it sequentially, just as one might skim or read a published text. 

Each and every piece of hand-crafted work is autobiographical in that it records and describes the maker's character as well as his motions in making the piece. The meander cut through the center of the board is used symbolically in a fictional representation of a river or stream, while also allowing use of a traditional technique--the sliding dovetail joint. And so, I hope my regular readers will understand that story telling, the foundation of human culture, is not just something that happens through words alone, but can take place whenever the human hand goes to work on wood.

Danish oil

A Danish oil finish penetrates to bring out the color and contrast in the various woods making them more lovely, and accentuating the craftsmanship.The inlay pins are nearly complete. Magnetic backs will be added.

Pins

Wearable inlay pins? or refrigerator magnets? Your choice.

These are made from samples of inlay from one of my earlier books, and in the effort of clearing a few things out, are being turned to use... After finishing, and the colors of the woods come to life, magnets will be fitted to the backs to which the inlay has been glued.

Years ago at War Eagle craft show, a craftsman in a neighboring booth was selling hand crafted stools and children's tables. I explained my process for making inlay and he turned that by the next year into a highly successful craft business, by changing the scale of the work— small enough to make earrings. I stuck with the larger scale of things so that individual species of wood might be discerned and known in contrast to each other.

Make, fix and create...

White oak cabinet

I've made the doors for a white oak, wall-hung cabinet which I'll attach using European hinges that will allow for adjustment, as the wide solid panel doors will be subject to expansion and contraction from seasonal humidity changes. Next I'll make shelves to fit inside. No cabinet pulls will be needed as the fronts hang down below the base, providing an easy way to open.

The cabinet is shown lying on it back and will be offered to ESSA when completed.

Wall hung cabinet details

I have returned my attention toward the wall hung cabinet I'm making. The photos show short dowels used to hide the screws holding the sides to the cabinet bottom and tapered dowels used to secure the top to the sides. The holes in the cabinet sides are slightly offset, requiring the dowels to be tapered to draw the lid tight. Next comes the shaping of the cabinet doors and installation of hinges.

Make, fix and create...

Table with rocks

I applied a Danish oil finish to a table with inlaid rocks. 

Make, fix and create...

 

Boxes with legs

With only a few making days before Xmas, I've been making a series of veneered boxes with legs. The woods used are oak and walnut, to be more beautiful when sanded and finished with clear coats of Danish oil.

Make, fix and create...

Where does the mind go when the hand is at work?

This is from my Wisdom of the Hands blog post of 1/3/2009

Things move in patterns and waves. As you stand on the beach each wave will seem just like another. And yet each is distinct. It brings in new things. There is a renewal of interest in self-sufficiency and do it yourself that seems to be arising in many age groups. In a way, the renewed wave of self-sufficiency is misnamed. It is about doing things ourselves, most often with others in mind. There at the heart of self-sufficiency, is the idea that something can be shared or offered in service to others. Scrapwood Bob is reading Build Your Own Earth Oven, Simple Sourdough Bread; Perfect Loaves https://amzn.to/48ERQ8r by Kiko Denzer and Hannah Field. He plans to use scrap wood from the woodshop as his source of fuel. What fun! Reduce the growing pile of scrap and make bread at the same time. 

There are two things that happen when we are creatively engaged in the making of things, making a meal, building an oven, or finely crafting an object from wood. On the one hand we shape the material present in our own lives to new form and we change the shape our own souls. We serve others through the things we make and we stretch ourselves in confidence and competency, moving from complacency to active participants in creation. 

Early educators warned that we take on a mechanical nature through the repetition of acts. We do something and develop skill in the doing and then as the skill takes root in the hand, its function becomes automatic, no longer requiring the attention of the mind and thereby losing its educational value in shaping character and thought. I am curious about this. And ask, "What happens when we are fully aware of the implications of our actions?" What would happen if our schools became not just places where our children were to learn, but places in which they might serve as well, seeing the actions of their hands providing benefit to others? 

I have this idea that when use use both the power of the trained hand to create, and the power of the mind to connect active hands-on service to higher thoughts and principles, the object made might become more powerful in its beauty, transmitting an energy that provides greater nourishment than would be found in objects thoughtlessly made or grown. For this to happen requires training of both the hand and mind. As we learn skill in the hands and the attention of the mind is no longer required for the success of its actions, what do we do with the mind? As it becomes free to wander, where does it go? What do we choose for its pasture? We can choose greater creativity, asking the question "what's next?" Or we can contemplate greater direction and more meaningful life. 

We can fantasize our own success. Or we can choose to indulge in fears and suspicions of each other. There is clearly a choice between dark indulgences and longing for better things, either for ourselves or others. And yet, there is a third choice, the Zen choice. 

What if one were to choose to be fully present. Rather than allowing the mind to wander from the moment as though no moment mattered, what if we chose to pay greater attention to each grasp of the hand in kneading the dough, or each pass of the plane shaving an edge of a plank as though such things were so real and so important there is no reason for escape? 

There is an idea in Zen that it is about freedom, but perhaps freedom is not about escape. So, these are just questions, about where we are led by our quest for self-sufficiency, about the baking of bread and the nurturing of human culture.

An example

Charles H. Hamm had asked that schools become creative laboratories and the MakerEd newsletter has asked folks to share their maker spaces with other readers.  The Kalani High School offers just what Hamm might have had in mind: 

https://open.substack.com/pub/makered/p/the-makerspaces-at-kalani-high-school 

I would, however, have a few basic woodworking tools.

Make, fix and create...

the ways we learn

Clear Spring School received one of the first grants from Rhizonium Foundation, awarded by Chris Schwarz of the Lost Press, member of their board. He said about the grant:

 

“As an Arkansas boy and a woodworker, I have long admired the work of The Clear Spring School. Your approach to teaching whole people – both the head and the hands – will help build future generations who are both capable and thoughtful. I am honored to support you as an enthusiastic fan, a philanthropist, and as a board member of Rhizomium.”

 Chris and I became followers of each other when we were co-jurors at the Northeast Woodworkers Association Showcase. I am combing my old blog for meaningful quotes and found this that I quote entire.

The ways and means of learning... 

One of the interesting things the wood shop at Clear Spring School has accomplished has been to offer an alternate means to learn. Activity, is important, not as mindless distraction, but as active expression of learning. As they say, "use it or lose it." Those things that you have used or have use for are easily cataloged in the brain, more quickly and easily retrieved in memory for reuse because they are connected in the sequential train of experience.

In a normal classroom, during a lecture, it is necessary for the mind to wander. You hear ideas expressed by the teacher, and then have to anchor that information to a catalog structured of previously known and accepted information or circumstance. This requires the attention to be withdrawn from the lecture for seconds or minutes as information is processed in internal dialog, and questions are formed in the mind when things don't fit. You may, if you are normal, find your attention being recalled to the lecture, after the teacher's train of thought has left the station and is miles down the track. 

When that happens, it is difficult for most students to catch up. They are abandoned on the classroom sideline to wander in their thoughts and useless fantasy. Please don't take my word for this. Observe yourself. Pay attention to the wanderings of your own mind as you reflect on information that is presented and as you fit it into your own life and experience. 

One of the subjects I discuss with my students in the wood shop is how we learn. If our students are to become actively engaged, self-motivated, lifelong learners, it is important that they become engaged in observing their own learning styles, that they become conscious of the workings of their own minds as they process information, and that they begin to control and better utilize available material and experience. 

The choice is whether they become masters of their own learning, knowing how to best take in and utilize the wide range of information available to accomplish their goals, or that they be left at the wayside of learning in idle fantasy and useless chatter. When we started the Wisdom of the Hands program at Clear Spring School, I knew that I was clueless about education. But I did, as a craftsman, know a bit about myself from observation of my own lifelong learning. If I want to learn something, I throw myself into waters over my head, where I either sink or swim. Acknowledging the dangers of sounding colloquial, through trial and error, where there is a will there is a way, and where there is a use, things will be learned and remembered. —Wisdom of Hands blog, October 29, 2007.

22 days

People ask about hand tool woodworking, and there's no better way to start, even as adults, than with some of the projects featured in my book, The Guide to Woodworking with Kids: Craft projects to Develop the lifelong Skills of Young Makers. It features a number of box making designs that can be crafted with simple joinery and can of course lead to other things. 

Your creative imagination deserves an starting point and simple is good. We now have 22 creative days yet to pass before Xmas. You can, of course, spend your time shopping, or better spend it developing skills and gifts to others. Featured in the photo is a pencil box I made for my own use, and as a demonstration box for the kids at the Clear Spring School.

Make, fix and create...

AI won't replace me (I hope)

How to AI proof your life and of those in your community? Andrew Yang who had been a presidential candidate has predicted that AI will erase 40 million jobs. It may make google more responsive but may take away jobs done over the phone where artificial voices will replace your own, and over the highways with automated trucks driving to your door. AI will better serve the sales of stuff to us, but leaving us no way to afford to buy it. Even farming, nursing and manufacturing can go toward AI controlled robotics.

One sure way to insure success in your own life and in your own community will be to demand that things be locally made and grown by members of your own community, or even by yourselves. It's what we'll have to do when things come to that point anyway. What will you do when you've no work? I recommend the crafts. Get started.

Today I'm gluing veneered panels in finger-jointed boxes, making them ready for lids to be cut loose from sides and veneered. Ain't nothing AI about it and I could be replaced, but won't be. Yet.

Are worried bout your work not measuring up to machine standards. Are you reticent to even try? Henry, a friend's 6-year-old grandson has this carefully crafted message for you. It is OK to make mistakes.

Make, fix and create...

finger jointed boxes

Today I finger-jointed 9 boxes of various sizes in cherry and white oak. They will be mitered at the top corners. Then the tops will be fitted, the lids will be fitted and cut from the base. The bottoms will be routed and fitted. Then veneered tops will be glued in place and legs will be added.

You've 25 shopping days before the Xmas holiday. May I recommend something from my Etsy shop? http://dougstowe.etsy.com

Make, fix and create...

Maybe even build a boat.

I have an article published in Emerge called "Maybe even build a boat," https://emerge-magazine.com/maybe-even-build-a-boat/ It was previously featured in the Hedgehog Review.

Make, fix and create...

Strategic engagement of the hands

SETH (strategic engagement of the hands)

We have all kinds of new fancy stuff to keep us distracted and amused, but as some have said, “boys will be boys,” and in that, things haven’t really changed all that much. 

“My daughter loves school,” a friend confided. “She does well, she works hard. The problem is with my son.” And so it is that schooling works well for some, and less well for others. The problems are sometimes reversed with school being easier for sons, or for one son or daughter than another, but psychologists and educators have noted what some have described as an epidemic of underperformance by boys. It is nothing exactly new. Going to school in the fifties and sixties I was one of those boys myself. My grades were average. My test scores indicated I should have done better, and I can describe from my own experience what it means to be trapped in school, bored and disinterested. I graduated from college only due to the pottery class which provided a desperately needed dose of hands-on sanity.

Boys Adrift: the Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men, by Leonard Sax notes that boys naturally mature at a slower rate than girls, and are often less ready for sedentary classroom activities. He also notes that the rapid increase in the effect of video gaming and iPhone foolery lessens the physical activities that facilitate reading readiness. There are other environmental factors as well, having to do with chemicals in the environment that accelerate physical maturity for girls and retard the development of boys. Overall, the issues are complex. But what they add up to is that boys are often ill-served by the current model of education. And the effects are enormous. Major universities are admitting boys at a lower level of tested intelligence and college preparation in order attempt to maintain a gender balance. An article in a New England newspaper wondered aloud where young women would be able to find mates with an equivalent level of education and earning capacity.

And so, the question must be asked, "How do we create schools that will benefit all children?" Is there a formula for it? These questions are nothing new. John Amos Comenius (1592-1670), considered the father of modern pedagogy (the science of education) observed:

 

“Boys ever delight in being occupied in something for the youthful blood does not allow them to be at rest. Now as this is very useful, it ought not to be restrained, but provision made that they may always have something to do. Let them be like ants, continually occupied in doing something, carrying, drawing, construction and transporting, provided always that whatever they do be done prudently. They ought to be assisted by showing them the forms of all things, even of playthings; for they cannot yet be occupied in real work, and we should play with them.”

 

There is a rise in the use of Ritalin and Adderall to control classroom behavior and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Certainly, some girls are diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed medication for it or considered autistic. But the largest number affected are male. If Comenius were making his observations today, in observing boys, he would note the same qualities in them now as then and suggest that we make use of their natural inclinations to their and our educational advantage. 

We should note that all the examples Comenius offers, carrying, drawing, construction, transporting, all are physical, concrete exercises involving all the senses, not at all what we find in todays’ schooling where children are confined in their seats. One parent was called in to a conference with the teacher’s complaint that her son kept falling out of his desk. But what else would a normal boy (or girl) do?

One cannot help but wonder if the structured learning in our schools is at least partially to blame for ADHD and the underperformance of boys. That schooling works for some may justify its existence, but that it doesn't work for others should call into question its methods. Howard Gardner popularized the notion that we learn in a variety of ways, that we each are smart in some ways and not others, and yet, there has been little direct implementation of his concepts in American classrooms. So, how do you go about such needed change? I call it the "strategic engagement of the hands" and create my own acronym "SETH." Make everything children learn "hands-on" meaning of course that it must engage the real world, the child's physical senses, and the opportunity to respond to learning through the arts. Simple enough. But it will take work, and it will take change. Again, going back to Comenius, "...inactivity is more injurious to both mind and body than anything in which children can be occupied." 

Make, fix and create...

are schools part of the problem?

From the New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/24/magazine/youth-mental-health-crisis-schools.html?unlocked_article_code=1.3k8.AMiE.O-PyNWzFR4-i&smid=url-share

Children need to be doing real things in schools.

read back and find quotes.

Do you have a few favorite quotes from this blog? links at the right will help you to navigate, back to October 2006, and every month up to today. I am trying to collect fifty, for publication in a small booklet, and you can help. Copy the quote, note the time and date where it can be found and let me know. Leave your comment below.

Make, fix and create...

a few published works

These are a few of my online published works, 2022-25, collected for your reading pleasure, I hope.

https://www.audacy.com/podcasts/the-path-to-learning-podcast-36546/the-power-of-hands-on-learning-doug-stowe-288588676

http://eureka.news/wood-whisperer-turns-consumers-into-creators/

https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2022/05/your-brains-are-in-your-hands-doug-stowe-on-forming-mind-hand-and-culture/

https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2025/02/crafting-the-ideal-school-finding-a-balance-between-high-tech-and-the-hands/

https://comment.org/considering-the-work-of-our-hands/

https://hedgehogreview.com/web-features/thr/posts/cosmic-interconnectedness-coincidence-and-kindergarten

https://emerge-magazine.com/a-garden-of-children/

https://hedgehogreview.com/web-features/thr/posts/maybe-even-build-a-boat

https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2024/07/a-garden-of-children/

https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2024/01/ai-misinformation-and-manual-arts-training/

https://comment.org/considering-the-work-of-our-hands/

https://makered.substack.com/p/from-desks-to-workbenches

Links to published works

I have updated this page of published works for your reading enjoyment.

Make, fix and create...

putting reality in learning.

We all love fiction and making stuff up and take some pride in our creativity, but enough is more than enough when it comes to learning. Kids know the difference between things that are made up for the amusement or to control them, and reality based education may not be as popular, but adheres more closely to truth, and offers efficiency because it leads to kids being able to do real things.

I was alerted this week to an article in Mortise & Tenon by Edward Bouvier that relies on my published materials.  ‘A communal legacy; Handcraft as part of a holistic education’ lists an editorial I wrote for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette  in 2022 as part of its source material. It is nice that the message continues to get out.

There can be little more lovely than that which nature provides. The trees shown are elm, dogwood and cedar, with dogwood providing the reds at center.

Make, fix and create...

Awakening passion in teaching

In order for teachers to awaken our children to their great potential as learners, we must provide for the awakening of passions in our teachers as well. That requires a change in the structure of schools, allowing flexibility, allowing creativity and experimentation. It requires allowing teachers to move beyond the set curriculum to explore areas of awakened interest and passion. It requires hiring teachers with the expectation that they will give their best, and then establishing a framework of trust that allows them to deliver.

Make, fix and create...

Rotary dial

My niece and nephew sent me a photo of toys that I had made for them at a much earlier time. Remember when we thought rotary dial phones would be with us for the ages?

respect for all labor

Instilling a respect for all labor. From Otto Salomon

"Words alone will not inspire this respect; hence we conclude that the best way to instill into children a true and proper respect for rough, honest, bodily labor is 1st. By introducing such work into schools of all grades, in order that all classes of the community may engage in it.

and 2nd. By the teachers taking both pleasure and pride in doing it themselves, as well as delight in teaching it intelligently to others. For what the teachers appreciate, the children usually appreciate."

I wish that the billionaires of today had received such educations. Perhaps it will come again.

Calculation of wood width as it dries.

 A useful tool is offered by https://www.woodweb.com/cgi-bin/calculators/calc.pl to help calculate the amount of shrinkage that will take place in wood as it ages. Determine the moisture content, the species of wood, whether it is flat sawn or quarter sawn, the target moisture content and the dimensions and it will tell you final dimensions.

I am making matched solid wood doors that meet in the middle and need to determine the initial width that they should be cut. The calculator will not be exact.

Make and buy local

Insight into the world of furniture making is offered by this article in the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/25/world/asia/malaysia-trump-tariffs-furniture.html?unlocked_article_code=1.wU8.Fauy.3O12GHjGlkGl&smid=url-share I have offered this link so that you can read without being a subscriber.

On the other hand there are makers in our own communities and while multinational investors may be concerned with tariffs and all there are direct reasons to invest in our own communities and each other. 

We are smarter when we apply our minds and hands in the making of the things we need. We are better communities when we have invested in each other. We have stronger families, better schools, safer communities when we have applied ourselves in the making of useful beauty.

I am in the process of selling a few hand made things, that I've placed for sale on Esty,(https://www.etsy.com/shop/dougstowe/) and shipped to the Arkansas Craft Gallery in Mountain View. I have also been making tables that are for sale. One of them is shown the photo.

How is this table different from what you might find in your mail order catalog? It is made from solid wood using a type of joinery that lasts for generations. The top is made from a single piece of wood that was grown here, on the same property upon which it was crafted. It is one-of-a-kind. It is locally grown and locally made.

Make, fix and create...

Oversized finger joints

Today I'm making oversized finger joints as shown to form the sides, top and bottom of a small wall-hung cabinet. The joints are formed by ripping the stock to uniform width and then gluing back together with the boards offset from one another.

It's a technique that I first introduced in my book Rustic Furniture Basics. https://amzn.to/4htXiPR

Make, fix and create. 

New Cherry hall table

I just finished this cherry hall table and am ready to move on to a new project.  When faced with troubling times, proceed to do unquestionably good things.

Make fix and create. 

Fresh sample boxes.

Finishing a 3 day class at ESSA, my students and I managed to near finish a number of boxes as sample for student work. Mine are shown in the photo and include 1 box with mitered corners and floating panel top, one finger jointed box tapered hinged lid and two mitered boxes with spalted white oak lift off lids. 

A class photo with all the student made boxes will come later in the day. My boxes will require additional sanding and finish. The woods you see in the photo are cherry, walnut, white oak, and cedar.

Make, fix and create...

gluing and clamping legs together

I have glued and clamped the leg and apron assembly for a cherry hall table and will sand and attach the top tomorrow.

Make, fix and create...

Viking chest class

With two days of Viking chest class complete at ESSA (essa-art.org), students have their chests assembled, sanded and stained while they work for two days with Dale Custer in the forging studio to make the hardware consisting of hinges, hasp and handles.

Students have learned a lot and done great work. On Saturday I'll be at studio stroll to discuss the project, and do a quick demonstration. On Sunday I'll be with the class to finish up.

Make, fix and create...

Loose tenons

I'm continuing to make a cherry hall table and am using "loose" tenons to form the joints between parts. A "loose" tenon is not actually loose when fully assembled but is formed separately, allowing me to form mortises in both parts and the tenons glued in place to join both parts. It forms a strong, lasting joint.

As you can see in the photographs, this technique allows parts to be cut to exact length and then joined with less complicated measuring and cutting involved than a convention tenon that's cut and shaped at the ends of the stock. The loose tenon stock is milled to exact size, then rounded at the edges on the router table and after being cut in lengths will be glued in place.

Make, fix and create...

Cherry tabletop

With white oak tables complete I've had so much fun that I'm making one from cherry. The top is shaped using a saber saw, and plane after two wide boards were planed and glued to dimension. Next come the legs. 

This one will also be for sale.

People need to be informed of the value of having tools. We are transformed by them. Each is an expression of power to shape and express. 

We're not powerless consumers but makers and crafters. We'll not look to Wall Street for the redemption of the middle class, but  to ourselves and each other..

Make, fix and create...

Finished but for additional coats

Work for sale. Deliverable within Northwest Arkansas.  

I have finished the hall table and need to move it out of house and home to make room for another, as I enjoy making them. Contact me if you're interested in owning work of this nature. All solid wood but for the screw clips attaching the single board top.

Other works of useful integrity are available.

Make, fix and create...

Ready to attach the top

I have nearly completed the hall table as shown.

A reader said that he'd read my book "Wisdom of Our Hands" and as a beginning woodworker wondered which of my box making books might come next. I mentioned "Basic Box Making" by Taunton Press because the DVD done in association with it is offered free on my YouTube channel here:  https://youtu.be/8xlz9ekl3JE

In fact, you could do as some of my friends have done and watch one by one, through whole playlists including small cabinets and rustic furniture. Then enjoy the contents working with projects for kids. My friends left the channel on, even when their attentions were drawn away, just to build the hours. Thanks!

Make, fix and create... 

a quick tutorial

Form finger joints, but unlike a conventional finger joint, index the stock from both sides, stopping in the middle. 

Use a marking gauge to place an index mark for removal of the finger that will impede the completion of the joint. 

Then use a chisel to remove it, chiseling in on the marking gauge line from both sides. 

The joint will fit together as shown. In order for this technique to work, the parts must be rip sawn to the same width.

Make, fix and create...

upside down

Turned upside down I can measure the trial assembled hall table for the last step before adding the lower stretcher. I'll form tenons on the ends of the stock before final assembly and the leg units are permanently glued. 

Now that I've glued the legs to the aprons and added the lower support stretcher, the next steps will be to make a finger jointed drawer, maple drawer slides, a drawer front and finish.

Make, fix and create...

Assembly

I am in the process of gluing and assembling components of a hall table. Shown is the drawer support and apron assembly that will allow me to make a trial assembly of the whole table and to take accurate measurements of the lower tenoned support that runs left to right. 

What you witness are my own attempt of authenticity... Applying my time in pursuit of my ideals.

Make,  fix and create...

routed aprons ...IRL

I've routed the aprons for a hall table and am ready now for sanding, then assembly. I used a sign maker's router bit with a tiny bearing to be able to closely follow the sawn profile. https://amzn.to/3HONkev

Make, fix and create...
 

In Real Life

Being out of touch with internet slang I had to go to google to learn the acronym IRL means "in real life." Fortunately I'm not far from ideal life or being "in" it, as I have my woodshop and tools to turn to, and I have little use for what they're selling. Most of that will be useless, broken or in the landfill because of diminishing interest in a matter of months. So paying for it will not fit your needs or mine despite how attractive and addictive it appears. 

Take this lesson to heart. The things you make exist as skills in your own heart, hands and mind and nearly all else is some corporation trying to take advantage of you and your resources.

Today I have planed the stock for the table aprons and begin forming tenons on the table saw. The first step is to cut the shoulders of the tenons using the table saw sled as shown. The stop block makes certain that each cut is the same distance from the end of the stock. This is not AI. It's real life, and join me in some. It's infinitely rewarding.

Make, fix and create...

Tapered and marked for mortises

I have tapered and marked the legs for mortises. Cutting mortises will be the next step, and as they are done in pairs, left and right, the marking is a careful task.

I have continued to read Mike Rose's book, Mind at Work: Valuing the Intelligence of the American Worker, https://amzn.to/47szxo9 and it should be noted that in addition to this book, Rose was a noted authority on writing. And for some, the urge to write emerges when one has something to say. Looking at a blank paper in sixth grade while the teacher stands over you expecting you to perform won't do.

We do not all mature at the same pace and many have discovered their inclination to write when they've matured enough to have something meaningful to say. While the teacher stands there putting the pressure on, relax.

Make, fix and create...

Keeping busy

Keeping busy in the woodshop is part of my physical therapy from having had a stroke on December 1, 2024. 

I work for a while and then go back to sit and rest... Then go back to work until I feel tired. 

The white oak was harvested here on our small wood lot  and stored in my barn to dry. I had to cut it down to 14 3/4 in. to pass through the planer, then shaped it, routed the edges and sanded to 120 grit.

Next come legs, aprons, mortise and tenon joints and a drawer. It is all slightly larger than the hall table I made last week and will fit nicely in an office or home. The wood is particularly lovely. Wide, free of defects and lovely.

There are those who do not experience the creative joy that making entails. Surely we can have the machine and imported labor do things for us, and be diminished by it.

Or we can make other choices.

Make, fix and create...

Making a sycamore sculpture

Make, fix and create...

A reason for woodworking in school

A reason for woodworking:

In the early days of manual arts Uno Cygnaeus in Finland sought a means of extending the Kindergarten method into the upper grades in his creation of folk schools. How-to was clear in that Froebel's distinction between "gifts" and "occupations" should be informing us in the decisions we make about education today. 

The gifts, including sets of blocks and other creative devises were used by the children then put back in their boxes unchanged. The idea of the gift was to change the understanding in the heart and mind of the child, to incite curiosity about learning, and observation of life.  

Occupations were the materials that were changed and no longer available to the box from which they came. Woodworking and other crafts were the occupations Cygnaeus had in mind. We should adopt that same understanding of technology. Kids can learn from their devices, but if they don't do anything tangible as a result of learning, then their learning is what educators once called, "one-sided". What goes in, must come out, and not only through testing but through the making of beautiful and useful things.

The occupations were to give children creative, transforming power through which they, too, were transformed.  The distinction between Froebel's gifts and occupations was based on the recognition that education was not just what went into the child in the form of lessons and information, but must  also be  balanced by what comes out of the child in the form of tangible expression, in which each child discovered ways in which they could participate directly in community life.

Make, fix and create...

Happy labor day

People should read Mike Rose's book "The Mind at Work:Valuing the Intelligence of the American Worker." It was published in 2005 and I offer it as a classic. He was inspired by his mother (a waitress), his uncle Frank (a welder) and his own highs school experience to reevaluate the relative intellectual  content of various professions and trades and the social stratification that results from the colossal misunderstanding of intellect and how it evolves with the assistance of the hands. https://amzn.to/3I1sAQu

Make, fix and create... offset the growing impact of artificial intelligence by doing something real.

Sculpture

Sculpture has a higher perceived value than more practical things but allows you to express things that some folks might miss. For instance a crafted wood object may fail to convey the craftsman's relationship with wood. Though it might be there, it might be missed or misunderstood, as wood is seldom regarded with the reverence it deserves.

This piece of simply done "sculpture" may not be valued by some. There is the speed at which it's done, but the message is simple and easy to understand. We fail to value all the wonderful things wood does for us, and we fail to protect the forests from which it comes. It's twisted, it is torn.

I took a piece of ash, too wide to pass through the planer and used the bandsaw to cut it into two narrower parts before planing.

I then used the compound miter saw to trim the ends, allowing them to rest stably on a base. After a base is made, I will use a rotary chisel to texture the inside edges and ends. An oil finish will bring the wood to life.

My thanks to arborist Larry Lowman for the wood. The cherry base was added. A friend asked me what I would do today. It brought me joy to have done this. Follow your own bliss.

Make, fix and create...