Note from Amy: This week's entry comes from my fiancee Jay Ryan. In an effort to start writing essays for his future website, he has been tackling some of his philosophical thoughts on his occupation of woodworking. The following is an initial attempt at hammering out some of his ideas. Please feel free to share your thoughts and feedback with us. Also if you are interested in seeing some of Jay's work, stop by and visit him at his temporary website: http://www.myspace.com/jayswoods
That said I hope you enjoy this weeks entry...
Robinson Jeffers wrote that, “surely one always knew that life’s end is death.” Eventually everything fails; you, me , the tree…. the stone, the very air, the sun, presumably all that we know and all that we don’t. Change is the only constant.
Glue is chemical in nature. Since we first realized that spit would hold together……….., we have looked for more efficient glues. We humans have become very skilled at manipulating compounds for all kinds of purposes. We are very skilled at making glues, and yet most glues that were made a hundred years ago have failed by now. Modern glues are likely to last longer, but only slightly longer from the perspective of geologic time. A weld will fail before the steel that it holds together will rust away. Similarly, glue that holds wood together will will fail before the the lignins and the cellular life that is a properly dried tree desires its own return to the earth.
Screws are made from all kinds of metals.. Archaeology teaches us that most metals are likely to last longer as an artifact in the earth than are most woods, but temperature, a tar pit, an ice age…. Not all rules are fast. Whe wood is screwed together, the grainlines that represent the structure of the tree are rended apart, rendering the wood weaker as a whole than it was before.
But wood beats both glue and screw as its own fastener. Wood can be shaped to interlock with itself and hold itself together for hundreds of years with no assistance from its occasional allies either glue or screw. The force, the very core of this this thing that we call life when it comes from the dirt and from the sun in the form of a tree is a truly amazing ally of our own. The forests have been with us since before memory. They were are only fuel, save the sun, for many thousands of years, before oil. They have built our houses, bridged our rivers cleaned our air… they are our partners in this endeavor, this time that we spend on the planet. Most trees would outlive us with ease if we did not cut so many of them down.
The crafting of something from wood should be special. Whatever the purpose; be it a home or a chair, a cradle or a cathedral. Care should be taken, consideration should be given, when a person has only a hundred years to give, some portion of your time should probably be given to creating something that outlives you, the longer the better.
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