We have a box of slightly damaged copies of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” from the first two printings that we are offering at the reduced price of $18 plus shipping.
The damage to these copies is cosmetic: A corner was bruised during manufacturing or shipping, there is a small tear to the cotton cover, or a drip of glue from the bindery.
All the copies are 100 percent readable.
All the copies are also marked as damaged with a green marker across the bottom. All sales are final on these copies. We have only 14 damaged copies. Once they are gone, they are gone.
A highly skilled woodworker, teacher, draughtsman and writer has said the following about me on several occasions, according to his students.
“You shouldn’t listen to Schwarz. He’s never been a professional woodworker.”
He’s 100-percent correct, of course. I spent one summer building entryway doors for Therma-Tru. A second summer I built folding particleboard tables. And I did 14 years building furniture infrequently for Popular Woodworking magazine. But I would never ever call myself a professional furniture maker.
I am, like many of you, a frustrated amateur furniture maker. Since 1993, I have spent every waking moment trying to perfect my skills. I have taken classes, read every book I thought was worth reading and happily soaked up every bit of wisdom I could find from woodworkers alive and dead.
I struggle every day that I am in the shop, which is just about every day. I mess stuff up. I design some pieces that are awkward, which I would never show in public. I mis-cut joints, curse my hands and wish I were as confident as Frank Klausz.
If I had to put a resume together today, the only real skills I’d list are an insatiable curiosity for our craft and the ability to string together words in a way that upsets some people. Oh, and I am one of the founding members of the Radio Shack Battery Club.
So why am I pulling my pants down on the Internet and not even asking you for a credit card number? Because I want you to know that there are very few (if any) woodworking gods. Yes, there are some people who are savants at a particular joint or process, but anyone who thinks he has mastered the craft should study 40 more years and get back to us.
Woodworking is hard. For everyone. And if you love the craft as much as I love the Radio Shack Battery Club, then you will never ever be satisfied with your work. Something in every project – a joint, a reveal, a quirk – can always be improved.
So why do I teach? That seems like uber-hubris.
Wow. That’s a good question. I teach only because people ask me to teach. I’ve never called a school asking to teach there. I teach because there are always people who know less than I do (incredible though it seems). And I teach because I have met some of my best, lifelong friends in classes, including John Hoffman, my business partner in Lost Art Press.
So I agree with the guy who says you shouldn’t listen to me because I’m not a professional. But perhaps I am a somewhat useful ugly bag of mostly water because I am an amateur.
I am no different than the goofy guy next to you at the bench in the last woodworking class you took. Except that guy… whew… he really smells.
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.
The first item in the commonsense creed is Obedience. Do your work with a whole heart! The man who mixes revolt and obedience is doomed to disappoint himself and everybody with whom he has dealings. To flavor work with protest is to fail absolutely. When you revolt – climb, get out, hike, defy – tell everybody and everything to go to limbo! That disposes of the case. You thus separate yourself entirely from those you have served – no one misunderstands you – you have declared yourself. But to pretend to obey, and yet carry in your heart the spirit to revolt, is to do half-hearted and slipshod work. If revolt and obedience are equal, your engine will stop on the center and you benefit nobody, not even yourself. The Spirit of Obedience is the controlling impulse of the receptive mind and the hospitable heart. There are boats that mind the helm and boats that don’t. Those that don’t, get holes knocked in them sooner or later. To keep off the rocks obey the rudder. Obedience is not to lavishly obey this man or that, but it is that cheerful mental condition which responds to the necessity of the case, and does the thing. Obedience to the institution – loyalty! The man who has not learned to obey has trouble ahead of him every step of the way – the world has it in for him because he has it in for the world. The man who does not know how to receive orders is not fit to issue them. But he who knows how to execute orders is preparing the way to give them, and better still – to have them obeyed.
Here’s a quick update for those of you who have ordered leather-bound editions of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest.” We dropped off the unbound book blocks at Ohio Book on Tuesday afternoon and they should be ready in three weeks.
These books will be bound in brown leather that is then hand-distressed. The end sheets are hand-colored. The spines of the books are hand-rounded on the ancient machinery in the basement of Ohio Book. And then the final result is stamped with a gold foil on the front cover and spine.
The result is, quite frankly, gorgeous. These books – regardless of the content between the covers – are a joy to hold, read and own.
Of the 26 books in this batch, we have six left. The cost is $185 postage paid anywhere in the United States. To order one of the last six, click here.
