But lo! men have become the tools of their tools. The man who independently plucked the fruits when he was hungry is become a farmer; and he who stood under a tree for shelter, a housekeeper. We no longer camp as for a night, but have settled down on earth and forgotten heaven.
We have adopted Christianity merely as an improved method of agriculture. We have built for this world a family mansion, and for the next a family tomb.
— Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) “Walden”
I have endured many blessings in life, including that somehow I managed to avoid getting the curiosity beaten out of me at an early age while navigating government indoctrination camps. I am the son of an iconoclast, and thus managed to look at the world with a somewhat skewed vision including the perception of formal education with no small dose of skepticism. I was a mediocre student through much of my secondary schooling, essentially tuning out formal academics and doing only what I needed to move on while focusing on those things which interested me. There was so much fascinating stuff beyond the drivel being pushed in the classroom. Why were we reading a somnolistic civics textbook when there were The Federalist Papers (and even better, The Anti-Federalist Papers) to read? And history? A fascinating subject that takes great effort to be made unpalatable, but institutional “learning” gulags are up to that task.
As I get older I only get more out of step with the popular culture all around me. I love learning, and I delight in passing along what I have learned. No telling how many times my wife has been spared – with great self control on my part – from being regaled with an exhaustive recounting of astounding things gleaned from the U.S. Patent Office data base. This idiosyncrasy makes me distinctly at odds with our bread and circuses culture where I encounter far too many people wanting to know everything but cannot be bothered with learning anything.
Which brings me to Andre Jacob Roubo. In working our way through the volumes, we began to get a glimpse of him as a person. At the recent “Evening With Roubo” dinner that Chris Schwarz unselfishly (or was is selfishly?) organized at Woodworking in America in Cincinnati I delighted in St. Roy’s retelling of Roubo’s biography, but even a spirited story well-delivered can never be complete. Thanks to Roubo himself, there is much more.
Roubo’s lessons and reflections, laundered through Michelle’s literal translation, my massaging of the words to cause them to make sense to a contemporary artisan, and Philippe’s final polishing, make me reflect on my own ignorance, clumsiness, and sloth.
At the close of the final volume, Roubo gives us a remarkable peek into his soul, and I like what we can see. Beginning next week with selected excerpts I will let him tell you — in his own words –- what makes him tick.
— Don Williams
I well recall — it was my second day in London — a prominent designer offering me a bit of advice that I have never forgotten.
“Whenever you design furniture,” he said, “pin your faith on proportion and accuracy of detail. Do not trouble about decoration; keep that subsidiary; the first thing is repose.”
And he was surely right?
If we carefully analyze our own likes and dislikes, we will find that what appeals first is the graceful proportion of the article we are viewing. The question of style does not here arise. The piece may be a Jacobean sideboard on fairly heavy lines, or it may be a Sheraton table with thin tapering legs; if the proportion is good and the detail is correct it cannot fail to attract.
— The Woodworker, October 1925
We can improve our own taste and judgment by studying good work wherever we find it, in shop windows, exhibitions, museums, or illustrated in the pages of books, just as we can improve our own skill by thoughtful, intelligent practice and in taking instruction in whatever direction we may need it.
For there is so much to be done, there are going to be so many busy years ahead for all of us, that the man who is ready to plan and work now to achieve later the thing he longs for, whether it is a small business or a beautifully equipped home of his own, is the man who will be equal to the hour when it comes.
— The Woodworker, January 1947
Gandhi and his spinning wheel were more quixotic than realistic. A power plane can do in a few minutes what might require a day or more by hand. In a creative craft, it becomes a question of responsibility, whether it is the man or the machine that control’s the work’s progress.
— George Nakashima, “The Soul of a Tree,” page 125