Though I’ve taught at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking for almost a decade, I’ve never been there after dark. It’s a bit like running into a familiar school teacher in an unfamiliar place, like the grocery store.
When I teach at MASW, I like to eat lunch in the young forest behind the school, but tonight I was tripping, fumbling and crunching across that familiar ground trying to find my students so I could make sure they didn’t poop in Marc’s lake.
I found some tents in the clearing, but they were deserted. That’s spooky. I looked out over the surrounding corn fields that were lit up by the Super Blood Moon and thought: This is going to be a weird week.
For the next five days I’m leading a class of 18 young aspiring woodworkers in a class officially called “Hand Tool Immersion,” but which I affectionately call “The Baby Anarchists.” We’ll be fixing up hand tools and building a tool chest. While that doesn’t sound extraordinary, it is.
Marc Adams graciously agreed to slash the tuition for the students to make it affordable for young woodworkers. He donated the materials for the tool chests we’ll be building. And he is allowing all the students to camp in the forest behind his house and school (I think 14 or 15 are back there now).
About 100 readers of this blog have donated tools and cash so that all of these students will end up a kit of tools they need to seriously get started in woodworking.
And woodworking friends – Raney Nelson, John Hoffman, Brian Clites, Tim Henriksen, Justin Leib – are donating their time to help the students get individual instruction.
Now we just have to feed this crew, so I’ll find out if Domino’s pizza delivers out here (just kidding; this is Papa John’s territory).
I’ll be posting photos of this class all week here and in Instagram under the #babyanarchists hashtag. I hope you’ll follow along here and on Instagram because a lot of you out there made this class possible. And I am deeply in your debt.
— Christopher Schwarz
I hope you’re kidding about Domino’s AND Papa Johns! Real anarchists should eat real pizza baked by real people where the quality of the pizza is more important than the deliver options.
Hope I didn’t step on anyone’s toes, but I’m in a foul mood tonight and the thought of chain pizza was just too much.
“Real anarchists should eat real pizza baked by real people…”
Yea, but they are in Indiana; on the very cusp of the Kentucky pizza desert! 🙂
Excuse my wee bit of Hoosier bating. You folks have fun, and keep the reports often and plentiful (like Chicago voting). I’ve been waiting for a while to see how this experiment works.
Ixnay on the Onminos-day. 🙂
Have a good time in Indiana this week! If you have some time for a beer before you head back in an Easternly direction, let me know!
Very unique event – this is going to be an enlightening week for everyone involved!
I’m still kicking myself for not being able to go. I’ll be paying close attention to the posts and pictures.
I will be more interested in what they accomplish in the future. Time will tell.
Just finishing up my “naked knockdown nicholson”: a mash-up of Mike Siemsen’s video version and your plans from this blog. I’m considering myself a baby anarchist from afar and doing my best to self-educate. Thanks for the inspiring work and photos. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for a future iteration of this class.
Brozinni’s Pizza in Greenwood is great!