By Michael Owen Jones
Why do humans give some thought to aesthetic traits in addition to utilitarian ones within the making of daily items? Why do they retain traditions? what's the nature in their artistic method? those are a number of the higher questions addressed through Michael Owen Jones in his e-book on craftsmen within the Cumberland Mountains of japanese Kentucky. focusing on the paintings of 1 guy, woodworker and chairmaker Chester Cornett, Jones not just describes the instruments and strategies hired by way of Cornett but additionally his aspirations and values. Cornett possessed a deep wisdom of his fabrics and a mastery of development equipment. a few of his chairs symbolize no longer items of application yet aesthetic advancements of the chair shape. Cornett sought to deal with the issues of his existence, Jones continues; their massiveness supplied a feeling of protection, the virtuosity in their layout and development, a sense of vainness. Jones additionally compares different zone craftsmen and their perspectives approximately their paintings.
Read or Download Craftsman of the Cumberlands: Tradition and Creativity PDF
Similar folklore & mythology books
When Dreams Came True: Classical Fairy Tales and Their Tradition, Second Edition
For hundreds of years fairy stories were a strong mode of passing cultural values onto our kids, and for lots of those tales pride and hang-out us from cradle to grave. yet how have those tales develop into so strong and why? In whilst goals got here real, Jack Zipes explains the social lifetime of the fairy story, from the 16th century on into the twenty-first.
Danish folktales, legends, & other stories
Danish Folktales, Legends, and different tales is a suite of translated and annotated Nordic folklore that offers complete repertoires of 5 storytellers in addition to wide archival fabric. the broadcast publication provides one of the most compelling tales of those 5 vital storytellers in addition to historic and biographical introductions.
All people has heard of vampires and werewolves, yet what number have heard of the rokuro-kubi, the tsuchinoki or the sagari? Japan has a wealth of ghosts and monsters, jointly referred to as yokai, that are absolutely unknown within the West. the unusual and beautiful folklore of Japan contains colossal corpse-eating rabbits, flaming pigs that thieve human genitals, perverse water goblins, blood sucking bushes, a dragon that impregnates ladies, cats who animate lifeless our bodies, a zombie whale and an important flesh consuming sea cucumber that grows from a couple of discarded knickers!
South Carolina Ghosts: From the Coast to the Mountains
Eighteen tales established upon genuine occasions together with the well-known grey guy of Pawley's Island, Alice of Murrells Inlet, and the hitchhiker of Hwy 107.
- The Robber with a Witch's Head: More Stories from the Great Treasury of Sicilian Folk and Fairy Tales Collected by Laura Gonzenbach
- Lady Godiva: A Literary History of the Legend
- Theory and History of Folklore (Theory and History of Literature)
- Storytelling and Conversation: Discourse in Deaf Communities (Gallaudet Sociolinguistics)
- Still, the Small Voice: Narrative, Personal Revelation, and the Mormon Folk Tradition
- UXL Encyclopedia of World Mythology
Extra resources for Craftsman of the Cumberlands: Tradition and Creativity
Example text
McIntosh would not sell me his chair, but I was able to buy one of his neighbor's chairs for $5 for the museum at Indiana University. The absence of notching, the presence of relatively wide feet, and the rather exaggerated angle at which the back posts bend backward and outward in the McIntosh chairs presage traits of some chairs Chester was yet to make. Although Chester called the McIntosh a settin' chair, the seat is unusually high. The chair is 321f2 inches tall; the seat is 17 inches from the floor (as opposed to the usual 12 to 14 inches of a settin' chair).
With Chester's help, we located many of his earlier chairs on that first trip in August 1965. He could recall who had bought his chairs over the years, how much he had asked for each chair and what was in fact paid, what the chairs were constructed of, and the reasons for some of the chairs' unusual features. What struck me at first was the great variety of forms. The attitudes of some customers also surprised me-manifested in their treatment of the chairs and the prices they had offered Chester.
The face of the post, or stile, is cut out more deeply for the sake of comfort and appearance. To do this, Chester oriented the post so the face was toward him and then took small cutting bites to start the curve just above the seat. Turning the knife at a 30-degree angle, he began the cut at the extreme left end of the knife, drawing it forward to the right end. The movement was long and smooth. To make the slats and posts pliable enough to put into the presses in which they seasoned into curved shapes, Chester cooked the slats for twenty minutes and the posts for an hour (or a week, if the posts were completely unseasoned).