How Plato Screwed the Craftsperson

(Leonardo da Vinci as Plato, detail of The School of Athens by Raphael)

I used to spend my summers as a bike mechanic, once the teaching year had ended.  Lots of folks seemed to think this an odd way for a teacher to spend a summer–why not do something related to my field of expertise, like teaching summer school?  The shops where I worked found it unusual as well.  While working for a Turkish-owned shop, the patriarch took to calling me “hodja” or “teacher.”  I even sensed that some thought the work beneath me–an educator, working with his hands!  Gasp!  But I looked forward to that work, partly as it fed my passion for bikes and bike racing, but also because of the nature of the labor.  After spending the school year working primarily with my brain, I found it cathartic to work with my hands.  Or, maybe more accurately, it was a relief to allow my brain to be “embodied,” to problem-solve through my body with my mind.  As my life changed and my interests shifted from bikes to craft, I found that carving or turning on the weekends and over vacations served a very similar role–repairing the mind/body split that modern academia expects.

But why is this unnatural mind/body hierarchy so central to schooling and Western society in general?  I would blame it on Plato (and Descartes.)  Plato argued the imperfect, changing, decaying world around us is just a copy of a perfect, timeless, and rational higher sphere, and that we should spend our time contemplating those higher forms and not their fleeting manifestations in everyday life.  This philosophy elevated the mind over the body and reason over applied skills.  It may be an oversimplification, but I can’t help but think that this is why we are left with an academia today that celebrates the “life of the mind” and casts a side-eye at trade education, why we seem to think that students learn best when seated in orderly rows, why poster projects are viewed as “easy assignments,” and why any student who does not fit such a system must be “hyperactive” or have “attention deficit.”  We have built an education system that not only poorly serves the many intelligences in our classrooms, but also fundamentally misunderstands how we learn.  We teach our children as if their minds were disembodied, instead of grasping a relatively simple truth: we learn with our hands.  

John Dewey got this.  He and other pragmatists rejected the mind/body dualism of Plato and Descartes (the “I-think-therefore-I-am” guy), and instead argued that there was a “continuity” between the body and the mind, that all of our “rational operations grow out of organic activities.” The “progressive education” that grew out of Dewy’s work recognized that rationality emerges from the body’s interaction with the environment.  Sadly, this movement did not fundamentally shift the trajectory of the American classroom, and we still teach students as if they are brains with no bodies.  

After stepping away from the high school classroom a few years ago and taking up craft and craft education full time, I find myself reflecting a lot on the Platonic and Cartesian mind/body split and how to heal that wound.  Plato had a decidedly dim view of arts and crafts.  He proposed that artists be banished from the Republic, as their messages might undermine the social hierarchy, and he placed artisans within the lowest class in his ideal society.  No wonder, as he so devalued the body and what it might teach us.  Craft education very well may be part of how we help heal this mind/body dualism.  

So, as I prepare for more craft classes, I am taking time to read about slöjd education in Scandinavian countries, and enjoying the journey.  I am also making my way through Sarah Kuhn’s Transforming Learning Through Tangible Instruction, which inspired some of this blog post.  And she asked a question that I want to leave you with: “Where do you do your best thinking?” 

I bet it is not at your desk…  

Why Craft?

I came across this wonderful poster at the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, MA the other day, and wanted to share.  It captures a lot of what I am thinking about these days.  Market season is nearly upon us, and I find myself anticipating the conversations I will have and the questions I will field from prospective customers.  Why should we invest in craft?

Wille’s turning hooks and traditional Swedish turning

I recently spent a delightful day working with Peter Lamb @gerrishisland at his lovely home in Kittery, Maine.  He wanted to get himself set up to turn bowls on an electric lathe, so we spent the day tinkering and turning.  For those of you who don’t know Peter, he is both a wonderful person and a fount of woodworking knowledge.  I think I first met him in 2015 at a course with Jögge Sundqvist up at Lie Neilsen Toolworks.  Peter was friends with Bill Coperthwaite, and after Bill passed he became a trustee for Dickinson’s Reach.  Peter has been connected to the greenwoodworking movement in the US for decades, and I always learn something when talking with him.

Not long after my visit, Peter sent along a series of photos that really got my attention.  These are shots that he took of Wille Sundqvist‘s turning workshop (included here with permission from his son Jögge).  What especially arrested me were the tools—massive hooks like those used on a pole lathe.  

 

Peter also loaned me his copy of Träsvarvning enligt Skärmetoden, a book written by Wille Sundqvist and Bengt Gustafsson and published in 1981.  The book discusses the Swedish turning tradition, and in the chapter on bowl turning describes these same hook tools.  

 

 

 

I am slogging through it, using Google translate to try to make sense of the text.  The translations leave something to be desired.

You can see that the hooks are used in both side and end-grain turning, depending on their design.  Obviously modern ring tools perform a similar task, and though they are designed for end-grain hollowing, they also work well in side grain as well.  I use the “Termite” by Oneway, which works well save for the fact that the small ring gets clogged.  I am curious about how one of these Swedish hooks might be used on the inside of side-grain bowls, working from the rim into the interior, like on a pole lathe.  The cut on a pole lathe is often well below center, and allows for a swooping, rising cut into the interior.  I perform a similar cut with gouges, but instead of working below center I swoop up above center and then down.  I am really curious if the below-center technique might work with these hook tools.  

The book also includes shots of a young Del Stubbs.  Before Del became the renowned toolmaker of Pinewood Forge fame, he was a turning phenom who traveled widely giving demonstrations.  Stories of him turning spindles with an axe and producing ungodly thin bowls abound.  Below you can see Del using a makeshift pole lathe driven by a spring suspended from the ceiling, as well as a lovely handled pot.  Notice that the portions between the handles are lathe turned, not hand carved, something you can only do on a reciprocating lathe…

 

After posting some of these shots on Instagram and Facebook, many folks provided leads on where to learn more.  Peter Follansbee recalled that Fine Woodworking ran an article about Wille and his turning hooks “way back when.”  He kindly looked up the reference: May/June 1983, “Turning Tools that Cut” by James Rudstrom, who Peter says was Wille’s neighbor.  I am in the process of getting that article now. My friend Jeff Kuchak, another pole lathe turner, reminded me of the video “The Spoon, the Bowl, and the Knife” that includes Wille turning, though I don’t recall him using hooks in that video. (I do remember him using a spindle gouge to turn a bowl—yikes!)  I will have to look at it again.  Jan Harm ter Brugge from Amsterdam said that he owns one of Wille’s hooks, and I am in contact with Jan now about that.  Finally, Merlin Fox @knivesfoxspoons mentioned that Svante Djarv makes those hooks.  Of course I could not resist and ordered one.  Svante’s tools are much coveted and often take up to a half year for delivery.  I own one of his carving axes (the “Little Viking”), which I absolutely love.  Thankfully, Svante has one of his medium turning hooks in stock, and I think it is ready to ship.

I leave with a few shots by Peter.  The first of a custom forged tool rest made to Wille’s specifications.  The second is of Wille’s workshop door.  So charming.

An experiment in carving

 

Above and below are a few shots of my most recent work. I have enjoyed the meditative time sketching and carving these designs, though they do take a while. I am not sure if the extra 90 minutes of carving will add enough value to make them worth the effort, and this sends me spiraling into the vortex of hourly wage calculation. I know this is not smart, and I know I don’t do this work to get rich, but we all have to earn a living at the end of the day.

Bowls like these take a lot of time, when all is considered. First I have to fell the tree, chop it into 4' lengths, end-over-end the lengths out of the forest, chop the lengths into rounds, split the rounds in half, and then shape the split halves into bowl blanks. Let's say that fist step of processing the material takes 20 minutes pr. bowl blank. Then I have to turn the blanks into finished bowls. That takes 40-60 minutes, if all goes well, but not every blank wants to become a bowl! I lose about 25% of the blanks to knots, bark inclusions, etc..., so we should add at least 15 minutes to each successful bowl. Once the bowl dries, I can then do the carving, which adds another 90 minutes. Finally paint and oil, which adds maybe 25 minutes and includes material costs. That adds up to at a minimum three hours of labor, but probably more like three-and-a-half or four.

So what can I charge for bowls like the ones above and below (once completed)? Can I get $100 for them? Or even $80? Depending on what I can sell them for, it is pretty obvious to me that I might make $20/hour on them, but probably more like $15/hr. Honestly, if I could sell them reliably, I would say GREAT! I would take that salary! But I am not sure I can. We will see. These bowls are sort of a test run.

The Fuzzy Bits

I had a good question on Instagram the other day regarding turning green wood and how to avoid the “fuzzy bits.” I gave a long answer for Instagram, but the subject deserves more space. So here are my thoughts on this topic, to date:

There are a lot of wonderful aspects to turning green as opposed to dry wood: the workability, the reduction in dust, the way the wood moves as it dries, etc…. It is definitely my preferred medium. But it does come with challenges: cracking, excessive warping, and oxidation to name a few. One major challenge, for turners of both wet and dry wood, is producing a smooth finish right from the gouge or hook.

When turning side-grain oriented bowl blanks, twice every revolution your tool is cutting against the grain, or is cutting wood that is unsupported by the fibers behind the cut. In these quadrants the tool is lifting fibers before cutting them off, leaving sort of a “buzz cut” effect in the wood. Once you pas this uphill section and get into side and cross grain again, the wood fibers are supported and you can cut them cleanly. My commenter on Instagram was wondering how I reduce the roughness of the “fuzzy bits.”

First, this is a problem with which both green and dry wood turners struggle. For those turning dead dry wood, it is less of an issue: dryer wood cuts a bit more cleanly than green wood, so the final surface is definitely smoother. Dry wood also sands reasonably well, and if that is your thing you can sand away those rough patches. Green wood does not sand nearly as well as dry, so you really don’t have that option, though I do lightly sand my work with 180 grit.

Thus, one part of your solution to avoiding those rough patches when turning green wood is not to turn completely fresh wood. Let is rest for a bit. How long depends on the species. Some old-time turners often talked about felling beech logs and only turning them once the bark had started to separate from the wood. If you are going to let your wood rest before turning, watch out for a few issues. If you leave the wood on the ground in a damp place, watch out for spalting; it can be beautiful, but it can also undermine the wood integrity. And the fungus in spalted wood is nothing something you want to inhale a lot of. Rapid drying and checking should also be avoided. Some people paint the ends of their logs to slow moisture loss, but I find simply elevating the log off the ground and keeping it in the shade and out of wind works best. And be careful with birch; the bark is nearly waterproof, which traps moisture in the wood and accelerates rotting. If you want to let birch mellow, consider peeling the logs first.

The second consideration is the wood species. Some species are more prone to fuzzing than others. For example, fresh birch can definitely get furry, but fresh beech turns reasonably well, usually. I say “usually” because each tree is different. If a tree grew in stressful situations, say on a hillside or buffeted with lots of wind, the fibers can interlock, tension can build in the wood, and the surface can be quite rough. Also, where in the tree matters. The first three feet of a trunk, while marvelously large in diameter, is under tremendous stress. Think of how much a whole tree weighs, and consider how much strain it’s base bears after years of blowing in the wind…. This wood warps a lot when drying, and can be very fibrous. For these reasons I am carful with how I use those first few feet.

Another aspect to consider are your tools and the way you present them to the wood. Generally, sharper tools moving more slowly over wood that is spinning faster produce a finer finish, so if you are struggling to create a smooth surface sharpen your tools, slow down your cut, and crank up your speed. The type of cut you make also creates very different surfaces. For example, on an electric lathe a pull cut moves wood pretty quickly can leave a “plucked” surface. Same with a scraping cut. Push cuts, on the other hand, leave behind a lovely, smooth surface. Same with a sheering cut. And in general, lighter cuts produce a finer surface than heavier cuts. Finally, often the quality of the cut can be changed by altering the angle of the tool’s attack on the wood. Try dropping the handle, angling the tool up more than you might normally, and see what it does to the finished surface. Of course, all of these cuts change a bit depending on whether you are working the inside or the outside of the bowl. For example, I would avoid a scraping or sheering cut on the inside of the bowl!

Hope this helps.

 

Upcoming craft fairs

I am super excited to be selling craft and demonstrating pole-lathe turning in Amesbury, MA on Saturday October 15th (rain date the 16th).  The town center of Amesbury is wonderfully quaint.  Brick store fronts from the early 1800s, narrow streets with colonials and victorians--classic North Shore New England.  If you are in the area and want to get a jump on holiday shopping or see how bowls are turned on a pole lathe, come on by.  

    I have also secured a spot selling craft at the Fuller Craft Museum's Holiday Shop, which runs from November 19th through January 8th.  This is a juried event, and I am humbled that the curators see a place for my work in their shop.  The Fuller Craft Museum is a fantastic resource and well worth the trip.  In fact, I saw Jögge's shrink pot/craft talk/performance art piece at the Museum.  

    Finally, in preparation for these two fairs, I have had to temporarily closed my Square Shop.  I can't have stuff selling online that I need for craft fairs!  I will reopen this once I have built up sufficient stock.

Be well.

E

Shop is updated

Hi all,

A few bowls finished drying this week, and are now all painted and oiled and pretty.  So, check out the shop page for new work.  Got my hands on some lovely figured maple, crisp cherry and spalted beech.  And would you look at this box elder!

Pow!

Email me if you see anything that strikes your fancy.

Thanks,

Eric