{ Category Archives: aesthetics }
I’ve always liked to use chalk when roughing things out on wood. Lately I’ve taken to scouring the beaches during negative low tides in search of seashells for making my marks. The Pacific Razor Clam is ideal, softer than the East Coast equivalent, but hard enough to make a clean scratch, and loaded with calcium carbonate to leave a crisp white line.
action at Mavericks portends the arrival of spring to the N. Pacific (public domain)
In West Sonoma County, early signs of spring are typically in sync with the arrival of a huge south swell, epitomized by the epic surf at Mavericks, about 100 miles down the coast. With more daylight and warming temperatures over the past few weeks, our hens have begun laying eggs, the acacia trees are in flower, the willow’s catkin is giving way to leaf, and the wild plum trees are beginning to blossom along exposed slopes. Yellow mustard flowers fill grazing meadows, vineyards and apple orchards, the clover beginning to recede. As we pack for the coming week of vacation on the beach north of Puerto Vallarta, I anticipate returning to a flood of fruit trees in full flower.
the acacia trees are in bloom along the Sonoma Coast
the willows are looking lively along the streams
To read more of my postings on cyclical, seasonal events, please click here and scroll down.
a simple bench made of packing crates reinforces the charming illusion of Chinatown
Part of the allure of San Francisco’s Chinatown is that it was conceived as, and remains a study in authentic inauthenticity. Despite the fact that China has emerged as a global economic power, people from all over the world are drawn to the colorful neighborhood shops, crammed with kitschy souvenirs of a re-imagined, Asian exotica.
In a way, the illusion is the perfect front, reinforcing the Western perception that China is a nonthreatening, pre-industrial giant resigned to making cheap knock-offs for tourists on a budget. A contemporary ‘Chinatown’ in any American city might resemble something more like a high end, design-driven shopping center, with modernist buildings, innovative restaurants and luxury emporiums.
Given that the tables have been turned in regard to our relationship to China, it seems more appropriate to envision an ‘Americatown’ in any of China’s thriving cities, perhaps in the form of a WW2 era New York- a Woolworth’s with a lunch counter, a jazz club, barbershop and movie theater, showing vintage movies and news reels.
the Greens management team loved my prototype Greens Chair
Like the Golden Gate Bridge that looms across the Bay from San Francisco’s historic Fort Mason Center, Greens Restaurant is a Bay Area icon. With close ties to the San Francisco Zen Center, the restaurant has embodied an ethos of attentive living and eating for over thirty years, heralding a new age of vegetarian cuisine. I recently presented my prototype Greens Chair, which I was commissioned to design by the restaurant’s management team, and was truly honored to have it pass their rigorous requirements of functionality and aesthetics. The Greens management team includes acclaimed chef Annie Somerville and at least one ordained zen Buddhist priest, and everyone took turns testing the chair with earnest focus. The team agreed that the chair encourages mindfulness for both diners and staff, which is the highest compliment to me.
At a certain scale, production woodwork requires a lot of time spent physically sorting and grading material, then processing it through a sequence of noisy machinery. It can be dull, monotonous work, but I still get a thrill watching grain patterns emerge and generally enjoy the physical labor as a kind of meditation. I find it helps to begin a day of milling wood with an exercise I call balancing the brain. In the past, this has taken the form of a commute by bicycle to my shop, or practicing Tai Chi. Lately, I’ve been spending a few minutes each morning juggling and relearning to ride a unicycle, both familiar activities from my youth. The activity reminds me to be present and aware of my stance, which protects me from injuries associated with repetitive motion, and helps keep me safe and sound when working with dangerous tools.
I love my salvaged, battered unicycle and antique wooden juggling pins
someone left a rose in a driftwood log
I can’t think of a better way to recalibrate after an intense week of studio woodworking than a morning of beachcombing after a string of storms. I appreciate more and more living and working so close to the shore, and find daily release and inspiration being able to take a walk, a run, or an occasional dip in the surf when the waves are rideable. I always return to the studio refreshed, having put things in perspective simply by tuning in to the flotsam of the day.
beach erosion has uncovered an old engine block
I found a great piece of wood for my first driftwood skate deck
Translated from the Latin, Labor Me Vocat is roughly, ‘duty calls’, an apt motto describing my current state of affairs. As is occasionally inevitable in a life of craftwork, my head and hands are now fully focused on realizing a string of challenging projects, and my posts on this site will be less frequent.
I began this experimental weblog two years ago as a way to organize my thinking about craft during the course of daily life and work, as a contemporary take on the ‘jointer’s journals’ of 18th century carpenters. To that end, I’ve come full circle, and am confident the site now functions pretty well as an elaborate articulation of my philosophy of craft, hopefully useful as an idiosyncratic ‘pattern book’ of an approach to sustainable design applicable across disciplines and diverse media. I’ve tried to consistently distill my thoughts in an ongoing manifesto, which codifies an ethos of making and invites elaboration by others.
In closing out this phase of Deep Craft, and in preparing to lay the groundwork for a new body of work informed by my research, I hope to draw some conclusions. I’ve learned to see craft as a bridge between art and design, a way of making aesthetic inquiry empirical. Ultimately, the practice of craft is a strategy or method for matching one’s inner state to outside conditions, which to me defines an ideal state of comfort.
I thank all of my devoted readers across the globe for their support, and hope to hear from folks about their favorite posts as I consider developing Deep Craft as a book proposal. In the interim, please feel free to ‘friend’ me on Facebook. – Sincerely, Scott Constable