The ancient “geometers” believed that geometry was the key to comprehending the incomprehensible; that an understanding of its inherent truths was the key to unlocking the mystery of how the “Gods” created order from chaos. The development of geometric constructions (the truths rather than proofs) became the foundational tool of the artisans to create a built world of inherently sound, durable and pleasing forms.
And it all started from nothing:
Across the Ionian Sea, a gentle wind blows from the West with the fading of winter–the breath of the God Zephyr, a harbinger of spring and the bringer of light. A God whose name would, as we will see, appropriately evolve to produce the word “zero.” The geometers did not use or represent zero as a number, but rather as a notation to show the location of the focus of a circle. Like the true center of a wheel, it is the only place that does not rotate, for it is a place of no dimension. There is nothing to rise, nothing to fall. All revolves around it. And like Zephyr, the renewer of life, the zero of the ancient artisans served as the seed of all shape and form. website
— Jim Tolpin, reprinted from the byhandandeye.com website, which explores artisan geometry
The discovery of a pattern seems to me to be an inherent feature of the human experience of making. Whether he or she thinks about it or not, or is even aware of it, a person who makes something implicitly assumes existence of an order or standard of rightness that transcends all recipes and rules of composition: a standard, a pattern, or – to use the Greek word – a paradeigma which both measures the work and is measured by it.
This pattern can be thought of as a single, immutable template to be traced or copied, which appears to be how Plato understood it, or it can be thought of as a mutable rhythm governing a pattern of movement, like the figure of a dance: a rhythm or order (kosmos) that is rediscovered with each new tracing of the figure.
Artists – and by “artists” I mean all people who make things: not just novelists, poets, composers, and painters, but also cooks, gardeners, and seamstresses, insofar as they are not assembly line workers – are an infinitesimal and powerless minority in the Western world, but this was not always the case. The civilization of archaic Greece, which is to say Western civilization at its very roots, has been called a civilization of the artisan….
It is my contention that, with the dawn of Greek thought, the pattern discovered, or allowed to appear, through making was universalized to become the pattern that eventually came to be understood as the one embodied in the cosmos as we understand the word.
— Indra Kagis McEwen “Socrates’ Ancestor” (The MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.)
After six months of not teaching, I can say it’s unlikely I’ll ever go back to teaching again. I’m getting an incredible amount of work done on furniture, writing, editing and research. And I’m sleeping better.
But as much as I enjoy The Hermitage, I know it’s good to have some human contact from time to time.
So this is a reminder that we will have our doors open at 837 Willard St., Covington, KY 41011 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on May 14. We’ll have all our books there, plus free stickers, T-shirts that are exclusive to our storefront, letterpress posters and we will spray paint the dividers on your butt, if so requested.
My daughter Katy will be there selling some soft wax, and John (the other half of Lost Art Press) will be there, as will as Raney Nelson of Daed Toolworks.
I’ll also be opening the storefront on Sunday, May 22, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. so that members of the Early American industries Association can stop by on the way home from the organization’s national meeting at the Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill.
Here are the days we will be open for the rest of 2016:
May 14
June 11
July 9
August 13
September 10
October 8
November 12
December 10
We might open one day during Woodworking in America (Sept. 16-18), but it will be tricky to manage because I am teaching the entire weekend and John will be working the Lost Art Press booth during the Marketplace. So stay tuned.
A few people have asked for an update on the books on which we are working. I’m happy to fill you in, but please read the following paragraph with care before you comment or ask a question:
The updates below are for projects that are in our hands and we are actively working upon. We have about a dozen books that our authors are working on, either in the shop or at the keyboard. If I haven’t listed a project, that means I don’t have any information on it. Usually this means the author is still working on it. Or the author has temporarily abandoned it. Or something else has happened involving feral goats, the grays and banana pudding.
So if you ask: What about Andrew Lunn’s saw book? The answer is above. I don’t know because the book is not in our hands.
The projects are listed in the order in which I think they will be released. Of course, things change.
‘Woodworking in Estonia’ by Ants Viires This book is kicking my butt. We have re-translated the newest revised version of the work, and it is as complex as translating A.J. Roubo. I’m about halfway through editing the final translated text (the book is already designed), and hope to have it done next month. Then it will go to press and be out in July.
This book is fantastic, though I suspect it will be a commercial flop for us. It is academic, nichy and discusses unfamiliar tools, projects and ways of looking at the world. Still, I think it’s important to publish and promote it amongst people who work wood (as opposed to historians). If you are willing to make the effort to dive into it, the rewards will be significant.
‘Roubo on Furniture’ by A.J. Roubo. Translation by Donald C. Williams, Michele Pietryka-Pagán & Philippe Lafargue We are shooting for this book to be released in the fall, we hope in time for Christmas. The text is being polished and will be going to Wesley Tanner, the designer, in four weeks. As with “Roubo on Marquetry,” we plan to publish two versions: a standard and a deluxe.
We’re likely going to release the standard edition first. Then we will tackle the deluxe.
I have remained enthusiastic about this book since the moment I started working on it. There is stuff in this book that you won’t find anywhere else. And no matter what sort of woodworking you do (reproduction, contemporary, indifferent), this book is the big one. Every time I dip into the work I am humbled and amazed.
‘The Woodworker: The Charles Hayward Years:’ Joinery and Furniture Meghan is in the midst of designing the next two volumes. With any luck we’ll have them out in early 2017.
‘Joiner’s Work’ (tentative title) by Peter Follansbee Peter has finished the first draft of the text, and Megan Fitzpatrick (how many Megans are in my life?), is polishing it before we send it to the designer.
‘Roman Workbenches’ by Christopher Schwarz Next month I’m driving to North Carolina to pick up the wood for the two workbenches that will be featured in our first letterpress book. Soon we should have a translation in our hands of an early 16th-century codex that will be the basis of one of the benches in the book. Hardware is being made. Research is being done. Stupid theories are being swapped.
So that’s about that. I wish I had information on the other dozen projects to share with you, but I don’t. So now back to editing “Woodworking in Estonia.”
