Working with Wood

Rooted deep, reaching high, trees live and breathe and bridge the elemental world with the animal world. They are integral to the cycle of respiration and hence, to life itself. With conscious purpose, we cut a mature tree to serve us in other ways. Our ingenuity and need for survival and comfort lead us to transform wood to meet our everyday needs. A house, a table, chair, ladder, crate, barrel.

Working with wood is a communion with the tree. It is acknowledging that the wood, once a living organism, is a material rich in beauty, strength, and function. Craftspeople have long discovered the art of woodworking. For those whose livelihoods depend on a close relationship with wood, they understand that the process of transforming the wood is a meditation as satisfying as the product rendered from their handiwork.

When children work with wood, they too experience the process of transformation. And as they develop their senses of self-worth and self-esteem, working with wood is really working with the will. Developing will in the right way with children is brought about in how we present and model for them our relationship with things around us. Woodworking is respecting what the tree brings and our use of the wood must be economical, meaningful, and beautiful.

In a twelve week program with Wholistic Learning Resources, I guided homeschool students in the process of crafting wood. They cut, drilled, filed, rasped, sanded, assembled, hammered, glued, decorated, and stained. Wood became objects of purpose that serve us. A pencil holder, signage, flower press, and hand loom, among other items we built, demonstrate for the children how their will forces transform the rough and raw wood into functional and beautiful things.

The work itself is a means unto itself. The motion of the arms in sanding, the use of the fingertips to determine the smoothness of the wood's surface, the visual analysis of angles and planes - all teach something to the child. Whether it is in a woodworking class or an opportunity to cut firewood or even a chance to help assemble an IKEA cabinet, working with wood is a learning experience.

Handmade Holiday Gifts

Joey's Sewn Horse for Wilson

 





 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
This year, we made an effort to handmake the majority of our gifts for the holidays.

Scarves for aunts, brothers, cousins and great-grandma.

Herbal tea for uncles and neighbors.

Tunisian crocheted hats for the children.

Ricky crocheted gnome puppets for Wilson.

Crocheted bookmarkers from Wilson for family and teachers.







 
 
 
Ricky felted/crocheted a headband and choker for his cousin.

And...wood sprites for nieces, felted ornaments and more, but already wrapped up before we got pictures!

Hope your handmade holidays are blissful and sweet.  Merry Christmas!

Recreating the Human Vessel - Handcrafts...and a Baby!

Jennifer had the great fortune of attending a handcrafts conference at Steiner College in Fair Oaks, CA this past week called "Recreating the Human Vessel: Educating through Rhythm and Craft."  The conference featured staff from Ruskin Mill Educational Trust in England (please take a moment to see what their amazing colleges offer).  Woodworking, iron forging, soap making and felting all occured throughout the week, along with in-depth lectures by Dennis Klocek, William Bento and Aongus Gordon, and a vibrant Movement class!

The felting group started off the week by observing sheep on campus.  We teased apart fresh (unclean!) wool and made felted balls.

A trek through Raphael Garden revealed lovely flowers for dyeing.  Using weld, indigo, cochineal, chamomile from England and coreopsis, we dyed up a rainbow of colors with our wool.

Felting pictures was an experiment in color and design, layering bits of brown or white wool on the bottom, and continuing with layers of color to form an image.

Then, it was time to do feltwork in 3-D!  Wool slippers were created by tracing feet for a template, cutting a piece of plastic, laying wool on both sides of the plastic, wet-felting, cutting open...then, voila!  Slippers were turned right-side out, and the design that was created in the first layer was revealed.

Wet, soapy slippers were massaged onto feet.  What a treat!  Molding and shaping continued with hands, and then fine details were needlefelted.

Here are some pictures of woodworking, iron forging and soap making....

The felting group had a little extra time and wool left, so each person felted a handprint, and then felted the hands into a large vessel (thus the theme of the conference!), complete with a lid.  The vessel was presented to the wonderful felting teacher, Marianne van der Tas, on the last day for her birthday.

The final plenum was filled with sharing projects and insight about reflection topics of the week: challenge, effort, rhythm, gift and gold nuggets...the words were profound and the projects absolutely beautiful!

Jennifer then found out that she truly had become "the human vessel" at the end of the week...pregnant with baby #4, due in March, 2011!