Hank Kaminski

A good friend of mine passed away. Hank Kaminski was one of my early friends when I moved to Eureka Springs, and his wife JoAnn was the person I met who told me about this place and suggested I consider Eureka Springs as a place to work as I was ready to move on from doing pottery at Memphis State. 

Hank's life and achievements are discussed at the Arkansas Department of Heritage website. https://www.arkansasheritage.com/blog/dah/2020/07/23/sculptor-hank-kaminsky-named-2018-arkansas-living-treasure 

I was honored to have been a panel member selecting Hank as an Arkansas Living Treasure. 

I explained to the panel that I would recuse myself from voting because Hank was like a brother to me, but the panel voted unanimously and at the age of 79 he was named the Arkansas Living Treasure of 2018. 

I’ll be in Portland for the coming week so will have to miss the celebration of his life to be held on Saturday. Hank and JoAnn were such important persons in my early days in Eureka Springs and played such important roles in our development as an arts community. I always felt that Hank was my big brother in the arts… he always being a bit ahead of things. He gave me confidence for my own growth.

I was looking up at the moon this morning against a clear blue sky and wondered that the moon had no eyes to look back. Its movements around our planet have such profound effect, and yet we do not know whether it has the wondrousness of consciousness that life provides. Can it know love?

Artists are trained to look at both positive and negative space. The positive space is occupied by that which falls between the lines. The space beyond is not empty space, but is filled with all else... the relationships that bind us, each to each other.

Physicists tell us that once two particles are entangled with each other they can be thrust to the furthest ends of the universe and what happens to one is known to the other. It may feel as though Hank has been cast beyond reach. But the truth is that even when we are apart, our lives have been entangled and that entanglement is a thing that gives meaning. We are larger in each other than grief allows us to comprehend.

As I was watching the moon, a jet plane flew across its path. It was much too high to be landing at XNA, but I knew from having flown that it was full of beings, each having a consciousness that the moon might envy, connected not only with each other but beyond, each having personal connections at each end of their flight. What a wondrous thing it is that we live this life and that our lives cross.

The photo shows Hank with his Peace Globe in Fayetteville, AR.

Make, fix and create...

My Carter letter

This is a letter I received from former president Jimmy Carter. He is a man of courage and conviction. He's also shared my own passion for woodworking. 

As one of my most admired presidents,  I had sent him a copy of my book, The Complete Illustrated Guide, Box Making, and notice about an article coming at that time in Fine Woodworking Magazine. 

All the holes at the top of the letter are from it being pinned to my bulletin board for the last 19 years. Aside from a shared interest in woodworking, I can cite about a hundred reasons why I hold Jimmy Carter in high esteem, as others do as well.

During the run up to the presidential election that 

Reagan won and Carter lost, emissaries from Reagan sent a cake to the Ayatollah, urging him to delay release of American hostages until after the election, thereby enlisting a foreign adversary to manipulate the outcome of the presidential election. And in that you see the difference between true character and the lust for power. 

Carter lost the election, but won in the game of life through service to the American people and to people around the world. He also did some fine woodworking.

Make, fix and create... assist others in learning lifewise.

In preparation for a class in Portland, Oregon, I decided to test a router bit that cuts 5/32 in. finger joints. Because of the size of the bit, I decided to build a dedicated router table using my large Makita router, one that's rarely used in my shop. You can see the set-up and results in the photo. It has limitations, being useful only for boxes about 2 1/2 in. high or for drawers of similar height height.

An advantage of this method is that all four sides of a box can be clamped together on the sliding portion of the jig to be cut at the same time. Two cuts (and some additional fiddling about) and you've got a box.

Make, fix and create... Assist others in learning lifewise.

Hidden spline joints

 

This video featured in the FineWoodworking weekly newsletter can be found on the Fine Woodworking website through this link or on my youtube channel at youtube/MrDougStowe

Make, fix and create...

Installing miter keys in a keyed miter box

Please view this in youtube to build up my watching hours. More box making tips and tricks can be found in my books and on my youtube channel: youtube.com/MrDougStowe

Making a bandsawn box

Please view this on youtube to build up my viewing hours.

practice

Today I'm  practicing, by making small bandsawn boxes as shown. The secret of bandsawn boxes is to have something in mind before you start cutting a block of wood into little pieces and then putting them back together with glue. For someone who wants to do woodworking that goes quick and offers near immediate results, bandsawn boxes can be a good project. These are small, but larger ones can be made.

They can be simple or more ornate, they can be textured and painted with milk paints. They are fun.

One of the founders of Home Depot, one of the world's largest suppliers of do-it-yourself supplies has decided that Americans would prefer to be fat and lazy. So who does he think shops in his stores each day? Folks like you and me who want to make stuff and make stuff happen for the world and the American economy.

Make, fix and create. Happy New Years! Need a resolution? Make something before the year is out. You've plenty of time before the next holiday season.