postcards from the edge

I am making wooden post cards again. One or two of them will go to a benefit auction for the Eureka Springs School of the Arts in April. Each will have a stamp affixed and be postmarked at the Eureka Springs Post Office. 

None are suitable for mailing, but are instead done as sculptural forms. Each is vacuum laminated using 4 or 5 layers of veneer over a wooden form. No two are the same. Some will be sold in a shop in Eureka Springs or other galleries. These might be considered utter foolishness or lovely, depending on your point of view. Each is designed to stand on edge.

One of the nice things about this project is that each requires hand sanding. That gives me a quiet activity to do on the front porch when the weather is less severe.

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

our forests at risk

Human beings are not the only species to be suffering from deadly things that are too easily spread. Our nation's forests have long been under attack, and as the effects of global warming become more pronounced, the various at-risk species that we care for and rely upon for untold benefits will be suffering even more. This article from the New York Times tells a bit of the story. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/06/opinion/epidemic-invasive-species-trees.html

I'm starting work on a new bathroom vanity for our home that's to be made from ash. Currently ash is priced well in the market due to the rush to cut ash trees before they're completely lost to the emerald ash borer. By cutting infected trees and kiln drying the wood to kill larva there's a small hope that unaffected forests can be protected.  We watched a similar story unfold many years ago as American elm trees of massive size were removed from cities to stop the spread of the Dutch elm disease.

The spread of viruses like that that killed most of our once glorious elm and chestnut trees, and the spread of insects like the emerald ash borer are directly related to international trade.

There's good reason in all this to think local as thinking globally as environmentalists suggests. We can treasure and protect what we have before it too is lost.

The screen shot is from the article in the New York Times. Read it if you can.

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Chiseling Nut Mortises for Moxon vise

I'm working on a review of a kit for making a Moxon Vise for Quercus Magazine in the UK, and this video shows how to inlay a large nut into the inner face of the vise.

It also demonstrates my own effective way to hold a chisel close to the tip, rather than at the handle. Holding the chisel close to the tip presents greater ease in holding it at just the right point for starting the cut. It also allows the handle to serve as a pendulum providing the hand a sense of whether or not the chisel is held in a directly vertical plane. You may not regularly use the chisel in this way, but I invite you to try, and assess on your own whether this technique offers merit over what you'll see commonly demonstrated over the internet.

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

A moxon vise

Making my Moxon vise is nearly complete so I'm awaiting instruction for writing an article about it for Quercus Magazine in the UK. The article may just be a review of the kit used, or I may describe its various features. If the magazine is interested I may go through the process of building it a second time and take photos of each step. 

The Moxon vise, first described by Joseph Moxon in the 1700's is portable and is easily clamped to a work bench or table. One of its advantages is that there's quite a bit of space between the treaded rods that allows for drawer parts to be clamped for cutting dovetails. The guide bars in many vises get in the way of that. The parts kit is made available by Tay Tools, taytools.com and can also be purchased through Amazon.

I've gotten some positive feedback and direction from my publisher and am launching myself into a third draft of my new book, "Wisdom of Our Hands: Crafting Family, Community, Culture and Self," which I intend to have finished by March.

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circumstances command that we teach and share.

"The nascent period of the hand centres has not been accurately measured ... but its most active epoch being from the fourth to the fifteenth year, after which these centres in the large majority of persons become somewhat fixed and stubborn. Hence it can be understood that boys and girls whose hands have been altogether untrained up to the fifteenth year are practically incapable of high manual efficiency ever afterwards. "The small muscles of the eye, ear, larynx, tongue, and hand have much higher and more extensive intellectual relations than the large muscles of the trunk and limbs. If you would attain to the full intellectual stature of which you are capable, do not, I would say, neglect the physical education of the hand."--Sir James Crichton-Browne

Please attempt to name a concert pianist who got his start on the piano late in life. A friend of mine, Dr. Frank Wilson who wrote an important book about the hands, had written an earlier book called "Tone Deaf and all Thumbs" recounting his experience trying to keep up with his daughter as she was learning to play the piano.

It is important that we recognize that crafting is a social engagement, and that skills in the making of beautiful and useful objects are built in an intergenerational manner. As Sir James Crichton-Browne notes, development of hand skills will be an exercise fraught with greater difficulties for those who get a late start. Recognizing that skills of hand and mind go hand in hand, and seeing that our own craftsmanship must also entail the development of skill among those who surround us, commands that we teach and share and most particularly with the young, who's skills of hand and mind are yet nascent.

In the wood shop I'm making boxes.

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Ugly but beautiful

This metal monstrosity is something I made along with all the other students in my 8th grade shop class at Monroe Junior High in Omaha Nebraska.  My time in shop classes  was curtailed when I entered a college prep program at Benson High School, home of the bunnies. Being "college prep" meant no more shop classes, which is actually quite dumb, a course of study designed by those who have no awareness of the value of concrete learning or the immense value of student engagement.

This bent metal object is intended to be a wall hung lamp. It was too ugly to be hung in my parents home, but was kept on a shelf in the basement as evidence of learning. It was intended that it be electrified and that with a socket, bulb and shade it would illuminate more than the moment in which is was made.

And so we must look at it with fresh eyes as would a parent or shop teacher. Note that the bends required attention to symmetry. Note that in order for the parts to be accurately attached to each other, holes had to be precisely marked, drilled and riveted. 

As Otto Salomon had described, the value of the student's work is in the student as he moves on through life as a creative human being, not in the object made, which in some cases like this may be more beautiful than what one can see with bare naked eyes.

Does it seem odd to you that the only tangible evidence remaining in my life from my time in Junior high would be the things I made in shop class? 

Can you see the value in schooling being kept real? And that it be infused with reality from pre-K though university? Do you mind if I state once more that there's a difference between virtual learning and virtuous learning in that in the latter we attempt to be of real service to each other?

Schooling can be ugly and boring or beautiful. It's our job to fix it.

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Our future depends on it

We know that one of the worst things about education is boredom. As I was quoted by Matt Crawford at the start of his best selling book, Shop Class as Soulcraft, 

“In schools we create artificial learning environments for our children that they know to be contrived and undeserving of their full attention and engagement… Without the opportunity to learn through the hands, the world remains abstract, and distant, and the passions for learning will not be engaged.”

So what's the fix? Do every thing we can to interject reality into a system of education that's long been overly abstract and purposely sequestered from  the real world.

My friend Elliot Washor co-founder of the Met School in Providence, RI and the Big Picture Schools, http://bigpicture.org now around the world, has co-written a graphic novel called "Get Real, Your Future Depends on It."  https://8b839f2e-d5a0-4505-8a0f-d4b52d46e448.filesusr.com/ugd/519ff5_77b2cf539c894519ad287acf1693de92.pdf

Kids need not be stuck in boring circumstances. Schools can be enlivened. One way is to have students do real things at all levels from pre-k through college. Restore the arts, music and wood shop to their important roles in energizing the school atmosphere, and allow students to fulfill their educational responsibilities by leaving school to fulfill interests and learn through internships.

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

A honing truck

I have a new invention that came to me in my nightly dream state. It is a honing truck that is used with diamond plates to sharpen plane irons. Unlike many sharpening jigs, this one rides on wheels outboard rather than on top of the stone, allowing its user to make full use of the stone's length and width. It is also preset to the preferred angles of 25 degrees for the primary bevel and 30 degrees for the secondary.

There are many other honing guides on the market, so it will be very unlikely for me to find a market for manufacturing  for this one. But when a person gets an idea for something from their dream state, empowerment comes from acting it out in the real world. 

This was a lesson from the classic book, Black Elk Speaks. When a young person would go on a vision quest and return having witnessed in dream state, things beyond the material world, the tribe would gather in a ceremonial acting out of the dream assisting the dreamer in finding its power, which in this case is a sharpening of mind and plane irons at the same time. Plus, it was fun to make. The parts were ordered on Amazon and I have enough parts and materials to do a step-by-step article or video on the making of it.

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A tour of Handsaws

This video https://youtu.be/_SgioVqN7cM is a tour of various hand saws in my wood shop and a brief description of their use. I have been asked to do a zoom seminar about hand tools, and also thought it would be useful to my students who are inclined to use hand tools so I did this video as a preparatory exercise.

My friend Elliot Washor, co-founder of the Big Picture Schools, has published a report on the effectiveness of the Big Picture model which uses internships to leverage student interests toward effective learning. At this point, what started as a single school in Providence, RI is now an international network of Big Picture Schools including one here in Arkansas, the Future School in Ft. Smith. https://education-reimagined.org/findings-from-the-big-picture-learning-longitudinal-study/

The Big Picture model of education is to get kids out of schools and into their communities doing real things though internships. Doing real things makes learning concrete and heightens student engagement. Students doing real things discover ways to connect classroom learning with the world outside the school walls.

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Quadrant hinges

I'm completing an article for Popular Woodworking Magazine about installing quadrant hinges using my flipping sorry stick technique. Use of a thin story stick allows for such operations to be performed using the router table rather than trying to balance a router on the thin edge of a box. My technique allows the accuracy of the set up and fit to be assessed before completely messing up a near finished box.

In the past, my students have asked about installing this complex hinge, and this article offers me the chance to tell and show how.

While the steps are not necessarily easy, you can see in the photo that they work. All I have left to do on the article is one more coat of finish, the installation of a lining and lead photos.

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craftsmanship as a social art

Whether you are crafting legislation, or poetry, or whittling a stick with buddies on the porch of the hardware store, crafting is a social endeavor. We forget that sometimes. We may spend hours in our wood shops alone. The poet crafting a poem will likely spend many hours in isolation laboring over each word and honing each phrase to be just right. 

But, all is driven by forces within each to respond to that which lies without. Our efforts are not just to turn a phrase, or to whittle a stick into finer form but to thereby whittle ourselves into finer form in the hopes that the world follows. This is the aim and inclination of the common man, to do better, to make more of the world by being better at what we do.

I'm working on an article about the installation of quadrant hinges, and building cash donation boxes to be placed where bicyclists who ride our miles of in-city trails can contribute. I have a new design for a honing jig that I'll make and demonstrate the making and use of. The design came to me in the night and the necessary parts came in yesterday's mail. 

Make, fix, and create. Make the world a better place by learning likewise.

Building a basis for understanding complex things.

One of the principles of Educational Sloyd is to build from the simple to the complex, and certainly, we live in a world that's enormously complex and difficult for most folks to understand. For instance, I'm typing this on a laptop, connected by a wireless modem to the home network, connected to a cell tower that allows what I write to be distributed to you, my dear readers.

And so, we throw in the towel and throw up our hands at the complexity we use, but cannot fully control and will never fully understand. In this complexity that defies understanding, folks have a tendency to grab information that suits their own limited world views and are thereby easily led as blind lead the blind.

So I've been asked lately, "why woodworking?" What is there about woodworking that makes it ideal in education?" We could at the outset throw children into a wide range of crafts from which to choose. In the early days of manual arts training, schools with limited resources had to choose one craft or another rather than provide a smorgasbord of opportunities. But that alone is insufficient in understanding why only one craft was primarily featured in Educational Sloyd. The point was also to build a common basis for understanding the world. Wood is a real thing. It can be harvested directly from the forest, thereby building a relationship with the natural world. The tools used lend an understanding of industrial processes but also invite reflection on body and culture.  Woodworking lends itself to clarity in the recording of direct action. You cut it once and it cannot be uncut. Due to that factor alone, it hones the powers of attention and mindfulness. That it requires the use of sharp tools, is also an inducement to mindfulness and careful use.

Textile arts were also featured in Educational Sloyd. I visited a room at the University of Helsinki where student works are treasured and preserved. But if you can stitch, you can unstitch and correct errors in the making of things. No such luxury is offered when making something from wood, except, thank God for what woodworkers call "plan b." When things go awry in woodworking, you must engage problem solving skills, and because the range of potential errors is wide, problem solving is done on an individual level, thereby cultivating the powers of individual mind.

The management of complexity and the movement from simple to complex is best grown as one would build an item from wood. You begin with small exercises and build step-by-step toward an understanding of larger things held in complex relationships. That's where Kindergarten comes in. Froebel used the term of his own making gliedganzes, meaning "member, whole" and aiming the child's development toward discovery of his or her place within the vast complexity of all things. Not to be blindly led as folks appear to be now. We need to discover or construct a sense of commonality among us, and start at a very early age, moving from simple to complex in order to understand our place in things.

When I visited Sweden and the home of Educational Sloyd in 2006, I arrived having read a number of books about Sloyd, but unprepared for what I discovered there. The home of Educational Sloyd was not just about training teachers to teach woodworking. Instead, it was about teaching teachers to teach, using woodworking as a model through which to build a foundation for excellence in educating the whole child. In addition to work rooms with benches and tools, there was a gymnasium where teachers were taught to address the physicality of their students through games, gymnastics and dance. Regular activities included lectures on the fundamentals of effective teaching, curriculum development and observance and measurement of student growth.

The photo is of my friend treasured friend Hans Thorbjörnsson who was my guide at Otto Salomon's school and throughout my investigations into Educational Sloyd.

I have written too much today, so will head for the shop.

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

Future schooling

Yesterday I got a call from the principle of the Future School in Ft. Smith, Arkansas. https://fsfuture.org It is a Big Picture School https://www.bigpicture.org based on the Met School model in which students are led through internships into their communities to learn in real life. After the caution necessitated by the covid-19 pandemic is eased, we plan to get together, learn from each other and collaborate.

A new theme for meaningful educational reform should be "get real." We could call it "reality based learning." We all need means through which to learn to distinguish between that which is real and that which is proposed as real for the purpose of manipulating us by persons and parties seeking greater power.

To "get real" may be accomplished by taking schooling into the real world as is done in the Big Picture Schools model. That's the perfect solution for high school and college aged students. For the younger folks "getting real" requires bringing the real world into schooling by offering real things to do that benefit the child's learning and relationships with the world beyond the school house doors. That can best be accomplished though experimental science, the arts and the use of real tools to create useful beauty. 

The important thing here is the relationship between the concrete and the abstract. In the abstract without confirmation of concrete reality, you get to make things up and believe whatever you want. That's no way to build a nation in which we have a common foundation for getting along with each other. 

As you see in the photo, the hand is the cutting edge of mind. Starting in pre-school and Kindergarten, engagement in the real world builds, step-by-step, a shared framework for understanding the world and each other.

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Welcome to this dawn

There is a nice review of my book Build 25 Beautiful Boxes in the Highland Woodworking Books Review that come in yesterday's mail from Highland Woodworking.

https://www.highlandwoodworking.com/woodworking_books/build-25-beautiful-boxes-book-review.html

Rosie loves snow

I had trouble sleeping last night. On the one hand, we have the Covid-19 pandemic, and on the other, we're only a few hours before the inauguration of a new president.  The old one, rude and eternally ungracious, is on the way out. If the last few days did not  amply illustrate his failure of leadership, the pandemic does.

The thing that kept me awake, however, was  a new invention. I  call it a "honing truck." It has wheels and is designed to straddle over a diamond honing block to carry a plane iron at just the right angle to sharpen its edge. Once having conceptualized it, my mind went into how it would be made and what  parts I would need in order to make it myself.

I have other honing guides, but this one will offer greater simplicity. And the fact that I can make it myself and that I can show how to make it may be of use to others.  The video from just a few days ago explains how to keep one's sense of humor in difficult times.

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

Are children learning?

During the massive and widespread disruption in American education that's resulted from the covid-19 pandemic, folks are seriously concerned about "whether or not children are learning." The answer of  course is dependent on refining the question. "Learning what?" If we're concerned about whether they're going to perform as well on standardized tests, the answer is probably not so well. If we are asking whether or not children are learning about life, and perhaps things that won't be on the standardized tests and that are more important to their ultimate success the answer is yes. 

One thing we should remind ourselves about learning is that it's one of the most important and relentless of human attributes. We learn. We learn best under certain circumstances, and if traditional schooling were more focused on providing the right circumstances, we'd not find ourselves in the predicament we're now in.

So what are the right circumstances? Education  must be closely associated with and indistinguishable from real life. In the January 18th issue of Time Magazine is an article about Spanish chef Angel Leon in which he states, "The sea saved me." "I was a terrible student. Couldn't sit still, always in trouble." "But when my dad took me out here on his boat, everything changed." And so as a chef, everything he does is related to the sea that saved him. School cannot do for children what real life can. And by artificializing learning, failing to move from the concrete to the abstract, we diminish its effect.  While we fail to engage student interest, we also fail their intelligence, leaving them ignorant of science and the processes of life that surrounds us.

I was talking with a friend, Elliot Washor, earlier in the week about assessment. The question of how do we provide evidence of learning is one that haunts those American educators, who, out of an unwillingness to understand that learning is the most natural of human inclinations, believe that education must be contrived. 

Elliot has come up with a four part assessment scheme. 

1. Determine and follow student interest for without student interest nothing else follows. 
2. Establish relationships. These can be mentors in or out of school, but out of school is important evidence of education having transcended the isolation of schooling. 
3. Observe growth of skill. These can be skills of processing but aimed toward action. These can of course involve the development of hand skills as well as skills of mind. 
4. Provide opportunities of growth in the form of delivery of service to the community both inside and out of the school walls.

I drove my tractor to school today to make use of its strength in the assembly of a new jointer at the Clear Spring School woodshop. The jointer was too heavy for me to lift out of the box and onto the jointer stand, so I used straps and the front loader of the tractor to lift it high enough to roll the stand underneath. These being covid-19 pandemic times, this was a safer approach than asking friends to help. The photo shows that. The jointer is now assembled and ready for use after it's cleaned up and grease is removed.

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Testing a Veritas number 1 plane

The power of the arts

I hesitate to give him a name. It might be Bob, or Bill, or Doug for that matter. It might be aunt Jill, for crazies these days come in both sexes. But the Republican party has been the sanctuary for some time now for those we excuse as harmless crazed folks when they come to the dinner tables of the sane. 

Remember the folks that insisted that Obama was a secret Muslim and that when he was born in Kenya, the liberal elite had plans, even back then to plant him illegally on American soil and raise him to run for president to destroy our democracy? 

Those folks found safe harbor in the Republican party and ran for statewide offices to gain a foothold of importance in American politics. They passed around photos online of Michelle Obama as a monkey and if caught claimed it was all in jest. They took delight in using the "N" word in private company and hoped for the time when they could be public with their rude thoughts. So then they ran Trump as their chosen candidate for President and all went happily along as he talked about his rude conquests of women, made great fun of the handicapped, called those of hispanic descent rapists and hoodlums, incarcerated children on the border separating them from family while neglecting to keep track of which child was taken from which mom.

So here we are. The innocent crazies, uncle Bob or whatever, have become an angry, violent hoard of gun toting folks, nourished for years within the Republican party. Some of the saner folk are jumping ship, knowing that the trumpian assault on the US Capitol, where "patriots" threatened to hang the VP and execute leadership in both parties has been step too far. It is amazing to me to see what it can take to bring folks to their senses. Some have not yet come awake from the nightmare they hope to inflict on others.

Years ago I had an uncle who was somewhat crazed on the subject of race. The topic was an obsession for him. He would talk about his feelings whether you wanted to listen or not. But then a funny thing happened. He started woodturning. He and his wife, an artist, would come to visit me in the summers, just a quick visit, stopping by to check and see that their craftsman nephew was doing well. I would give him pieces of wood that he used as he was beginning to turn wood. We found the subjects of wood and woodworking to be a bond between us. I have some of his work. His children inherited some of mine.

Each summer my uncle and aunt would attend classes at Arrowmont in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. When my aunt stopped going along, he would go with woodturning friends. When I taught my first adult classes in New Iberia, Louisiana, he signed up. When I saw how much Arrowmont meant to him, I began visualizing a school like that here, which has become the Eureka Springs School of the Arts.

As he began getting good at his work he began selling his work in galleries. His passion led him to make more than he could sell. Every two years at our family reunions he would bring boxes and boxes of his work, asking each member of the family regardless of age to select works to take home, so the whole family has collections of his work. He wanted to offer something meaningful of himself to each and did. His dark obsessions were no longer of interest to him. He had so much more to share.

And so I offer this as a simple observation. When we craft useful beauty, we are also crafting something within ourselves. The transformation that can take place in wood (or through other crafts) is also a transformation of self.

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a pathway toward peace.

Forgive me for having become obsessed with the national news. I would like to be interested in other things. I have watched four years of Trump's relentless assault on our democracy, knowing that it would end like this. And it's not over yet. Pray for sanity. Pray for peace. Pray for a restoration of normalcy in which we can pay greater attention to smaller things.

And of course, praying is not enough. To craft is a form of prayer. It is a form of meditation. And if we all were to pay greater attention to that which is at hand we would find better pathways toward peace

On the personal front, I received a new plane from Veritas in the mail yesterday. It's an amazingly beautiful thing that I'll review in a later post. Yesterday I also finished the installation of a materials exchange cabinet at the Clear Spring School. School to home and back again. 

The photo shows a box that I'm making to use as a prop in an article about installing Brusso quadrant hinges. It's walnut and has a a beveled lid and inlay made of cherry and maple.  The lid will be cut from the body of the box after the outside has been sanded. The corners are joined using finger joints. These are the kinds of things that my adult students learn in my box making classes.

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

Yesterday and today.

Yesterday I installed a cabinet I made on a railing outside the Clear Spring School so parents can pick up work for their kids and that materials can be passed between home and school. It's very sad that the pandemic was allowed to advance this far into the school year. Even with the vaccine on the horizon, we all are at greater risk here now than at any previous time. Had there been a coherent federal response from the outset, led by science and not by ineptitude and purposeful politicalization, we would be far safer at this time with far fewer deaths nationally and in our own county. In-person attendance at the Clear Spring School is delayed while we hope the pandemic will be brought under better control.

At the Clear Spring School, as teachers attempt greater reliance on distance learning, I plan a supportive role consistent with my watch word for the year, "useful." To be useful implies giving over something of oneself in the service of others. Last week I met with the director of a wellness program where they hope to use crafts. This week I meet via zoom with the co-founder of the Big Picture Schools to discuss some kind of collaborative venture that he has in mind.

The world is deeply concerned as we learn more about the hostile takeover of the US Capitol. I read this morning that some of those claiming to oppose the certification of the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were doing so out of fear for the safety of their families... fearing that right wing trumpian extremists would take revenge on their families for disobedience to their insurrection . It's much more likely that they were concerned about their re-elections and the toll loss of elections will take on their family finances. Any excuse will do when you're caught with your pants down. 

Being raised knowing that it was legitimate to oppose government policies, but but that all must uphold the rule of law, I've found myself taking what some would think to be the wrong view. For instance, I was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam war. I was deeply opposed to Bush's invasion of Iraq. I've been a persistent critic of Donald J. Trump and knew exactly how seriously and dangerously his narcissism would play out.

So where are we going with all this? One step at a time. When danger persists, step cautiously. Pray for sanity and peace. There's a saying from the iChing that provides clarity in times like these. When confronted by evil, proceed to do the good. Doing the good puts oneself at peace. In my own case, the "good" is to awaken folks to the glories of the instruments through which we build better families, communities and culture... our own hands.

Today I'm shipping boxes to a gallery in Little Rock.

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

The compelling nature of that which is Real

 

Yesterday I installed a  new bedside table in our guest bedroom. It takes the place of the access panel for the bathroom plumbing and was months in planning. It had to be carefully fitted to the wall and required a cut out for the electrical outlet. I made it from white oak. It was not the answer to the question, "what lovely thing would I like to make today?" But it turned out to be an interesting and lovely thing none-the-less, for its loveliness lies in part in meeting a specific need.

I have this idea for the reformation of economy and culture, in that if more of us were engaged in the process of making useful beauty, we would have a clearer sense of what's important in the world and would become less involved in destructive fantasies like those that led to the fascist siege upon our nation's capitol. There is an important essay in the New York Times by historian Timothy Snyder, The American Abyss, that helps explain the predicament we're in. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/09/magazine/trump-coup.html

At one time is was believed that if everyone was educated in the manual arts we would have a better basis for understanding each other. I hold to that belief. We need to come to a better grasp of our commonality. An appreciation of all labor is part of that. We're all in this together. We need each other. Each who contributes deserves respect, including those Capitol Police officers who were overrun by Trumpian insurrectionists.

You need not be an artist to engage in the making of useful beauty and to earn for yourself a new grip on life. You can make simple, practical things. You can give them away if you like, so this need not be yet another operation of commerce. You can listen to the needs in your community and act in fulfillment of those needs.

Engagement in the real world through personal creativity offers its own rewards in the form of neurohormones that awaken feelings of wellness, of being connected and of fitting in. 

I received a copy of a book written by my cousin David Bye. Sharp's Corner School Adventures recounts his experiences attending a one room school house in Minnesota in the 1950's. The book is a refreshing read about simple times and the wholesomeness of family and community. Having visited Dave's family on their farm in the 1950's, I can assure you that every story in Sharp's Corner School Adventures is likely true. https://www.amazon.com/Sharps-Corner-School-Adventures-David/dp/B08NZR4896/ My cousin David Bye is a retired teacher of industrial arts.

Make, fix and create. Assist others in living likewise.

Mitered finger joint(2)

The photo shows a closer view of the mitered finger joint and how it allows an inlaid edge on the perimeter of a box. The floating panel shown fitted into a box side will be shaped slightly before the box is assembled. 

I am grateful to have simple, practiced things to do that require exactitude and careful, distracting, concentration. To complete this joint requires careful measuring. And when you make a cut, wood cannot be uncut. It's real life. Like when you unleash an angry mob for the purpose of disrupting an election count, you'll have a difficult time fixing what you've broken. 

When you stand up and claim fraud, knowing full well that no fraud was committed, there's at least a chance that angry folks will break what should have never been broken. Public trust is like that. It can be cut, or miscut, but putting it back together will not be an easy thing. It will require those who lie to stop lying.

When I was a kid, there was the tale about the boy who cried wolf. He did so because he saw the effects. When he would cry wolf, people would become frightened and he liked seeing that he could have that effect. To see that he could holler something fearful and get folks stirred up, gave him a sense of his own power. The story ended badly, just as the end of the Trump presidency with all its lies upon lies is ending in disaster. Brace yourselves, please, as it's not over yet.

I'm installing a box for the teachers and parents of students at the Clear Spring School for exchanging lessons between home and school, as in person learning will not resume until the Covid-19 pandemic is under better control in our local community. The American people were lied to about that too, and the consequences are that the real wolf is upon us, uncontrolled and biting at our legs and arms.

Let's pray for the return of safety and sanity to our nation. When we hear folks spewing hateful things, we must answer bravely, simply and with courtesy to ourselves, "I'm sorry, it's not like that."

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

Mitered finger joints

The mitered finger joint is one of my specialties that I teach in my box making classes. Its advantage is that it offers the incredible lasting strength of the finger joint, but the top edges coming together at a miter allows for an inlaid edge around the perimeter of the box. I've been inching my way toward the completion of these boxes, as I'm also tied up with end of year business accounting.

Today I have a conference call with an organization hoping to establish a therapeutic woodworking program. Many woodworkers, recognizing how wood working makes us feel regard it as "sawdust therapy." The evidence is compelling. 

In people's minds there is a slight difference between art and craft. It's not set in stone. Some art is repetitive and formulaic and tends to be like a craft in practice. Some craft is experimental in scope and tends therefore to be more like art.

What we often think of as craft may be more closely aimed toward the making of useful objects, or may be derived from the tradition of making useful objects. Most woodworkers do not consider themselves "artists" as we intend our works to be useful. 

While the arts are an important calling, woodworking and other crafts are easier to grasp by mind and taken in hand. Art often requires explanation or a certain cultural perspective to be seen of value. Things that are useful are often more easily understood. The useful crafts are often not valued at the same level as art because it's intended that we use them and wear them out, while art is to be placed aside and admired and yet our lives and the lives of others in our communities can be transformed by the making and use of useful beauty.

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

finger jointed boxes

Yesterday I was shocked but not surprised when the US Capitol building was assaulted by Trump terrorists. The Capitol police, being used to tourists, not terrorists were easily overrun. President Trump is clearly to blame. I was not surprised because Trump has been transparent for weeks as he proved himself willing to do anything and everything legal or illegal necessary to retain his grip on power. 

Do you remember in the debate before the election when he told the Proud Boys to stand back and stand by? Yesterday was exactly what he had in his twisted mind and what he was hoping for.  I was shocked that while the president was so transparent in his plan, the police and FBI were totally unprepared. Was that on purpose? If the crowd was black many, many more of the insurrectionists would have been jailed or left dead.

Whether by impeachment or 25th Amendment or resignation, Trump should be removed from office today and spend the rest of his life sequestered in shame. He should not be alone, however. There are many others who encouraged him and egged him on. The list is long. Lindsay Graham danced around like he was wearing no pants last night as he finally admitted that Trump had lost. That it took him so long to admit the truth enabled Trump's furtherance of delusion purposely imposed on the American people.

As we face the pandemic and the destruction of our economy, we need to come together and work toward a common future. Perhaps witnessing such shameful desecration will induce some to resume working together with more serious intent. I'm grateful to have some meaningful work to do as a distraction from worry.

I'm making a couple boxes to use to demonstrate the installation of Brusso quadrant hinges for an article in Popular Woodworking Magazine. This type of hinge is challenging and I have a relatively simple router table technique for installing them that will be useful to other woodworkers. Tomorrow I have a discussion with an organization interested in building a program using woodworking as a form of therapy.

The photo shows walnut box sides, finger jointed and ready for the next step which will be to cut miters at the corners, that allow the inlay made from cherry and maple to intersect and flow around the top edge. When the boxes are assembled and the lids are cut free, the hinging operation will begin.

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

Article in Quercus

An article excerpted from my book Making Classic Toys that Teach is published in this month's Quercus Magazine from the UK. The magazine fits a nice niche, as it features hand tools, whittling, woodturning and wood carving, all from a hand tools/simple technology perspective. 

The magazine also shares my interest in woodworking education. From my book the article shares a bit of information about Froebel's Kindergarten and describes how to whittle a sphere from a block of wood.

Make, fix and create. Assist others in learning likewise

Sunrise

 

We have been having beautiful skies lately in Eureka Springs if you're up early enough to catch the receding dark. To see such things is one of the benefits of having a dog. Rosie gets me out early to walk in the woods. This photo had to be manipulated slightly to capture what you see in real life.`

Today in the woodshop I begin work on an article for Popular Woodworking Magazine. To begin, I must make a box.

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

Kappan Online

You'll find me mentioned in this article by Matthew Crawford. https://kappanonline.org/learn-a-trade-crawford/ Phi Delta Kappan is an extremely influential journal for educators, and Matthew Crawford is the author of best selling Shop Class as Soulcraft.

When we are able to get back to normal schooling, it should be based on a new/old model from Educational Sloyd. I repeat myself over and over in the hopes that some will hear and help to forge a path forward. Start with the interests of the child. Move from the known to the unknown, from the easy to more difficult, from the simple to the complex and from the concrete to the abstract.

Jerome Bruner proposed something similar though not so explicit in his concept "scaffolding." But scaffolding is an external structure that provides support and that when removed we hope allows the children to succeed. 

I'm reminded of all the wonderful boxes my students are able to make when I teach at Marc Adams School of Woodworking when I'm there to demonstrate and problem solve with three assistants to do likewise, with wonderful wood provided by the school and with all the equipment set up for student success. Can they all go home and do what they've just done? That's an example of scaffolding. In Educational Sloyd the scaffolding was not external, but inside the child, having started from a firm foundation, the child's interests and concrete experiences granted by doing real things.

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

 

A new workbench design

I've published a holiday edition of my woodworking with kids newsletter. https://mailchi.mp/1d8ca653adc8/woodworking-with-kids-holiday-edition

The newsletter is not just for kids. It offers techniques that are useful for adults as well.

My wife asked me if there's a guide word that I would choose for the coming year. The word I settled on is "useful." It's a word that's not highly inflated and egotistical. To be useful is to be worthwhile to others just as a fork might be useful to put food in your mouth. In that spirit I've been working on a new design woodworking bench for kids. 

The bench will use an inexpensive woodworking vise that can be purchased on Amazon for less than twenty dollars. The bench will be relatively easy to build using readily available materials and will even offer tool storage. A drawing of it is shown above. I've been asked to offer instructions on YouTube, and in the spirit of being useful, I may do that as well. I'll offer the option of tool storage inside.

An experienced woodworker could build this from the drawing alone. Captioned photos of step-by-step will help others. The top board parallel to the one on which the vise is mounted is to be hinged  giving access to storage for tools underneath. The woodworking vise for which this bench is planned is available from Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002I2KFMG 

Every elementary school classroom in the US should be equipped with a woodworking bench and a few tools.

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

Welcome the new year...

We all share hopes that the year 2021 will be better than what the nation has gone through in 2020. Given the blessings and curse sight, we've seen unprecedented environmental disasters, "proud boys" running amuck, a brutal pandemic completely mismanaged by the Trump administration, 300,000+ unnecessary deaths, and police brutality exposed at an unprecedented level (had you ever dreamed that you'd see a black man on TV being strangled by a white police officer during a pandemic while that officer looks up for the camera and the man is telling the officer, "I can't breathe"?).

If 2021 is to become a better year, it's up to us. It will take the first half of the year to get enough of us vaccinated that we begin to feel safe. Mask up, my friends. We're in this together. Keep busy cooking and caring. Make some useful beauty. to share with each other. Keep hoping and praying for better days. But know that hope is not enough. We must care for each other and show that care by all that we do.

The photo shows dawn in Arkansas. We are at the very crack of dawn for a new year. We can make it better than the one we just lived through.

Make, fix and create. Assist others in living likewise.

books and cooks

I got a royalty statement from Taunton Press today and was pleased to find the amount of sales being well over twice normal. That's a sure sign that during covid-19 folks are reading more and wanting to spend more time doing real things. We need that. The virtual world and the virtuous world  are not the same. In the virtuous world we provide tangible service to each other.

Certainly, a renewed interest in cooking is taking over in American households.

I'm curious what the long term effects of the Covid-19 pandemic will be. Some, sadly, will have lost loved ones and friends. Some will know quite well how important we are to each other. Some will survive with debilitating effects from the disease. 

Please be careful. When all this is over, wise, healthy hands will be needed to fix things and set things right.

The photo is of my new work bench from another angle. The retractable wheels allow me to move it various places in the shop. The drawers will be loaded with tools and jigs.

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

My new workbench

I've finally finished the new work bench that I started last spring. 

I used dovetailed drawers that I salvaged from an earlier project, and a slab of silver maple cut and left over from a much longer plank. Bench dog holes in both the top and vise will allow pieces of wood to be held on top for various operations. 

Wheels make it easy to move around the shop. Its weight will keep it stationary when the wheels are lifted allowing the legs to touch down. 

This is a covid-19 survival project, intended just as much to meet my mental health needs (keeping the hands and mind busy) as for actual shop needs. 

The bench has natural edges along the front. The legs are white oak and the wooden vise is made of cherry. The drawers have white oak facings with the drawer boxes made of maple. It's robust and will last long after my own days are done.

Other things we've found useful are cooking and yard clean up. This week I hauled another 100 yards of old hog fencing and barbed wire out of the woods and have been cutting brush to make our woods more inviting. 

Make, fix and create.

finding a common truth

 I've heard from a number of friends and family members over the holidays, even from distant countries, and it appears we are living in pretty much the same world. Covid-19 is an equalizer of sorts in that it is forcing us all to recognize a common truth. 

We've been lied to and deceived about the dangers of the disease. Some have lost loved ones due to the lies. But lies only work until they've been laid bare by circumstances intruding from the real world. The sun comes up and lays the truth bare. We all have been made clearly aware that Covid-19 is real. It is dangerous and we would all be safer now while waiting on the vaccine if we had all been encouraged to take it seriously from the outset. I can point to the number of lies we've been told. I can name them and name who told them, but that would not solve the problem we face.

While Covid-19 is taking a much larger toll on the poor, and a much lighter toll on those who have the means to work from home or are retired, we all face the same risks when we venture out, and most are taking greater care in their daily lives. We are among the lucky ones. We've learned how to stay safe and have the means to do so.

In the early days of manual arts training in the US it was proposed by educational sloyd that all should receive training in the manual arts. Even those who were going to college and were to have everything done for them by minions were to benefit by being humanized in the manual arts. In the Jewish faith the Talmud warned:

"As it is your duty to teach your son the law, teach him a trade. Disobedience to this ordinance exposes one to just contempt, for thereby the social conditions of all are endangered… He who does not have his son taught a trade prepares him to be a robber… He who applies himself to study alone is like him who has no God."

 

Martin Luther insisted that each man be taught a trade, not just one of the mind, but of the whole body, that human culture might be of whole cloth. 

One thing that learning a trade did, and that the manual arts also did, was to bring all students into a relationship with the fundamental reality upon which all other learning should be based. The manual arts develop the skills of observation, problem solving and hypothesis, while also creating a sense of the dignity of all labor and empathy toward those who perform it.

Now a days, it's become perfectly acceptable to tell whatever lie you can get away with or to fudge the truth in the belief that if you can get others to believe what you believe, then you've found some victory of sorts. What a shallow, shameless world ours has become. But it does appear that reality is persuasive in times like this. It is time to learn a few things from our shared situation and hold accountable those who lie, and for each of us to become awake enough to see through and to act toward the protection of all.

Make, fix, create, and care for each other. We need that.

humanizing

 My wife and I have learned that we can survive in a pandemic by being careful to keep social distance, to wear masks, to avoid crowds and unnecessary travel. It's not fun. But  I would prefer to not put her at risk and she has the same feelings for me. We're lucky. She's retired and I'm lucky to be able to do most of my work at home. I'm deeply concerned for others who are not so lucky. It would be painful to live alone. It would be frightening to be an essential worker and to know you may be infecting those you love by just coming home at night. Can you imagine feeling responsible for the death of someone you love? There are many in that situation today. Taking chances. "It won't happen to me!" Sometimes the statement is made with bravado. Sometimes with desperate hope. But then it happens. The world is real.

Working in the real world, doing real things, you learn that there are consequences when the mind wanders or you are pre-occupied rather than focused on the task at hand.  If you're a potter at the wheel, and your mind wanders, so does the pot. If you are cutting along a line with the band saw and your mind wanders you'll likely screw up. These days we have a singular task, that of keeping each other safe. And while it's painful to be apart, the time will pass. Hope is on the way. For those who gather despite what we know to be true, there's forgiveness. We're human. We make mistakes. And we live through to brighter days.

There is a good reason for the use of hand tools. You are unlikely to mess something up when, for example, you are taking thin shavings from a piece of wood using a hand plane. A power tool places the work at greater risk. Another reason for hand tools is that they instill patience in the user. They are not for the hurry up get done folks, and patience learned from adjusting our minds and bodies to their use allows us to contend and be content with the difficult times we pass through.

I wish you all joy this holiday season. Be safe. Stay happy. Better times will come.

a steel drivin' man

In the struggle, man vs. machine there's the legend of John Henry, immortalized in folk music and in songs by Pete Seeger and Johnny Cash. 

According to researchers he was a real person, a black prisoner whose labor  was leased to the railroad in Kentucky to dig a tunnel through solid rock. The "hammer man," John Henry would work with a "shaker man" as a drill bit was driven into a rock face for the insertion of dynamite for blasting. It was a job being taken over at time by steam drills, and to prove the efficiency of the steam drill, they wanted to test it against their best man. That was John. The shaker man's job was to shake the bit, to cause rock debris to fall from the hole, providing necessary clearance for the bit to go deeper into the hole. It's said that John Henry won the competition against the machine but lost his life, probably to silicosis and is likely buried in a ditch behind the prison, where if he was alive, he could hear the whistles of passing trains. While John Henry and his shaker man were able to drill 9 feet of hole, the steam drill could no more than 7 feet in the same amount of time, perhaps because it had no shaker man to remove debris.

The shaker man would stand where a missed hammer strike might hit his arm or hand, so it's not just John Henry's strength that came into play but his aim as well.

Where does all that fit in? Who knows. I'm still trying to figure things out. There's no doubt that machines can make things easier for us. Faster for sure. 

This morning I put a rather large router bit in my hand held router, and neglected to get it tightened enough. So the bit began to climb out of the collet, going too deep into the wood. I managed to stop just in time to prevent it from destroying the project. I changed to a different router bit profile and managed to save the project, and I like the second choice of profiles better than the first, so all's well. My friend Zane at Marc Adams School of Woodworking used to tell students, "hurry up so you'll have time to fix your mistakes." Fortunately the fix in my case was easy.

One of the lessons one learns in woodworking, and perhaps other crafts as well, is that self forgiveness is required. We are human and we make mistakes. Those mistakes can sometimes make things better so there's no point in getting too stressed out. And self-recrimination is a waste of time.

In the meantime, my Christmas wish for all is that we stay safe. We can celebrate double next year when we've weathered this terrible storm that keeps us apart.

Make, fix and create...

Last day of Pop-up store.

This is the last day of the pop-up art store at 67 Spring St. in Eureka Springs. My work there is on sale at 25% off. On Monday the store will be dismantled for new gallery owners to move in. Stop by and see lovely works on display, today.

I have been going through my new book, Wisdom of our hands, and tweaking and refining my message to make it read more smoothly and its message more directly to the point. It is a lovely day in the Ozarks with a beautiful clear blue sky and I sit on our chilly, shaded front porch as I write, dog Rosie at my feet. She watches the woods with great concern that a squirrel might appear. 

In the woodshop I've dusted off my old Worth Machine, a multi-purpose tool that cuts a variety of woodworking joints. I've not used the machine in years, but it will come in very handy today for cutting slot mortise and tenon joints. The slot mortise joint is one in which a  machined part bridges between matching mortises in two pieces of wood. Sized properly and glued in place, it can be easier to use than a full mortise and tenon joint, and just as strong. 

The Worth machine is a classic and built for the ages. Ironically, they're rare enough at this point that it's difficult to find them even on the internet. My Worth Machine, invented by John Worth, though dusty, will be returned to service this afternoon, and will last another 30 years if I continue to take care of it.

Make, fix and create... 

On Sale at Eureka Pop-up Store

 I have put my boxes and sculptures on a 25% off sale at the Eureka Springs Christmas pop-up store at 67 Spring St. in Eureka Springs.  

https://www.newsbreakapp.com/n/0Y2my3oQThere you'll find other works by Eureka Springs artists just in time for Christmas gift buying.

Buy our work and support the arts.

Make, fix and create.

Alert to young mothers

Quercus Magazine  https://mailchi.mp/5a7281709b08/janfeb-2021-issue 

has a lovely cover for the upcoming issue, January/Feb 2021 that shows a young woman teaching woodworking. Does that seem unusual? It should not. Educational Sloyd grew from the Kindergarten movement, and of course young women were the driving force in that. Pestalozzi and Froebel had each noted the importance of women's roles as teachers. Women were leaders in the introduction of Educational Sloyd in the US. Contrast that with the role that men played in industrial arts education which had as its primary goal, preparing young men for industrial employment. It seems that women were more inclined toward the education of the whole child.

I'll have an article in this issue describing the whittling of a sphere, the sphere or ball being one of the early gifts in  Froebel's scheme for early childhood education. Froebel was a lifelong whittler and wood craftsman.

Subscribers to American Woodturner Magazine, the publication of the American Association of Woodturners will find on page 47 of the current issue where I describe the making of a PVC tool holder that hangs on the wall by french cleat. We use this type of tool holder at both the Clear Spring School and the Eureka Springs School of the Arts. 

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

the relationship between science and the arts

What is it about the use of the hands that makes man smart?

Jacob Bronowski described the hand as the cutting edge of the mind. The walls between the arts and sciences are paper thin. Both require the development of critical thinking skills and the power of close observation. In woodworking you can’t whittle a stick without making simple unspoken hypotheses having to do with the impact of the grain and the angle of the knife’s edge applied to the wood. Neither the knife nor the wood will lie about the results.What is intelligence without the practice of observation and critique? And what is intelligence if it does not allow us to better manage real life? 

We live these days in a world in which folks think it's just OK to make stuff up and in which you get to believe what you want and that if you can get others infected with your beliefs you've then found truth. I call BS. There is a real world and we live in it whether it pleases us or not.

Bronowski described the practice of the arts and the practice of science as being “explosions, of a hidden likeness. The discoverer or artist presents in them two aspects of nature and fuses them into one. This is the act of creation, in which an original thought is born, and it is the same act in original science and original art.”

"The most powerful drive in the ascent of man is his pleasure in his own skill. He loves to do what he does well and, having done it well, he loves to do it better. You see it in his science. You see it in the magnificence with which he carves and builds, the loving care, the gaiety, the effrontery. The monuments are supposed to commemorate kings and religions, heroes, dogmas, but in the end the man they commemorate is the builder." –– Jacob Bronowski, the Ascent of Man television series, 1973

Make, fix and create... 

the interconnected web of all life

This article from the New York Times describes the interconnections between trees in a forest, suggesting the interconnections of all life, a thing suggested by some religions.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/02/magazine/tree-communication-mycorrhiza.html

I have been making small chess pieces for my middle school class to go with the traveling chess boards we're making. Today I'll make a video to describe the process. The photo shows tiny rooks I've shaped for the students from maple and walnut. 

When will we also discover that children, like trees, do not stand alone in the forest? That we, too, are interconnected in ways we may never fully understand? Perhaps what must come first, will be a refusal to deny that we are indeed part of an interconnected web of all life, a thing Froebel described in his word, Gliedganzes, meaning member, whole. We are each members of a wholeness, and education, at its best, directs us toward that understanding.

Make, fix and create.

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...

An announcement

Following a press release at 10 AM this morning, I'm allowed to mention that our Eureka Springs School of the Arts is being provided a 10 million dollar endowment through the Arkansas Community Foundation that will assure its success and service for generations to come. Some of my readers will know that I was one of three co-founders of the school, so I share this joy with co-founders Mary Springer and Eleanor Lux and all those who've served the growth of the school over the past 22 years. The relationship between ESSA and the Windgate Foundation that's responsible for this large gift grew from my friendship with John and Robyn Horn, artists in Little Rock. 

As a friend of Robyn and a board member at ESSA, I've been involved in all the Windgate Foundation gifts to the school, and have had a hand in many of the developments on campus, including the acquisition of our school's 50 plus acre campus, and the initial designs for our school wood shop and our recently added onsite instructor housing.

The gift, providing long term operations funding, will allow us to focus our fund raising attention on additional campus improvements, innovative programming and scholarship support.

Artists wonder how their work will be regarded in years to come. Will it be kept or discarded? Being involved helping other artists evolve in their work and now seeing that this part of what I've helped build will go on for generations makes this a very  meaningful moment in my life.

Years ago, Tom Begnal, an editor from Fine Woodworking,  asked me why I didn't start my own woodworking school like so many other authors were doing. It is so much better to have built something with friends. Having my own school would have been such a lonely thing in comparison to what we've done.

There are still openings in my lecture class tomorrow afternoon presented through zoom. You can sign up here: https://essa-art.org/workshops/online/artist-talks-wisdom-of-our-hands/

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