72632 narrative on narrative part 6

When it comes to telling a story, it is good to start at the beginning. When you start at the beginning your reader or listener, or in the case of crafts, observer or patron becomes part of a much more engaging and meaningful story. In most of what humans do these days, there is often no beginning and no satisfactory end. We work (our daily grind) on bits and pieces of things, lines of code that fit larger programs in ways we may not understand. We engage in processes in which there is no clarity of outcome. We send our children unceremoniously into the world, using technologies of which they have no depth of understanding. For our boys, there is no procedure or ceremony through which they become clearly and irrevocably accepted as men. We are weakened by the loss of narrative in our own lives, and by the lack of meaningful, coherent narrative to share with others.

When you begin to understand the concept of narrative, you may also begin thinking more clearly about your work. What is the story you wish to tell? And where does that story begin? What is the opening sentence or line that will engage the reader and carry your story forth into future generations? Is narrative only that which we tell outwardly to others, or does it serve within as the framework for critical thinking in our own lives and in our own thoughts? As modern human beings we are driven serially from one unconscious act to the next, but having an internal sense of narrative, allowing one to connect origins and objectives through one’s own self-talk or internal dialog is a transformational phenomenon.

Rudolf Steiner, founder of the Waldorf system of education said that children should be given only those things that they can understand. Otto Salomon, who advanced and promoted Educational Sloyd throughout the world, expressed the same concept as “move from the concrete to the abstract, from the known to the unknown,” establishing in the child's experience a narrative progression and expansion of intellect.

Narrative takes place in all human acts. What we do describes who we are. The world is changed by each and every thing we do. Things may not be written in words and what we have written in action may only be understood by those literate enough in that form of action to have interest and intellectual framework to understand. Too often, we live our lives having little sense of conscious effect, but our unconscious, inadvertent effect of each of our lives is written clearly on our land, water, atmosphere and the lives of the other species with whom we share this planet.

One of the primary qualities of a good story, a good narrative is that it grabs you at the beginning and carries you to the place of the author’s or maker’s intent. The quality of the narrative is most often an expression of the deep engagement of the author/maker in the full process. In my own work, I begin with the rough, raw materials harvested in my own community from trees that I have watched grow on Ozark mountain hillsides, and I am convinced that has given greater depth and meaning to the narrative and quality of my own work. I could farm out portions of my work to others. I could buy my lumber planed and ready for use. But that would neglect some of the story that engages my senses fully in the creation of the work. I could send the work out for finishing by others, but that would deprive my eyes of the beautiful transformation of color and depth of grain that takes place when the finish is applied.

Can you see how the qualities of the object may be dependent on the passions engaged in the maker through the process of its making? In schools we lay great emphasis on reading and numbers to the neglect of more personal narrative acts. When do we expect student passions to arise in an education that flits so lightly from subject to subject, has no beginning in the child’s own hands and thus provides no clear and compelling personal vector, sense of movement and direction, with which he or she might align for personal growth?

This morning, I was reading Will Price’s address to the Eastern Manual Training Association conference of 1904:

I am not going to try to give you a history of manual training (which you undoubtedly know more about than I do), or of the Arts and Crafts movement, except in the most general way. I am going to try to go deeper and to get at what it is all about. In order to do that it is worth while to glance back at the beginning of things for a moment.

Man at first was a naked, cold, hungry animal in a cold and strenuous world, and out of that, because of that, man is becoming worth while. That very weakness, that very nakedness, tested the ingenuity of man, compelled him to invent. Out of such invention two things came to him; in the first place, a great joy in the sense of creation; in the second place, a development because of that work. Man then endeavored to express his new point of view; because with his development came a new outlook, a new meaning to the rolling cloud and to the rushing water and to the lightning, to the song of the birds; and so art was born. Art is not, as has been said, “the visible evidence of man’s joy in his work,” because it is that very joy and that very work itself. If art was the visible evidence of man’s joy in his work, then the rich would indeed, as they think they do, possess the hoarded treasures of the world; whereas they but gather the crumbs that fall from the artist’s table. The real joy, the real good there is in art (and by art I mean the art of making the dishpan as much as a statue of Phidias), the real motive of art after all, when you analyze it, is simply to make us worthwhile, to made us fit to love and be loved, fit to live together.

Today in the Clear Spring School wood shop, the first 2nd and 3rd grade students will begin making traffic signs for the campus. It is a way for them to invest in how it works and how students interact with each other. We did a similar project two years ago so I know it will be fun.

verisimilitude

For some time I've been trying to explain political reality from a manual arts perspective. There are a few folks I've referenced in previous blog posts that may help you to sort out and dig deep. One is Joe the Plumber. ( each of these can be found by using the search function of this blog, found at upper left) Another is Karl Popper whose concept "verisimilitude" can also be useful in digging deep. For facebook readers, you'll have to go to the blog, http://wisdomofhands.blogspot.com

What follows is a blog post from WEDNESDAY, MARCH 31, 2010

Narrative and reality

Jerome Bruner's article "The Narrative Construction of Reality" suggests that narrative plays an important role in how man "achieves a 'true' knowledge of the world... that is to say, how we get a reliable fix on the world, a world that is... assumed to be immutable and... 'there to be observed'." (we develop narratives and then chat in our own heads and with each other about them) But it should be noted that belief and reality often differ.

In my continuing interest to explain the narrative function of crafts, I want to address one minor point of comparison. In discursive narrative, verisimilitude, or what Stephen Colbert called "truthiness" is completely acceptable. In my interpretation of Bruner's article, discursive narrative may be based on real events or fictional, without diminishing our use of it to establish belief or to portray reality in shaping the beliefs of others. A great example is when Ronald Reagan used his movie characters' "experiences" as being valid in explaining and rationalizing positions he took in office as president.

In political narrative, it has become completely acceptable to just make stuff up. I want to compare this with craftwork as narrative expression. Crafts are not about making things up, but about making real things. Narrative, as used in politics, religion and entertainment creates belief based on verisimilitude, on ideas that may appear to resemble truth from certain psychological predispositions but may not be able to pass full muster of physical reality.

In other words, in discursive narrative, you get to make stuff up. In crafts, you make beautiful and useful stuff instead, and if you are interested in reality, there is no substitute for the real thing, and I'm not talking Coke.

There is an honesty in craft work that is missing in too much k-12 and university education, and the results can be disastrous for the entire society. The following is from Charles Henry Ham's book, Mind and Hand, 1886:

"It is thus that the trained hand comes at last to foresee, as it were, that a false proposition is surely destined to be exploded. The habit of rectitude gives it prescience. It invariably discovers, sooner or later, that a false proposition, when embodied in wood or iron, becomes a conspicuous abortion, involving in disgrace both the designer and the maker. A false proposition in the abstract may be rendered very alluring; a false proposition in the concrete is always hideous. One of the chief effects of manual training is, then, the discovery and development of truth; and truth, in its broadest signification, is merely another name for justice; and justice is the synonym of morality."

I find it interesting that Karl Popper, the philosopher who came up with the concept "verisimilitude" had an early career in a cabinet shop that he described as being his launch into the realm of philosophy.

Today in the woodshed, I'll be working on a table base.

Make, fix and create...

narrative and reality

Jerome Bruner's article The Narrative Construction of Reality suggests that narrative plays an important role in how man "achieves a 'true' knowledge of the world... that is to say, how we get a reliable fix on the world, a world that is... assumed to be immutable and... 'there to be observed'." But it should be noted that belief and reality often differ.

In my continuing interest to explain the narrative function of crafts, I want to address one minor point of comparison. In discursive narrative, verisimilitude, or what Stephen Colbert calls "truthiness" is completely acceptable. In my interpretation of Bruner's article, discursive narrative may be based on real events or fictional, without diminishing our use of it to establish belief or to portray reality in shaping the beliefs of others. A great example is when Ronald Reagan used his movie characters' "experiences" as being valid in explaining and rationalizing positions he took in office as president. In political narrative, it has become completely acceptable to just make stuff up.

I want to compare this with craftwork as narrative expression. Crafts are not about making things up, but about making real things. Narrative, as used in politics, religion and entertainment creates belief based on verisimilitude, on ideas that may appear to resemble truth from certain psychological predispositions but may not be able to pass full muster of physical reality. In other words, in discursive narrative, you get to make stuff up. In crafts, you make beautiful and useful stuff instead, and if you are interested in reality, there is no substitute for the real thing, and I'm not talking Coke.

There is an honesty in craft work that is missing in too much k-12 and university education, and the results can be disastrous for the entire society. The following is from Charles Henry Ham's book, Mind and Hand, 1886:

It is thus that the trained hand comes at last to foresee, as it were, that a false proposition is surely destined to be exploded. The habit of rectitude gives it prescience. It invariably discovers, sooner or later, that a false proposition, when embodied in wood or iron, becomes a conspicuous abortion, involving in disgrace both the designer and the maker. A false proposition in the abstract may be rendered very alluring; a false proposition in the concrete is always hideous. One of the chief effects of manual training is, then, the discovery and development of truth; and truth, in its broadest signification, is merely another name for justice; and justice is the synonym of morality.

On Narrative

This is a repost from a few years back. 

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 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.

I offer these photos above and below of a piece of furniture showing narrative qualities in conformity with what Bruner outlines above. Dr. Bruner and I discussed whether craft work was narrative or not, with him taking one angle and me the other.

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.

Make, fix and create...

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.

As I am fighting a cold and sinus infection, I'll not be at my best, but will offer 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.

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.

segmented turning at ESSA

Today the Clear Spring School wood shop continues to be used by the Eureka Springs School of the Arts for a segmented turning class with Delbert Dowdy. In the photo at left, Delbert is gluing a small ring of wood using tape to hold the parts in alignment just as I do with box making.

A couple days ago I mentioned a post about narrative based on Jerome Bruner's discussion of narrative in one of his books. One point of distinction is that while Bruner did not recognize the significance of non-verbal narrative, I do. To fail to understand the narrative significance of art is to miss one of its important points.

My post on narrative continues to be a favorite among blog readers, and for reasons unbeknownst to me, many of the readers are from the Philippines. Now, why would that be? perhaps some professor at a university has told his students, "read this."

On the other hand, there is a close relationship between narrative and the true meaning of art. We tend to think of narrative as being a matter of written and spoken word. That limited perspective marginalizes the voices and stories of creative peoples placing greater value on the things that can be published in books over those things which take personal attention to create.

The internet is leveling the verbal playing field giving all a voice in written words that might be compelled to demand it. But wwe must be careful not to neglect other forms of narrative for they are what give us things to write in the first place. The post to which I refer is 3 characteristics of narrative.

While the CSS shop is being used by Delbert's class, I am packing and preparing for my classes with the Kansas City Woodworkers Guild on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. My evening presentation will be on Wednesday night, 7 PM at 3189 Mercier St. Kansas City, MO.  I'll be presenting on the Wisdom of the Hands.

Come if you can.
If not, make, fix and create.

the power of narrative

I've spent the last two days laid up and off from school with sinus headaches and head cold. I'm not sick often, but the fact that I can sit up and write on the blog I take as a good sign.

I have been reading Jerome Bruner's Acts of Meaning which is an exploration of the role of narrative in human culture. You will have noted that I regard creative action in the wood shop to be form of narrative... that narrative can consist of far more than just the written and spoken word. A well crafted, beautiful and useful object is narrative in that it describes to an informed viewer the skill and character of its maker.

I find it fascinating to listen to my student's conversations as they work in the wood shop. Their narratives are revealing. Whereas children would have once referenced their own lives in their discourse, "I did this and we did that", now so much of their narrative is repetition from what they have seen in movies, TV programs or video games. Their own lives seem to not be interesting enough in comparison to the prepackaged narratives sold to their generation by the entertainment industry.

I am not sure what this all means, and I am puzzled by Bruner's title, Acts of Meaning. We know that narrative is a powerful force in human culture. I am hoping that as my sinus headache clears greater clarity will come.

Narrative crafts?

A narrative is a story that is created in a constructive format (as a work of writing, speech, poetry, prose, pictures, song, motion pictures, video games, theater or dance) that describes a sequence of fictional or non-fictional events. It derives from the Latin verb narrare, which means "to recount" and is related to the adjective gnarus, meaning "knowing" or "skilled". - wikipeida

And so in this interesting list of narrative forms you, if you are a craftsman will see a glaring oversight... that of crafts. Are crafts a narrative expression? If you begin to understand that they are, it can change the way that they are viewed. It can change also the way we work as we ask, "what is the story here that I am trying to tell?" It is my contention that the physical realities engaged through the making of beautiful and useful objects is more vital, more sincere than those narrative forms dependent on written or spoken words alone. It is tragic that many viewers of crafts know too little of the creative language of form and technique to understand the narrative content. The story of how things are made is richly entertaining. And so it is with making a box. Like a poet, great playwright or novelist, a craftsman is also engaged in narration, revealing his or her own creative soul in material story form.

On another subject, Diane Ravitch has a new book out about education called the Death and Life of the Great American School. It is refreshing to see such intellectual honesty. As noted in a Time Magazine review, "It is always fascinating to see someone renounce previously held beliefs." Ravitch, as Assistant Secretary of Education had been a passionate supporter of charter schools, standardized testing and merit pay, but now offers a 180 degree contrary view to the current educational reform movement. As mentioned in the Time Magazine review, "such unabashed 180s are a rare sight both in politics--where an opinion once stated is by necessity an opinion forever defended--and in academia, which is only slightly less afflicted by the cult of the certain." Time gives Ravitch's new book a "read" rather than skim or toss rating.

72632 part 3 beginning a narrative on narrative (draft)

In 1970, Eureka Springs was recognized on the National Register of Historic Places, and the Historic District Commission was established to preserve it in 1976. The movement for Eureka Springs to receive this status and to set up the governing body to preserve it was led by Eureka Springs artist, Louis Freund. Louis and his wife Elsie had traveled widely, had observed the loss taking place in most communities of their unique architectural significance and interest, had recognized the unique beauty of Eureka Springs and had become advocates of historic preservation. When they had first moved to Eureka Springs, homes could be bought cheap and many had been torn down for the value of the lumber and cut stone. They had purchased Carrie Nation’s home, Hatchet Hall for $200.00.

Having a historic district is kind of a pain in the ass. If you want to repaint your house, you have to give assurances it will be the same color. If you want to change colors, you have to get approval from the Historic District Commission. And as projects become more complicated dealing with the HDC can get worse. If you are new to town, jumping through hoops and facing the well-meaning but sometimes petty tyrants of the HDC would make you wonder why you decided to move here in the first place. But I’m not complaining. Eureka Springs is the well preserved tourist and arts destination that it is due to the tireless efforts of what some call the “pretty police.”

This may seem like a very odd leap in my own narrative, but when Francisco Pizarro led his band of conquistadors into central Peru in 1532, his small armed band of 160 horsemen and foot soldiers slaughtered thousands of Incan warriors whom they regarded as barbaric, and appropriate for domination in their quest for gold. The Spaniards considered themselves morally superior due to their belief in Christianity, and their horses, their armament and methods of warfare well tuned from their battles to expel the Moors gave them a distinct advantage. In their first battle the Spaniards consisting of 106 infantry, and 62 cavalry, armed with 4 cannons and 12 harquebus killed 6-7,000 Incan warriors without the loss of a single conquistador. Prior to the battle, Incan emperor Atahualpa asked to see a Bible when Friar Valverde said it "spoke to him". Unfamiliar with how to open a book, the emperor became enraged when the friar tried to help him, and struck his arm. Then he opened it, but was unimpressed with the pages and words and threw the book to the ground. Outraged at desecration of their holy book, the conquistadors launched into one of the bloodiest one-sided battles in world history, as the mounted soldiers with swords and supported by cannon and harquebus mowed down Incan warriors like blades of grass. Short–term peace was achieved after Atahualpa’s surrender when he promised to deliver a room full (3074) cubic feet of pure gold, and 2 equal sized rooms of silver. Atahualpa’s hopes were that when the Spaniards had been satiated with gold, they would go away. Little did he know what was coming for his people. Even after watching them in battle, he knew little of their moral depravity.

The hippie/artist/craftsman takeover of Eureka Springs was far less bloody than the conquest of Peru. Even though some locals, like Atahualpa thought that the hippies were just here for the short term, passing through. There were some fundamental differences between the conquistadors of the two distinct eras. In Peru, the Conquistadors saw value in two things, Gold and the Bible. They would walk past massive stonewalls while completely out of touch with the advanced sensitivity of hand and intelligence that created them.

In Eureka Springs the arriving hippies were looking for something beyond gold and in stark contrast to the Spanish conquistadors we fell in love with the stone walls, winding streets, and the hand crafted ornamentation on the Victorian cottages. The hippies arriving with money bought houses on the cheap and hired both locals and other hippies to restore them and bring them back to Victorian colors. Others settled in to rental property and took to the streets. Some started businesses in the downtown. And some began careers as writers, craftsmen, artists, and restauranteurs.

It may seem very goofy to my readers to bring the Incan empire up in my discussion of the role of my fair city in the development of the arts. While the founders of the Great Passion Play came carrying the same book that inspired the conquerors of Peru, and while they built their own city on the hill, East Mountain, complete with a “New Jerusalem” and a huge concrete statue of Christ, they had arrived at the edge of a city already established as a destination for the arts. My purpose in bringing the Incan empire into this brief discussion is related to a concept that some artists and craftsmen call “narrative.” Essentially, everything tells its own story to those who have the literacy and understanding to read it. Just as Atahualpa threw down the Bible, opening it and finding that it did not “speak.” Blinded by gold, and ambition and holding the Bible as rationale, Pizarro’s conquistadors walked or rode though thousands of miles of Incan culture and chose not to read its meaning or acknowledge its value. And while the Passion Play founders came bearing the book, the creation of their new Jerusalem came through the hands of local craftsmen.

And of course, the most important thing was that unlike Spanish conquistadors, the newly arriving hippies were attuned to (and developing a literacy in) the narrative told by winding streets, carefully laid stone, and Victorian bric-a-brac.

More to come….

what we know to be true

I have been reading works that are influenced by Jerome Bruner. His work at Harvard laid the foundation for Project Zero which works in the area of arts and cognition, and his name came up in conversation with a friend. One of the things I have mentioned in the blog before is that narrative takes many forms and that the work of a craftsman is to describe his or her universe. Our narration may take place in strokes of the plane creating texture rather than text. It may not be readily understood by those inexperienced or illiterate in the methods and motives of hands-on craftsmanship, yet to create is a narrative act, often more responsive, responsible, truthful and expressive than words alone.

Interestingly our hands-on narrative even more than written text is responsible for the warp and woof of human culture. Literacy of words and language is regarded as being of greater importance and intelligence than "literacy" of the expressive hand.

The Narrative Construction of Reality, by Jerome Bruner is an important paper published in Critical Inquiry, 1991.

favorites...

One of the ways that I can assess my own participation in this blog, and its value to my readers is through a tracking service which tells me which posts are read again and again by readers or forwarded to new readers via email. It also tells me how readers have found their way into my site. Tracking services are one of the advantages that internet writers have over writers of the past who often labored over their words for years before seeing any kind of response from their readers. Most wrote without knowing whether it would be of any interest whatsoever. Writing with the assistance of modern technology is far easier than ever before, and is thus of less value. In that it is on a par with most other human endeavors that have been assisted and simultaneously undermined at the same time.

One of my readers' favorite posts has to do with the narrative, or story telling aspects of craft, and a search for a discussion of narrative is a thing that brings many first time visitors to this blog. Seeing numbers is not the same as having a personal conversation with readers, but it does show interest in what I've had to say, and helps me to know that what I discuss has growing relevance. You can read a reader favorite on the subject of narrative here. The photo above left is a "narrative" work, as  described in the earlier post. Another favorite post concerns the relationship between Pestalozzi and Froebel in laying the groundwork for Educational Sloyd. That post can be read here. Readers of this blog can give feedback through the comments link below. Do you have a favorite post or subject area? Let me know. A conversation if far better than statistics.

A reader, in Buffalo, Jeff, who does woodwork with his 7 year old son, sent a link to Childhood Engineers. The article describes how the various opportunities that children have for play can be a strong influence in their future capacities in science, technology, engineering and math.

Today, I am cleaning the shop and preparing for my class at the Kansas City Woodworker's Guild and for filming my DVD Building Small Cabinets the following week.

Make, fix and create.

just a bit more

I want to add one following point to the discussion of the narrative function of crafts, this also from Jerome Burner's Acts of Meaning:

Having considered three characteristics of narrative—its sequentiality, its factual "indifference," and its unique way of managing departures from the canonical—we must turn now to its dramatic quality. Kenneth Burke's classic discussion of "dramatism," as he called it nearly a half-century ago, still serves well as a starting point. Well-formed stories, Burke proposed, are composed of a pentad of an Actor, an Action, a Goal, a Scene, and an Instrument—plus Trouble. Trouble consists of an imbalance between any of the five elements of the pentad: an Action toward a Goal is inappropriate in a particular Scene, as with Don Quixote's antic maneuvers in search of chivalric ends; an Actor does not fit the Scene, as with Portnoy in Jerusalem or Nora in A Doll's House, or there is a dual Scene as in spy thrillers, or a confusion of Goals as with Emma Bovary.

Dramatism, in Burke's sense, focuses upon deviations from the canonical that have moral consequences—deviations related to legitimacy, moral commitment, values. Stories must necessarily, then, relate to what is morally valued, morally appropriate, or morally uncertain. The very notion of Trouble presupposes that Actions should fit Goals appropriately, Scenes be suited to Instruments, and so on to completion, are explorations in the limits of legitimacy, as Hayden White has pointed out.

I think that you can see that craftsmanship, where the craftsman has pushed the limits of his or her own creative imagination, physical and technical capacities is the breeding grounds supreme for "trouble." In the piece shown above and in the earlier post, much of the trouble was presented by the challenging nature of the materials used and resolved through the inlay of stones. The walnut stock with its many imperfections challenged the craftsman's creative response. Take away the trouble, the resultant "dramatism" and crafts become as humdrum as a breakfast of toast, no butter, no jam. A craftsman, seeking growth and knowing the value of narrative, pushes his or her own limits. Those limits may be limitations in materials, or in tools, or in expertise, or in creative imagination. Can you see that crafts can be as rich an avenue for the expression of cultural narrative as any form of discursive art? As the craftsman wrestles to find solutions in the successful completion of work he or she works to resolve moral uncertainties and the work is seldom fictional. It is not merely pretense nor imagination, it is the real deal, the maker's moral character expressed in wood.

Can you see why woodworking in schools was proposed as a component of formative education? and that it was proposed for all regardless of educational aspirations? To make something of useful beauty is one of the highest expressions of human caring and capacity... Something that can and should be taught in schools if we want our children to creatively engage the 21st century.

Lev Vygotsky

Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934) was a Russian Psychologist whose observations provide the foundation for the Pea-Perkins concept of distributed intelligence, which if you have been following the blog, helps us to understand how cognitive functioning and cognitive burden is "off-loaded" as artefact, invested in individual creative tools, and made available to new generations of artists and craftsmen. While cognitive psychologists mainly dwell on the use of discursive narrative as the building block for understanding reality, I think you will see that manipulation of tools and materials are the building blocks of language and creativity.

The key premise of Vygotskian psychology is often referred to as cultural mediation. The specific knowledge gained by children through these interactions also represented the shared knowledge of a culture. This process is known as internalization.[3]

Internalization can be understood in one respect as “knowing how”. For example, riding a bicycle or pouring a cup of milk are tools of the society and initially outside and beyond the child. The mastery of these skills occurs through the activity of the child within society. A further aspect of internalization is appropriation in which the child takes a tool and makes it his own, perhaps using it in a way unique to himself. Internalizing the use of a pencil allows the child to use it very much for his own ends rather than draw exactly what others in society have drawn previously.[3]

Guided participation, which takes place when creative thinkers interact with a knowledgeable person, is practiced around the world. Cultures may differ, though, in the goals of development. For example, Mayan mothers in Guatemala help their daughters learn to weave through guided participation.[3]

You will probably note the this form of guided participation is what happens daily in the Clear Spring School woodshop, or whenever adults introduce children to participation in crafts.

Vygotsky's work is also fundamental to an understanding of the purpose of play in child development.

Through play the child develops abstract meaning separate from the objects in the world, which is a critical feature in the development of higher mental functions.[4]

The famous example Vygotsky gives is of a child who wants to ride a horse but cannot. If the child were under three, he would perhaps cry and be angry, but around the age of three the child's relationship with the world changes: "Henceforth play is such that the explanation for it must always be that it is the imaginary, illusory realization of unrealizable desires. Imagination is a new formation that is not present in the consciousness of the very raw young child, is totally absent in animals, and represents a specifically human form of conscious activity. Like all functions of consciousness, it originally arises from action." (Vygotsky, 1978)

The child wishes to ride a horse but cannot, so he picks up a stick and stands astride of it, thus pretending he is riding a horse. The stick is a pivot. "Action according to rules begins to be determined by ideas, not by objects.... It is terribly difficult for a child to sever thought (the meaning of a word) from object. Play is a transitional stage in this direction. At that critical moment when a stick – i.e., an object – becomes a pivot for severing the meaning of horse from a real horse, one of the basic psychological structures determining the child’s relationship to reality is radically altered".

As children get older, their reliance on pivots such as sticks, dolls and other toys diminishes. They have internalized these pivots as imagination and abstract concepts through which they can understand the world. "The old adage that children’s play is imagination in action can be reversed: we can say that imagination in adolescents and schoolchildren is play without action" (Vygotsky, 1978).

All the preceding is from the wikipedia article on Vygotsky. I am trying to come to a point of clarity in my understanding from which the narrative function of crafts can be explained to those who believe that narrative is only a function of language use. When we understand the narrative function of art and crafts we begin to grasp the essential role that they play in human culture... And perhaps we'll be able to explain their value in language that even a scholar might understand.

Narrative qualities of work...Many craft artists consider their work to be narrative, meaning it tells a story. Some use words inscribed in the work to connect it with a particular episode or important principle in their lives. But all craft work is narrative in that it records the artist's understanding of the material, his or her level of skill, and much more. Of course it also records the hours involved in the making of the work, and the years involved in the development of skill. A particular piece of work may record a moment of discovery, or a point of arrival at a new plateau both in the life of the artist or in the whole of human culture. Great museums are full of objects whose significance is not their beauty alone, but the stories that they've recorded and tell of human history.

The photo above is the tine or cheesebox that my great grandmother carried from Norway as a young woman of 11 in 1865. In it she carried her prized personal possessions. It was a simpler time. Imagine a child of today trying to decide which of his or her things were significant enough to fill the limited space within a small box. When my mother was a child, her grandmother's tine was where the family photos were kept. Then during my childhood, the box was empty, and yet it was treasured as a connection with family heritage.

It is not perfect workmanship, and that it exists over a hundred and fifty years after it was made, perhaps tells more about my family and love shared through generations than it does about its maker. The latches were broken off and are missing. A crack through the lid was fixed at some point with nails. The red milk paint turned brown very long ago. It exists at this point because people through generations made decisions about its significance, then sheltered it, repaired it, dusted it, and kept it in a place of honor.

I know this is only one of millions of blogs on the internet in which words are spewed at an unimaginable rate. Objects have become the same: meaningless, disposable, troubling as they congest our homes, and still we have painful longings for more and new and "better." The tine reminds me of a simple time when the objects in people's lives were a reflection of skill, craftsmanship, love, personal attention and growth. It also reminds me that objects may tell our stories, our lives, and our hopes in a narrative clearer and more honest than words alone. An object, lovingly crafted can tell that story for generations.

Develop a skill and make something that will tell of your own aspirations, your love and your humanity. Invest your attention and your care deeply in your work. One hundred and fifty years from today, someone will look back.

72632 narrative on narrative part 5

Yesterday in the CSS wood shop, I gave the high school students specific safety instructions on the various tools. I explained that they will be tested and that if they pass the test and can demonstrate their knowledge, they will be able to avoid many additional lectures in the coming months... lectures that I will presenting again to all those who have not passed the test. Today in the wood shop, 7th through 9th grade students will walk with me into the woods to gather crooks of wood to shape into hooks that will be used to hang their coats and backpacks. Continuation of my narrative on narrative follows below:

72632 part 5

My painter friend John says that I must be reincarnated from a tree. I do confess a particular interest in wood, trees, and forest. I believe some of my interest can be easily explained, and there is a large proportion of our population for whom little explanation will be needed. I grew up in a house full of antique furniture and for those who haven’t had the pleasure of living with things made of real wood, I recommend the experience. Many things get old, shabby and displeasing to the eye and hand through wear, and things made of wood become more beautiful, become smoother to the touch and more gentle to the eye and compelling to the heart.

Having perhaps been a tree myself (in a past life, if you believe John), and having made things from wood for over 30 years, I think I can explain a few things. A piece of wood tells the story of the tree and the forest from which it came. Where there’s a knot, there had been a branch. Where the grain is wide and straight, the tree had grown quickly, straight and tall. Where the grain is crooked or dense, the tree had grown in defiance of harsh circumstances. That story may be of little interest to some. A casual viewer might be interested only in the color, texture or figure of wood. A woodworker will be interested in its potential, its beauty, its color, its patterns of figure and grain, the width of the material, its structural integrity, the variety of things that can be made from it. And he or she will also be interested in its working qualities and may wonder how to get the best use of the wood, and make best use of its beauty. To arise to his or her highest level of craftsmanship, the woodworker engages deeply in “reading” the wood. Woodworkers of course aren't the only ones who read wood. Dendrochonologists and other scientists have used wood to create a time line of human and natural events, as small samples of wood in comparison with other samples describe the history of our ecology, our human culture and even the planet. Human beings and wood have a great deal in common, story telling comes natural to the both of us. Every thing we do, whether written, spoken or performed in real life tells of our natural environment, the nurturing soil of our communities, the light of our personal and cultural inspiration.

As an example, when I use a chisel to cut wood. The wood records the motions of my hand and arm, the shape and size of the chisel I've chosen, the quality of its cutting edge and the amount of force I've applied. It describes my level of attention and the practiced expertise expressed through my integration of hand, eye, stance and strength. So, an object made from wood is a collaborative thing. The wood tells its story and if a craftsman tells his own story with due diligence and respect for the wood, the collaborative story that is told and shared with future generations is richer than that told either by wood or craftsman alone.

Once you come to the awareness that you, in everything you do, use a variety of tools and materials to tell the story of your own life, then you will most certainly find that however much fun it is to hang out at Mama Slick’s, to gather with friends and tell stories in words, there is a real world out there. Real wood, real clay, real metal, real soil for growing things are there to be inscribed with your personal creativity, the story of your growth. There are wonderful stories to tell of your own life, that demand and deserve to be expressed in real material.

Narrative

I heard back from a reader who began using Paper Sloyd with his stuck at home kids. Matt said,

"The ‘lesson’ was a success, despite initial grumbling. Once the kids decided for themselves that they could make the project theirs by customizing things, they were all over it. Attached is a photo."

Thanks Matt, for sharing this. I've been reflecting on the narrative qualities of wood, that: "where there's a knot, there had been a branch" and how much we are like trees. They tell their stories. We tell ours, even though we often tend to take the easy way out, by using our words, rather than mind, muscle, and hands. It makes a difference how we think of narrative. Is it only human jabber, or is it connected to deeper human experience? One difference between trees and man is that trees don't jabber.

This coming week I have a podcast with the Writer's Colony in Eureka Springs, so I've also been reflecting on the difference between how-to writers, and those who dwell upon fictional subjects. This is not to disparage other forms of writing which also require effort and imagination, but we how-to writers are held to the bonds and boundaries of the real world, and in that are empowered to bring real change to real lives. A child writing a note to Nana to fill an envelope carefully crafted from paper offers a small example of our work.

Make, fix, and create. Assist others in living and learning lifewise.

72632 Narrative on narrative part 7

This post is the conclusion of a series, and if you haven't been a regular reader, it will make the most sense if you begin with the first post.

Wooden Boat Editor Matt Murphy recently visited Scotland for the 2009 Scotland Traditional Boat Festival and described one boat, the 70’ two-masted REAPER as follows:

One photograph in REAPER’s belowdeck display shows her in her flit-boat days with a bus lying athwartship on her deck. A recent visitor to REAPER recalls riding that bus to school; another recent visitor donated a photograph of the boat being planked in 1902. And so REAPER has three missions: She’s a teller of stories, a gatherer of them, and a repository.

We think of narrative being a word game, but without the essential tactile, textural objects of human culture, the words become lost, tangled and of little meaning or interest. And so, when hundreds of tons of finely crafted gold objects are melted down for the raw ingots alone, as in the days of the conquistadors, or when, as today, objects crafted by human hand are understood only in terms of their monetary value, we are poised on the edge of cultural collapse.

Matti Bergström, a professor and neurophysiologist from Finland, said the following:

The density of nerve endings in our fingertips is enormous. Their discrimination is almost as good as that of our eyes. If we don't use our fingers, if in childhood and youth we become "finger-blind " this rich network of nerves is impoverished-which represents a huge loss to the brain and thwarts the individual's all-around development. Such damage may be likened to blindness itself. Perhaps worse, while a blind person may simply not be able to find this or that object, the finger-blind cannot understand its inner meaning and value.

If we neglect to develop and train our children's fingers and the creative form building capacity of their hand muscles, then we neglect to develop their understanding of the unity of things; we thwart their aesthetic and creative powers.

Those who shaped our age-old traditions always understood this. But today, Western civilization, an information-obsessed society that over values science and undervalues true worth, has forgotten it all. We are "value-damaged."

The philosophy of our upbringing is science-centered, and our schools are programmed toward that end.... These schools have no time for the creative potential of the nimble fingers and hand, and that arrests the all-round development of our children and of the whole community.

We need to fill our schools with objects that have cultural significance. We need to engage our children in making objects of useful beauty. In every culture throughout the world, important stories and cultural values are at risk as generations tune in to the constant chatter of iPods, communicate with text or speech alone, and miss the quiet reflective opportunities that arise when stories are told through our own hands.

Trees that bear witness

My friend Elliot Washor shared an article on the Harbor Freight Fellows blog  about the trees that bore witness to the horrible devastation from our use of nuclear weapons during WWII. 

https://nautil.us/issue/104/harmony/life-always-wins-follow-me

In Hiroshima, the trees that remained standing and alive during the terrible conflagration are marked and held sacred as Hibakujumoku, the trees that suffered from the Atomic blast. Each is identified by species and with it's distance from the blast recorded in a small sign. The trees are visited and held sacred as signs of hope. 

You can find Elliot's blog post at https://www.harborfreightfellows.org/post/elliot-washors-blog-8-13-21 In it he mentions my friend Joe Youcha to whom I introduced him last week, and he mentions my new book, Wisdom  of our Hands. But the article Elliot shared about Hibakujumoku is one that I strongly urge you to read. It is a touching thing. I repeat the link: https://nautil.us/issue/104/harmony/life-always-wins-follow-me

As I often tell my students, human beings are narrative creatures. We tell our stories. Trees, also are narrative. Where there's a knot in wood, there had been a branch in life. But for the stories to be read and for the stories to be understood, an intersection between man and the forests must be established and made clear.

Make, fix and create...

house, tree and person drawings.

I have been thinking about the narrative quality inherent in wood as I work on my artist statement for an exhibit:

We love the spoken and written word, and yet the objects crafted by the human hand tell stories too, often with even greater sincerity and meaning. One does need to understand the language, and that requires some attention.

Each piece of wood tells the story of the tree from which it came. Where there’s a knot, there had been a branch. Where the grain is wide and straight, the tree had grown quickly, straight and tall. Where the grain is crooked or dense, the tree had grown in defiance of harsh circumstances.

I have come to view my own work as framing and illuminating the story told by wood. A craftsman might choose to wrestle it to submission, making it do things to satisfy his or her sense of mastery and accomplishment. I am curious about more gentle relationships, in which the full range of textures, colors and narrative qualities of the woods might emerge and find greater voice.

Much of what I do is inspired by my concerns for the environment and I adhere to these thoughts:

Woodworkers have a unique opportunity to reveal the beauty and value of our native woods in a way that encourages understanding and preservation of our trees and forests,
and when an object is carefully and lovingly crafted, it is empowered to express the concerns and character of its maker in a voice that can resonate for generations.

I am reminded of an old Freudian child psychiatrist I worked with many years ago. He had his child clients do what he called the "house, tree and person test" which involved three drawings since children were rarely able to verbalize their relationships, particularly for an old Jewish man with a German accent. The house told about their personal state. A disproportionately large attic space described an over-sized imagination and the size of windows and doors revealed their relative openness or guardedness toward the outside. The tree described their growth and history. I particularly recall him pointing out knot holes drawn in trees. The knot hole symbolized trauma in childhood, even as the loss of a major limb was a trauma in the life of the tree. Certainly, as a woodworker, I am not in the business of story telling on my own. It is a collaboration in which I find a great deal of pleasure. Today, I was passing my hands along the well sanded walnut bench and feeling pleasure in its touch. I do not believe there will be many people who when confronted by the finished bench will not feel the same.