A Community of Kindness

I’m working on a profile of Don Weber, which will appear in Issue 3 of “The Stick Chair Journal.” To help share Don’s life story – so rich and full it could be a book – I’ve been reaching out to folks he’s known at various points in his life, folks he calls friends to this day.

Earlier this week, Matty Sears spoke with me on the phone about his deep friendship with Don, and their respect for each other. 

Mike Abbott wrote, “His great enthusiasm for anything to do with green woodwork and chairmaking encouraged me to throw myself into giving pole-lathe demonstrations at country fairs, which helped publicise my chairmaking courses.”

“Don first started working with greenwood and blacksmithing while he lived here,” Monroe Robinson wrote of the time period years ago when Don lived on his property. “He built a small bodger structure on the edge of the redwood forest using small redwood trees and recycled corrugated steel for roofing and siding. Eventually, he put a triphammer in the little structure. I always loved the sound of Don working there, including the triphammer. Don’s work always inspired me – making something useful and beautiful out of what most folks would call nothing. He made a little gate that he installed between our house … I love the gate to this day.”

These conversations share a common thread of goodwill and generosity, a welcome respite from the flashes of news on my phone.

It’s a theme present in nearly every profile I write – folks not just talking about themselves, but sharing the kindness of people in their lives and especially the kindness that can be found in the craft community.

From a 1936 “Chips from the Chisel” column in The Woodworker Magazine, edited by Charles H. Hayward:

“The Italian Renaissance was the golden age of craftsmanship. There was an amazing flowering of genius in painting, sculpture, goldsmith’s and silversmith’s work, in fact in every kind of craft, research and experiment were carried to the limit. Ideas were in the air, bandied about in workshop and studio, till the fertile soil of genius brought them to perfection. And it is significant that it was an age of great good fellowship among craftsmen. Competition was terrific; there were so many of them at the game and the prizes were glittering, but again and again it is evident from the pages of Vasari how freely they pooled their experiences, and how freely criticism, advice and generous appreciation circulated. They were a mixed bunch too. Dullards and plodders worked side by side with talented men, and there were inspired cut-throats among the men of genius. But this much they all had in common: a love of the work they found to their hand and a readiness to pass on the knowledge they had acquired.”

And so often, good fellowship is unexpected.

Earlier this month, I received a package from Shad Watson. Turns out, Shad’s family are descendants of Nannau, now settled in North Carolina. They’ve lived on the same creek for more than 250 years in an area called Nanneytown.

In the package was a silver coin commemorating Nannau’s legends. On one side is a design heavily influenced by Sir Richard Colt Hoare’s 1813 sketch of the infamous oak, which is featured in my book, “Cadi & the Cursed Oak.” GS-JJ helped Shad adapt the design and together, they minted 10 medallions.

Shad simply wanted to thank those who have a deep affection for Nannau and work to share its stories. (Thank you, Shad!)

Kindness and making things, whether it’s woodworking, coins or jazz, always bring to mind one of my favorite stories from Jennie Alexander. Here, an excerpt from her Meet the Author profile:

Jennie spent her childhood pounding away at the piano and later became a self-taught jazz musician who played professionally. “I enjoyed that very much and I met some wonderful people,” she says. “I grew up in the time when New Orleans jazz was being revised and at the same time be-bop was being created. And it was very interesting that the two groups coincided. In other words, they knew each other. They hung out together. We got together and had a good time.”

 One of the more well-known jazz musicians at the time was a man named Benny, who Jennie said was very active on the be-bop side, when not in jail. The two never met until many years later, when Jennie was transitioning. It was 2007. The last job Jennie ever played as a male was with Benny on drums. The two were part of a trio playing at one of Jennie’s alma maters, St. John’s College.

“It was a wonderful job,” Jennie says. “I had driven Benny down from Baltimore and we drove back and I said, ‘Benny, would you like dinner?’ And he said, ‘Sure.’ And so I went upstairs, came back as a female and we went to dinner. We had a very pleasant dinner. He is just a nice, gentle person with a wonderful beat, by the way. And two-thirds of the way into dinner Benny looked and me and said, ‘John! You’ve really changed!’ And that was the nicest, from-the-heart little thing.”

Nothing more was said, and the two finished dinner. “It speaks to jazz, friendship and kindness,” Jennie says. “And those are such wonderful, wonderful aspects of life that I enjoy and, of course, friendship and kindness have much to do with woodworking, too.”

I hope you have found that kindness has much to do with woodworking, too.