Wooden Spoons & Zen

This space is making a change.

A couple of weeks ago, I took a spoon makers vacation. I was lucky to spend most of week with one of the best spoon makers in America and a great teacher, Barry Gordon.

We worked in his shop and talk about design, technique and materials.
Here Barry is pictured roughing out a Buckthorn spoon. He has developed a notion of using the band saw as a carving implement. Barry uses a highly tuning the band saw with a few custom features. He uses special blades with high beam strength and frequently applies a wax lubricant to the blades. He has optimized his dust collection with custom shrouds under the table. He has filled in the miter slot and made a UHDP insert for the throat. A link belt and a custom study base that together all but eliminate any vibration. Extra lighting and a slow steady hand and a “roughed out” spoon is closer to its final shape.
Barry and his wife Barb, were gracious hosts and shared there home and dinner table with me. The conversation was delightful.
Now we’ll have to see if I absorbed anything.
Later in the week Barb, Barry and I drove the 300 miles or so to the American Association of Woodturners national convention in Hartford CT. We had some of the best pizza ever at a little place call Joe’s Pizza just outside Hartford. 
The main reason for the trip to Hartford was to see and meet Norman Stevens the wooden spoon collector and see his “Gathering of Spoons”  (PDF of catalog) exhibition.

Norman Stevens is a retired university librarian who has a long history of collecting and supporting spoon makers. His latest project, the recently renamed “A Gathering of Spoons”, is a collection of spoons by makers mostly but not exclusively from America. It was a real treat the see and hold spoons by Jogge and Wille Sundqvist. See so many spoons by so many makers all in one spot was inspiring. Below is a series of images I took original thinking I’d create a panoramic of the collection but I think it would be better to just publish them and try later to make a panorama.

A Gathering of Spoons VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

The Human Spirit

We are on page 192. Today's miniature teaches about how "there is always a bigger flea." To make his point, Aitken uses a pair of writers, Robert Louis Stevens and Leo Tolstoy, and a pair of short stories, "The Touchstone" and "How Much Land Does a Man Need?". Having not read either, I can not speak to the merits of his comparison as to which writer was the "bigger flea". 

That is not the point. On the surface, Aitken does a great job of presenting first RLS as a writer who "informs my very life." Strong praise indeed. Then he goes on to introduce LT and note Chekhov's proclamation that LT's short story is "the best short story ever written." Aitken's writing here is masterful. He places these two writer next to each other and imagines there relationship. 

With more reflection, we see that comparison and our desire to know or be the "bigger flea" is a part of the human spirit. If we hold these comparisons lightly, recognizing the ephemeral nature of the sense of separation that allows comparisons, the human spirit can be light. If we put too much energy in comparisons, in who's the bigger flea, then the human spirit becomes needy, heavy, busy with judgments. 

Chose to be light. See the ephemeral nature of separation. Be kind to yourself.

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I'd like to point you to Lucy Loomis, a photographer, who has posted to Flickr a set of her visit to Dan Santos' woodworking shop. I don't know either of these people yet their sharing has inspired me. We will see what develops. Here is a link to the set and a sample.

Photo by Lucy Lommis

Trick or Treat

Today we get a history lesson. "All Souls' Eve" has its origins in ancient Europe. Culture to culture, eventually to England where "good-hearted celebrators dressed as ghouls or ghosts went "a-souling" door to door... to beg food for the poor."

Sadly, yet another communal celebration bastardized by capitalism.

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Dad's Indiscretion

Today's miniature is best read in context. Buy the book and read it from the beginning. Once you get to page 190, you'll be caught up with this post.

I have not had any encounters in my life that could have lead to "... children and their innumerable children and their innumerable children and innumerable, innumerable cousins ..." So far I've escaped fatherhood. This is an odd source of pride for me.

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For the wood design enthusiast. Elbert Hubbard was the mover behind Roycroft. His implementation of the Arts and Craft ethos lives on today. There is a lot to be learned here including an hour long video produced by PBS.

The Patriot

Today I learned a new word, jingoistic. Jingoism is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as "extreme patriotism in the form of aggressive foreign policy".


Robert Aitken is quite the story teller. 


My father was proud of his prowess at scratch off lottery tickets. Winning a few dollars made his day in a way that I never could understand. From time to time he  would ask me to send him scratch off lottery tickets from Idaho because we have different games. He told me once that those who play the Powerball type lotteries were fools easily separated from their money. He hoped to win big by scratching.


He never did.

Mother's Inability

Robert Aitken's mother was a talented and engaged woman who raised two sons. She was troubled in her relationship with her mother.  Aitken confesses, "This karma affected her marriage, and ultimately me, I'm sure, though I lack the insight to say just how."

"I lack the insight to say just how." Thank you roshi for this teaching. The rains don't come and the wind blows hard. I eat my dinner alone. Knowing or not knowing is not the trouble. Want one or the other and the road to hell is paved with questions. 

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Sycamore spoons, roughed out and ready for finishing. carving by Will Simpson From Spoonery

Listen to an NHPR 2004 recorded interview with ... "Dan Dustin is a wood artisan and spoon maker from Contoocook, New Hampshire. He's been using his own unique method of making wooden spoons for 30 years. He begins by going into the woods, and "finding" the spoons within the branches of trees. He says the trees make the spoons, he just discovers them. His spoons cost as much as $100."

Impressing Mom and Dad

"They were of the earth, earthy, and were not easily impressed."

With this we see our own limits of expression. What sweeps away our grounding, points out to us where we are moored? Comfortable in a skin of nature, of art, of literature, of technology. What brings us to this 'impressed'? The lightness of 'impressed' sings in the heart of this little boy.

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Lunch time walkabout, Honey Bees working the plum blossoms, I left my smile there for you to find.

Grandpa Baker's Failure

Grandpa Baker's Failure", number 170 of 188 from Robert Aitken's book Miniatures of a Zen Master.

About the saddest thing I've ever read. Short and in one paragraph, six sentences, Aitken paints a masterpiece of sadness expressed as Grandfather's marital failure.

"He couldn't attain the measure of human happiness that we all hope for ourselves."

I marvel at Aitken's skill at weaving story.

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Like many, I've spent some time recently considering my goals. There are the usual suspects of, reading wider, losing weight by starting an exercise regime, writing regularly, etc. What is different this year is that I've seen a shift away from a list of stated goals. In its place there is a mind map. As it was being developed, it became clear that there are two different modes, traits and projects. Traits to develop or solidify; "focus on health", "focus on relationships", "focus on hyperlocal", and "focus on kindness".  Projects to start, re-start, or grow; spoon making, photography, Python programming, blogging.

There is a bit of disconnect between the traits and the projects.

Attempting to boil all this down to a short phrase has been hard but valuable. Being concise and keeping a short phrase in front may be more successful than the large detailed mind map I've created.

Here is my attempt at creating a short phrase that encompasses the meme or feeling-tone of my new year's goals.

Create growth

Less consumption More production

Use talents to connect

Visualize kindness

Of these "Use talents to connect" seems the closest to what I have in mind for the coming year. Now the work of aligning the projects to this. 


If I was to boil this down even farther, just three words, they'd be 

1. create
2. connect
3. kindness

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Any error or confusion created by my commentary on
Miniatures of a Zen Master
is solely a reflection of my own delusion and ignorance.
Any merit generated by this activity is solely the result of
Aitken Roshi's clear teaching and is dedicated to
all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas throughout space and time.

A Fine Memory

"A Fine Memory", number 169 of 188 from Robert Aitken's book Miniatures of a Zen Master.

In todays miniature, roshi confesses to a poor memory. He describes the tricks he uses to support his memory and how in the end they fail him.

Exactly what is the teaching here?

Is it that old men have poor memories? No. Is it that the tricks we use to hide our failing are all useless? Maybe. Is it that knowing we are naked at all times, it is still fun to play? This feels pretty close.

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I'm reading James Krenov's "The Impractical Cabinetmaker" and what strikes me is how Krenov strips away all the jargon and talk of technicalities and advocates trusting our hands much the same way a Zen Master would strip away doubt and self-talk and advocate direct practice. Krenov ponders the problem as he sees it, that many craftsman loose their connection with the material and force their will on it. This leads to disasters of failure in design and execution all for the sake of showiness.

"Snagged in the pros and cons of technicalities we forget the broader meaning of a method and its relationship to our material... Being inventive at the expense of being sensitive may take us away from our best intentions and from the honest center of our craft... Craftsmen approach the work itself as having a definite and vital connection between the methods used and the nature of the result."

"Simplicity is at the heart of so much that is fine... Simplicity needn't be crude; it can, and should, include the sensitive... When the simple becomes obvious: a band of small discoveries, strung like pearls on a thread of curiousity, lend richness to our work."

James Krenov
The Impractical Cabinetmaker 1979

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Any error or confusion created by my commentary on
Miniatures of a Zen Master
is solely a reflection of my own delusion and ignorance.
Any merit generated by this activity is solely the result of
Aitken Roshi's clear teaching and is dedicated to
all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas throughout space and time.

All Things are under the Law of Change

"All Things are under the Law of Change", number 168 of 188 from Robert Aitken's book Miniatures of a Zen Master.

Yes indeed 'all things are under the law of change'. Even this blog. Things have gone quiet here as other projects grew.  All things are under the law of change.

In this miniature, Robert Aitken paints an intimate portrait of living with his grandparents at the Lick Observatory on Mt. Hamilton. This was back in 1928 and all things are under the law of change. Yet, how often do we forget this or wish it was some other way?

Old photographs show us change. They show us that "nothing survives after all - nothing at all."

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My intent is to add more woodworking content to this space. This space is called wooden Zen, till now more Zen then wood but that is about to change. There I go reaffirming 'all things are under the law of change'.

Here is a photo of a work under progress.

Here is a photo of the same piece completed and hanging in the Wawawai Canyon Winery gallery.

Steelhead Run

Will Simpson

2009

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Any error or confusion created by my commentary on
Miniatures of a Zen Master
is solely a reflection of my own delusion and ignorance.
Any merit generated by this activity is solely the result of
Aitken Roshi's clear teaching and is dedicated to
all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas throughout space and time.