studio happenings

a few days ago I was assisting the beginning woodworking class at San Diego State University. While helping a student conquer her very first wooden bowl sculpture, I was shocked by her timidness to the material. I had gone over grain direction in length at this point till I was blue in the face, sketching diagrams , doing demos on scrap wood, showing her other examples from other students. I was beginning to loose my patience then she looked back at me with seemingly lost eyes, I gave it one more chance. I instructed her to "feel" the material, let the wood depict where the gouge should go. She nodded intently but with still a sort of hesitation, I realized at this point I needed to walk away and give her a bit to be with her bowl.

Upon returning to the student she had made quite a bit of progress in a short 15 minutes. I asked her what she did differently to render better results. She let out a quick laugh and told me that she had ,"just felt it." "Honestly, I thought you were some sort of wood hippy when you told me to feel the wood. Like a yogi telling their student to feel the universe or some shit like that. I thought you were full of it. Then I began to carve and within a short time I noticed what wasn't working and what did. So I continued feeling my way around the material, keeping in mind what worked until I noticed I was making progress with ease." I was sort of offended at first when she told me she thought I was full of shit then I realized there was only one way to get a point across to her and that was to let her figure it out, and she did. So not only was I a douche anymore but I helped her figure it out on a "universal level." We both got our way.

Using my own advise I decided to steer away from my initial ideas for shelter and go with my gut, I am beginning work with some found ladders and will see where it goes from there...-V