Woodcraft Ninjas

  The American Philosophical Society was founded in Philadelphia in 1743 by Ben Franklin to “promote useful knowledge.” Before the U.S. Patent Office was formed, one of the functions of the APS was as a repository for plans for inventions and devises for improving the human condition.  In 1786, Charles Wilson Peale, artist, soldier, scientist…

Almost eight years ago, I wrote a piece about a hidden letter written by Jacob Arend, a journeyman cabinetmaker, living and working in Würzburg, Germany. Arend, and fellow journeyman, Johannes Witthalm, had recently finished making their masterpiece, an ornate writing cabinet. The letter was hidden in the writing cabinet in a space beneath a small…

It is Labor Day in America! Back in 2019 I wrote two pieces for Labor Day describing how the mechanic societies organized to bring about more protections for themselves, their families and their actions to shorten the workday. Rest for the Weary is about craftsmen’s associations and societies and you can find that post here….

The craft groups and lumberyards in this second part of the Japanese woodworking festival cover a period of about 400 years. The occupations of craftspeople at work were painted on screens for castles and temples, carved on woodblocks that were bound into books, or sold as individual prints. The audience for the screens and books…

We start our matsuri, or festival, with work commissioned by Philip Franz von Siebold, German physician and botantist. In 1823, under the auspices of the Dutch East Indies Company he was posted to Dejima, an artificial island and trading post off the coast of Nagasaki. For over 200 years, first for the Portuguese and later…