In my life, I’ve never met anyone who truly grasped both hand work and machine work and then completely gave up one or the other. Not once.
— Christopher Schwarz
Category: Uncategorized
Read My New Column at Core77
Starting today, I am writing a monthly column for Core77, a site that specializes in covering the world of design with a broad perspective.
If you’re looking for woodworking advice, you won’t find it in my column. Instead, I took this assignment because I get to write about design, building stuff, running a business and (yes!) anarchism from a broader point of view than here on this blog.
My first column, The (Mostly Forgotten) Power of Vernacular Design, has some woodworking elements – holdfasts and chairs – but it uses those physical things to explain how I explore early user-made objects. And what we can learn from them.
The column will appear every month. My April column will discuss pricing. Not “how to price your work.” But instead, when to publish your prices and when not to (and the “why” behind each philosophy). I’ve been on both sides of that fence.
Future columns will delve into radical stuff. First, however, I have to convince the readers of Core77 that I’m not a total nut basket.
— Christopher Schwarz
Psst…Another ATC Class in the Offing
We’re bringing tool chest history full circle this fall with Kieran’s Binnie’s Sept. 23-27 class on building the Anarchist’s Tool Chest at our Covington storefront. You see, Kieran (of overthewireless.com) took Chris’ tool chest class in England several years ago (it is, after all, a traditional English tool chest). Now Kieran is traveling from England to teach it back to the Americans at the Lost Art Press storefront.
As a bonus, Kieran’s assistants for the class will be Christopher Schwarz and Megan Fitzpatrick. So the week will be quite the hootenanny.
Registration for Build the Anarchist’s Tool Chest with Kieran Binnie will go live on Friday, March 8 at 10 a.m. Eastern.
If you have questions, please email Fitzpatrick at covingtonmechanicals@gmail.com.
The Will and the Deed
“It looks as though today we are at the beginning of a new era. Values are shifting and changing, in many ways coming nearer to an ancient order of things than once we would have thought possible. Work in farm and field has become once more of prime importance, so has the skill of the technician, the man with the trained hands. We are being compelled to live more realistically, to see money as of less importance than things, a token of barter of little worth unless there are the goods available for barter. We may feel indeed that the time is ripe for the revival of craftsmanship, for the craftsman can only be truly valued when things are truly valued, and when productive, creative work is put first in the scheme of things.
“We may feel that much of our old tradition of craftsmanship has been lost, that fine tradition which has been described as ‘the fearless, faithful, inherited energies that worked on and down from death to death, generation after generation.’ As a nation we flung it recklessly away, too pleased with our new prosperity to realise that we had flung away the baby with the bathwater and that it had been a very lusty child. Nowadays we can realise something of what we have lost, shocked into realisation by the prevalence of low standards of workmanship against which a robust, inherited tradition is the best kind of safeguard.
“Nevertheless, signs of revival are all about us. The need for good quality and design is entering more consciously into industry, and every effort is being made to interest the public in it. The public, that is to say, the purchaser, is in the last resort the judge, and as the general level of taste rises so will the quality of the goods that are offered to meet it. The woodworker, whether he be a home craftsman or professional cabinet maker, can be an influence all for the good. Any revival must ultimately depend upon the work of the individual and the more men there are turning out furniture of good quality and design, the more people are going to be influenced in the right direction. It must be remembered that although, as a nation, we have lost immeasurable, as individuals we have gained. The potential craftsman of today may indeed be out of touch with his traditional inheritance, but he has hopes and opportunities which his forbears never knew. Lose touch with it altogether he cannot because the instinct for creation is in every man’s blood. And if with fidelity and honesty of purpose he makes use of the wider opportunities which now every citizen takes for granted, then he will be among those who are helping to forge a new tradition in every way worthy of the old.”
— Charles Hayward, The Woodworker magazine, 1949
All Hail the Dutch Princess
If you haven’t noticed, Megan Fitzpatrick has been teaching a lot of tool chest classes. And thank goodness – that means I can focus on chairmaking, working on books and building commissions.
She teaches these chest classes exactly as I would. Well, that’s not quite right. She actually does a better job. Megan loves teaching – she taught at the college level – and her unflagging enthusiasm for the task beats out my retinue of squirrel and clam jokes.
Her tool chest classes at our storefront sell out faster than any other, except for Chris Williams’s Welsh Stick Chair classes.
So I am amazed that Megan’s Dutch Tool Chest class at the Port Townsend School of Woodworking in June hasn’t sold out. It makes me wonder: Do West Coast people hate the Dutch? Do they not like to learn a hearty combination of hand-cut joints? Do they not have tools to store? I just wonder.
If you’ve never been to the Port Townsend school, I think you should. It is one of the most beautiful corners of the world, high above the Puget Sound in Fort Worden. Honestly, if I didn’t have such deep roots in Covington, I’d run away and live there. The gorgeous town has great food, fantastic beer and the most laid-back vibe I’ve encountered. And the deer are so tame you can pet them.
The school and instructor are definitely worth the trip.
— Christopher Schwarz