“It is not from ourselves that we will learn to be better than we are.”
– Wendell Berry in The Art of the Commonplace | A Native Hill p.29
Author: joelwitwer
“Too much that we do is done at the expense of something else, or somebody else. There is some intransigent destructiveness in us.”
– Wendell Berry in The Art of the Commonplace | A Native Hill p.28
“[Adorn even] the briefest life in great beauty as though it were meant to last forever.”
– Wendell Berry in The Art of the Commonplace | A Native Hill p. 28
“Man ought to study the wilderness of a place before applying to it the ways he learned in another place.”
– Wendell Berry in The Art of the Commonplace | A Native Hill p.26
“The most exemplary nature is that of the topsoil. It is very Christ-like in its passivity and beneficence, and in the penetrating energy that issues out of its peaceableness. It increases by experience, by the passage of seasons over it, growth rising out of it and returning to it, not by ambition or aggressiveness. It is enriched by all things that die and enter into it. It keeps the past, not as history or memory, but as richness, new possibility. Its fertility is always building up out of death into promise. Death is the bridge or the tunnel by which its past enter its future.”
– Wendell Berry in The Art of the Commonplace | A Native Hill p.25
“I am less important than I thought, the human race is less important that I thought. I rejoice in that.”
– Wendell Berry in The Art of the Commonplace | A Native Hill p.25
When I started graduate school in 2012, a friend of mine who was getting his PhD in Philosophy gave me some advice on how to stay sane through my studies. The advice was threefold:
1.Find a way to stay mentally stimulated outside of your area of study.
2. Find a way to stay physically active.
3. Find a way to work with your hands.
If you’ve been checking out this blog for more than a day, you’ve mostly likely noticed that I love to read (mental stimulation) and I’m a tad obsessed with rugby (physical activity). Unfortunately, turning pages and stiff arming big men trying to tackle you doesn’t quite count as “working with your hands.”
Growing up, my Dad was always making furniture or knick knacks in his woodshop and, when high school came, he began helping me build skateboard ramps together for my friends and I. Begrudgingly, I endured the woodworking process so I could skate rather than out of a love of the art, but through it all, my Dad sneakily passed on the basics of the craft. So when I was given the grad school advice, this was the art I turned to. My first project was to build a skateboard, but after that, the ideas kept flowing. I took a break while I was over in Zambia as I had to leave all my tools behind, but I’m back in the States and back at it!
Below is the first project I’ve completed since I’ve been back which was sprung on me by my little sister. She had found a downed section of fence and a planter, gave them to me, and said “make me a coffee table for my apartment.” She may have said it nicer than that, but oh well. So here we have it. A fencer & planter coffee table with a trap door compartment!
I’ll be posting completed projects here on the [ The Way I See It ] from time to time, but I’ve also thrown together a facebook page under the pseudonym Woodlum Co. with the pipe dream that maybe someone might enjoy something I make so much that they’ll give me money for it someday.
We will see.
I saw him (Sonny Bill Williams) play on Saturday. nbd.
Turkey Alwan Travels