“Let us hope that the spirit of craftsmanship is strong enough in us to enable us to hand down to posterity things which will be considered worthy of the 20th century.”
— Charles Hayward, “Practical Veneering”
Having tools does not make you an anarchist. It’s what you do with those tools that is the proof.
I want to warn you before you read another word, this blog entry is not specifically about woodworking. I hesitate to even write it. But I feel the need to explain myself a bit, and I promise to keep it brief. I also promise that I won’t stray into these waters much in the future.
There are many flavors of anarchists out there. My flavor is Individualistic Anarchism, specifically “aesthetic anarchism.” What does that mean to me?
I intensely dislike large institutions: governments, religious institutions and large corporations. But it would be an error to say I am not political, spiritual or capitalistic. It is my belief that institutions are the cause of most problems – not the solution.
I dislike many laws – gun laws, drug laws, sex laws to name a few. But mostly I dislike how laws are used to enslave us – they favor corporations over individuals, and the continual growth of government and its encroachment on our lives.
I don’t vote. I don’t go to church. I don’t employ people – and I never will. I view rent as theft. When I buy things, I always try to buy from individuals – the maker if possible. When I have to buy something manufactured, I buy from companies that aren’t exploiters. I buy Pointer jeans from Tennessee. My jacket was made by Schott in New Jersey. My wool sweater was knit in Ireland.
But most of all, I like to make the things I need. I do all our cooking, and every night (except pizza night) I cook dinner from scratch. We buy our meat from the butchers, the Finke family. The produce? The Finkes grow some of their own; the rest I try to buy from Findlay market or Loschavios. I like to keep everything very personal.
Making furniture for yourself and others is indeed a radical act. It removes that part of your life from the continuous cycle of purchasing, consuming and repurchasing. The Morris Chair I am sitting in will be the last easy chair I’ll ever need to build. And it was my hope when I wrote “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” that once you saw that this was true, it might seep into other areas of your life, like it has into mine. You might even quit your corporate job.
Which brings up money. Isn’t it difficult to walk away from a corporate job and a steady paycheck? Yeah, it’s like trying to force yourself to dive into Lake Michigan in February. But if Lucy and I can do it, I think many families can – if they are willing to eschew debt.
Lucy works only part-time as a writer, and I have just this silly little business – no trust fund here. How do we do it? We don’t have any debt. Zero dollars – zero cents. Once I realized how much I had to work to service our mortgage, student loans and car payments, we shifted every resource to pay off everything. In May 2008 I paid off our last debt – our mortgage. And that’s when anything became possible.
Even anarchy.
— Christopher Schwarz
This morning I braved the chill in a T-shirt (my nipples are now like drill bits) to fetch a couple boxes of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” from the Lost Art Press warehouse garden shed.
The shed, which was filled to the rafters in September, is now all-but empty. We are almost out of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest,” but I’m not stressed.
Next week a new shipment of the book arrives. The third printing will have an index from Suzanne Ellison, a few typographical corrections and some editorial tweaks that aren’t worth mentioning. But the biggest change will be the cover. The third printing will have a charcoal gray cover with lettering and image debossed in white.
We made this change because we wanted to differentiate between the pre-index and post-index printings. Plus, I’m an endless fiddler.
Still, it’s a bit sad to burn through the last few boxes of the beige books – I think it’s a good-looking cover.
If you are waiting to purchase a copy with the index bound in, I’ll post a notice when we start shipping the gray book – it should be next Friday or so.
In other Lost Art Press news: The design work on “Make a Joint Stool from a Tree” by Jennie Alexander and Peter Follansbee is in full swing. That book will go to the printer before the end of the year and be on sale in January.
Matt Bickford’s “Mouldings in Practice” is about to head into design. An outside editor is finishing his tweaks to Matt’s verbiage and we are now converting the hundreds – yes, hundreds – of drawings to a publishable format.
And on the first Roubo volume: There have been a couple delays because of a personal issue with a member of the team – not Don Williams, by the way. Lots of work is being done, but I don’t have any dates to report at this stage. I am as eager as you to read this.
There is lots more to report, but I’ve got to get to the Post Office with this morning’s load of orders.
— Christopher Schwarz
As promised, here are a couple updates to the products in our store. As of now, all of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” books shipped from Lost Art Press are the second printing. We have no more first editions left. If you are a mule for first editions, I recommend you check out some of our suppliers.
Also, we now have red “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” T-shirts in our store. These are American-made shirts and are available in sizes small up to XXL. They are $20 each — get them now before we run out. Once these are gone, they are gone.
More news to come on the ePub edition of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest.”
— Christopher Schwarz