One of the great joys in creating “The Woodworker: The Charles H. Hayward Years” was reading Hayward’s “Chips from the Chisel” column in every issue during its 30-year run. The column was a remarkable insight to the way Hayward viewed the world, the craft, his house and his garden.
The column began before World War II as tinged with insecurity. During the war years, Hayward kept a stiff upper lip and encouraged woodworkers to find solace in woodworking. And after the war, Hayward’s columns dealt with a craft that was being changed by technology and the old ways were disappearing.
The group of us who worked on “The Woodworker” books selected some of these columns for the books, and those appear at the end of book four. But I didn’t want to overwhelm readers with philosophy, so we selected only a few columns for volume four.
Enter Kara Gebhart Uhl, our managing editor, who wasn’t involved with “The Woodworker” books until the end of the final two volumes. She was delighted by the “Chips from the Chisel” columns and asked if there were more she could read.
So John and I began to wonder: Could the columns be a book on their own?
Thanks to Kara we are going to find out. For the last few months, Kara has been assembling the best columns from each year, plus vintage images from the magazine. She’s also preparing a timeline of important world events for each year, which will help put the columns in perspective.
And we’re seeking the help of the Hayward family in completing a biography of Hayward, who was the most influential workshop writer of the 20th century (in my opinion).
The working title of the book is: “Honest Labour: The Craft According to Charles H. Hayward.” During the coming months, Kara will share excerpts from the book here on the blog to give you a taste of what’s to come. I think you’ll find them well-written, thoughtful and as applicable to the craft today as they were 65 years ago.
I am pleased to announce that you can now purchase Nancy R. Hiller’s book “Making Things Work: Tales From a Cabinetmaker’s Life” in the Lost Art Press store. The price is $33, which includes shipping in North America.
We rarely carry books from other publishers in our store. Why? Well, we sell goods made in North America only, and most publishers print their books overseas. While we don’t have anything against Chinese printing plants – many of them do good work – we believe in supporting our neighbors first.
Second, we are picky about content. We have to love a book to be willing to carry it.
Hiller’s book satisfies both of those conditions, and we are thrilled to offer it. It is funny, thoughtful and terrifying, especially if you’ve ever considered trying to turn furniture into food. Her tales of trying to make ends meet, to stay warm and to find a place to use the restroom – all while building well-made furniture – will inspire you to take the plunge (or keep your day job).
If you’ve ever wondered who would win an epic battle between an 18th-century French joiner and a mutated lizard…. well you can keep on wondering. We don’t condone such things.
But my daughter Maddy has now turned 21 and clearly is working the fighting lizard circuit in central Ohio. Here her boyfriend’s bloodthirsty gecko is shown with one of the stickers Maddy peddles to our readers.
Would you like stickers for your lizard or fighting marmoset? It’s easy.
You can order a set of three from her etsy store here. Yes, she accepts international orders.
Or, for customers in the United States, you can send a $5 bill and a SASE (self-addressed stamped envelope) to Maddy at:
Stick it to the Man
P.O. Box 3284
Columbus, OH 43210
She’ll put the three current sticker designs in your envelope and mail them back to you. These are nice, 100-percent vinyl weatherproof and lizard-proof stickers. After our civilization is gone, cockroaches will collect them. They’re that durable.
Are we becoming adjusted to speed? I was talking a few days ago to a factory worker who thinks we are and that men are changing and will go on changing under its influence. “Everybody is working,” he said, referring to husbands and their wives, even children in holiday times. “The pressure is terrific.”
Conversely, so are the tensions. Perhaps these are at the root of the restlessness of some men, who seem to be always on the move, and in the growing number of others who, in their leisure, embark on creative, often very exacting work. With outlets like these, tensions tend to diminish, more so than if a man simply relaxes into complete idleness.
The important difference is that we make our own speed and with this comes the feeling of release. When we want to work quickly, there are the small power tools to take the edge off our impatience. When we want to taste to the full the luxury of unhurried, relaxed work, then we can settle down to a job with all the sober pleasure of an oldworld craftsman, finding perhaps some stray particles of wisdom touch us unaware.
But however we work, the thing of prime importance is to live, really live in the job of the moment so long as it lasts. Once we begin to cast our eyes ahead to the next item on the schedule, away goes peace and back come the tensions. When this happens, reasonable speed looks only an irritant, hands fumble through sheer unmitigated impatience. And that kind of impatience is the very devil in creative work. Unless we are careful, it mars the work, it certainly mars our temper and our enjoyment of the job. For the great thing about craft work when we do it on our own terms, is that it can be so thoroughly enjoyable. It has the power to take a man right out of himself, right into the thing he is doing, an excellent therapy against the stringencies of a busy world.
But the mind, being so much quicker than the hand, can easily betray us, so that a great part of the patience of true craftsmanship comes from keeping the mind reined in, never to be tempted to dream about the following job while we are doing this one, so risking making this one look like an interminable nuisance. “Little by little and bit by bit, that’s the way you does it,” as an old gardener once said to me reprovingly, and it is a good, steadying philosophy when we are getting a bit ahead of ourselves.
As a matter of fact, it is quite remarkable how many men today are learning to take the long view. They may have bought a partly derelict property at a bargain price or have determined to modernise their old-fashioned house, but whatever it is that starts them going the project is often one which has to be carried out over a long period of spare-time work. Some men even put themselves to school first for one or other of the essentials, such as bricklaying, engaging this with some other skill they already have. The result is often first-class. When a man puts his whole mind and will to a job, amateur or part amateur though he be, it is remarkable what excellence he can achieve. The trouble with most of us most of the time is that minds and wills are only half engaged. Put the whole of ourselves into a job and the good thing emerges. What is most noticeable is how readily these men shape down to the steady, progressive, long-term view, neither hurrying, nor unduly worrying, but taking each stage as it comes, dealing with it so thoroughly that care goes a long way towards meeting the demand for expertise. Because their number is now increasing all around, there is almost certain to be a friend or neighbour able to help and advise at difficult moments. And it is not at all unknown for a lecturer at a Technical College, becoming interested in the ambitious projects of his pupils, going out to give them a hand over the tricky bits.
It is a new wave of craftsmanship that has come upon us, born of changed social conditions. Before the war no ordinary householder, however skilled, would have dreamed of attempting single-handed the jobs which his modem counterpart undertakes. It is craft work from quite a different direction, bringing with it an ability and sense of independence which are the best kind of answer to the various pressures which make up the modern world.
It is the ordinary man standing squarely on his own feet, learning to “do” for himself once more and finding quite a bit of enjoyment and an amazing potential in the doing. The general collapse and withdrawal of handicrafts from industry is helping to bring about a revival in our very midst. Truly we are adjusting ourselves to changes of all kinds, not only pace. Pace, indeed, can kill. It can also be exhilarating.
The Lost Art Press storefront will be open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, April 8, and we welcome you and your woodworking questions.
This weekend, I’ll probably build another staked stool (I have the parts prepped) and perhaps demonstrate the charring technique I showed in yesterday’s post. Also, we have the press mockup of “Roman Workbenches,” which you are welcome to look through. The book is at the bindery now.
We don’t, however, have any blemished books on hand to sell. The Lie-Nielsen event last month cleaned us out.
Need a list of where to eat and drink during your visit? Here you go.
I am pleased to announce that you can now purchase Nancy R. Hiller’s book “
