If ideas are derivative and nobody can solve the chicken and egg dilemma, then there must be a cosmic cycle. We are all part of it. This site is a log book of a small personal part of that circle.
If there is a beginning…
The roots of this work arise from decades of work among children and a creative urge to make everything out of wood. Inventing and making stuff can be a driving force. Children make outrageous demands- they don’t think in conventions yet. They challenge the cycle. Woodwork among children is a rich and fertile ground.
Momentum…
When an idea is good, and received well, it generates enthusiasm for the next iteration, a self- perpetuating flow. Do not think there is any suggestion that working among children is a perpetual motion machine; it is closer to the eternity of Sisyphus. A happy child who wants more doesn’t realise they are being creative. Just as a teacher uses positive reinforcement as a means of control, a child’s smiles are the positive reinforcement that goads the teacher.
Making stuff is not an isolated activity. There is a messy panel of judges of whom the most brutal is self. But the most generous are the ones sharing in the act of making. Their desire to learn is the harness on the load of Sisyphus.
My stuff is usually made to demonstrate ideas, skills… but sometimes it sells. That is also encouragement.
Why
Content of this website is an attempt to share ideas that are achievable, ideas that build enthusiasm to make more. Ideas here generally begin among a group of disabled friends or as demonstration work in a wood tool shop.
Bruce