I don’t collect tools, books or even Hummels (he said, throwing up a little in his mouth).
Instead, I like to collect clarity.
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always gathered little scraps of paper filled with notes jotted down from the books I’ve read, the lectures I’ve attended and the friends I’ve had beers with. I am a great admirer of people who can frame their ideas in a compelling way using as few words as possible – even if I vehemently disagree with them.
I turn these phrases over and over in my mind, like a fine object. I examine the workmanship, look for flaws and study the social context in which they were made. I also like to place these them against other ideas to see if new meaning emerges.
And that is why I post these quotations on the Lost Art Press blog and pair them with images. I don’t mean to confuse or upset. And I don’t use them to indicate my own personal thought processes, mood or aura (I’m trending orange this morning, by the way).
Instead, the blog is a way to record these quotations (I sometimes lose my scraps of paper), and the response from others is always interesting.
So about that Elbert Hubbard quote on obedience. Here’s why I posted it with that image.
1. This is from Elbert Hubbard, the guy who wrote “Jesus was an Anarchist” (1910), a spiritual founder of the American Arts & Crafts movement, a book maker and a soap salesman. Was the guy a genius? A sellout? How does that quotation square with what I know about Hubbard’s philosophy? Does his “Message to Garcia” tick you off or make you nod your head in agreement?
2. Hubbard founded the Roycrofters, an organization of craftsmen who specialized in making all sorts of beautiful handmade and sometimes eccentric objects. Like many Arts & Crafts proponents, the idea was to mimic the medieval guilds.
3. Which takes us to the image, which is from “Die Hausbücher der Nürnberger Zwölfbrüderstiftungen,” naturally. It’s a collection of images of craftsmen from many trades that began in 1388. I’ll let you run the web pages through Google Translate yourself, but these books were created for an interesting reason — they were part of a retirement home for impoverished craftsmen.
So for me, this image and this quotation make me think about the meaning of obedience as it relates to craft, especially now that I am out of a job.
So there you have it. I don’t mean to be opaque, but I also don’t teach people how to cut dovetails by going over to their house and building them a dovetailed tool chest.
OK, now I’ve marked your baselines for you.
— Christopher Schwarz
for a well-educated woodworker extraordinaire you sure have a nice laptop.
And it looks like the laptop is in the company of some very famous piano maker’s tools.
Chris – Keep them quotes a comin’…
Happy New Year to you and your family!!!
Tom H
Question is : are these absolutes on one side or where do we go to debate or discuss them
I enjoy mulling over these small word copses. ( A copse is a small isolated group of trees, so I think it applies equally well to your quotes.) Sometimes I’ll stand in the middle of a copse and try to imagine a whole forest.
In Marine Corps artillery parlance, a copse is a target, or landmark from which to base fire. Don’t hide in a copse. 🙂
Scott,
Were you a cannon cocker, gun bunny, or a powder monkey?
Respectfully,
An 03 Buttplate.
“So there you have it. I don’t mean to be opaque, but I also don’t teach people how to cut dovetails by going over to their house and building them a dovetailed tool chest.”
If you just dump a pile of quotes on people, without any indication of the thought process behind the quotes, it’s not clear to your pupils what you’re teaching them at all.
“If you just dump a pile of quotes on people, without any indication of the thought process behind the quotes, it’s not clear to your pupils what you’re teaching them at all.”
Perhaps teaching them to think about things rather than be told how to think about things?
cheers!
I’m quite aware how to think about things. It’s not clear how my ability to think about things is advanced by Chris being opaque.
Sometimes, I think, the student just isn’t ready yet to learn what the teacher has to say. Better to salt those away, reviewing them regularly, until their meaning becomes clear. To hold the teacher responsible for laying everything out in front of the student is just asking too much, in my opinion. The quotes have certainly been collected on my end for wandering through again as time and circumstance permit. I’m thrilled to explore even the more obscure passages.
Why, what do you stand to lose except a little dignity?
Dear Chris,
I love and appreciate your quotes. When I was growing up, in the fifties, we had in our very small library of books an Elbert Hubbard’s Scrapbook. I don’t know where it came from, but I think it was my mother’s. She had a bent for crafts, and anything she tried came out beautiful. EH’s Scrapbook planted the seeds for my adult passion for anything Arts and Crafts. Have you been to see the Gamble House in Pasadena? It is a major work of Arts and Crafts / love.
So, keep posting your quotations.
Kathryn
PS – I love your demos, too.
Chris, I believe your journalistic skills and your inquisitiveness is indicative of your following, along with your progress in the woodworking craft. It keeps us thinking and pursuing our own abilities and intelectual thinking and pondering outside the box. Thank you and a Happy and prosperous New Year.
I figure sometimes a blog is worth the price paid for it. I’d be ticked if you were selling a compendium of quotes without context. Yet, others would be thrilled and buy it sight unseen.
May you and yours have a fulfilling and prosperous 2012.
ps, besides, where else would I find news about the old brewery?
Message to Garcia was (at least when I was active duty) on the Commandant’s reading list for junior enlisted Marines. It was used to display and promote initiative among Marines.
2531, comm/FO
We looked. Garcia was not at the PX, barbershop, or chow hall. Though some sightings were reported at the Package Goods store…
I can certainly agree with the story on a high level, but as a practical matter it is an abysmal example.
So Chris, that’s why? OK. For me, Elbert Hubbard’s quote took me back to my youth. I grew up in the town where Hubbard turned his focus on A&C design and lifestyles after retiring from catalog sales, founding the Roycroft community. I went to high school across the street from what was left of the Roycroft complex, and as kids we heard a fair amount about it in school and around town. I can tell you that sitting in the original Roycroft A&C chairs in the Roycroft Inn was a very uncomfortable proposition – those chairs don’t fit kids and were just plain uncomfortable. But as a kid, I also thought Elbert was a bit full of himself. Clear ideas, yes. But translating his vision into a utopian living complex involved some difficulties with reality, and the colony seriously stumbled after loss of his vision and energy when the Lusitania went down. Nearby Buffalo, where he made his fortune, was in its glory at the time, and Greene & Greene and Frank Lloyd Wright left a bunch of houses in the city and suburbs that illustrate the clarity of A&C craftsmanship and the beauty of their concepts. Hubbard was but one of the brighter intellectual lights in that region. If you pass through the area some day, you might want to take a tour of some of those designer’s homes that have been preserved. The variety nicely illustrates the purity of line in the A&C design ethos, and when you leave and see what the city is today, the contrast emphasizes the differences between today’s society and what those of us who prefer hand tool craftsmanship seek. Thanks for prompting the rerun of my youth.
Happy New Year Chris!
I wish you and yours good fortune and prosperity in the years to come (including this one).
The way I see it this is your blog and you can say whatever the hell you want.
I am just glad you like to share with the rest of us, even if I do not always “get” all of it.
So….. thanks for sharing!
Keep the quotes coming!!!
They inspire by each person interpreting them in their own way.
Thanks for the link to the Nuernberger Hausbuecher. That’s a wonderfull resource.
Please keep the quotes coming…they’re always thought-provoking.
03 Buttplate? Always thought it was 03 Bullet Magnet…..
BTW, you forgot “lanyard yanker”….
respectfully,
an old Army 11B
File the quotes away in the recesses of your mind. At some point, or points, they will guide or influence your thinking, about something.