I’ve not had the good fortune to meet Curtis Buchanan, but he is an inspiration. A friend recently drew my attention to a new short film featuring some thoughtful insights from Curtis. I just had to share it:
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“…how I fill up my day.” I hope those words are the first that cross my mind tomorrow morning.
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Curtis is an inspiration to alot of us. I’ve been involved with the Warren Wilson College woodworking crew for almost 7 yrs now. Curtis has come down many times to teach and demonstrate. He refuses to take money for it, just to make contact with the young woodworkers, and believe me, they listen to his message.
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I hope you get the opportunity to meet Curtis. I have known him for several years and have taken several of his courses. I drop by his shop occasionally and talk about chairs, the current apple crop, and just about anything and everything that comes to mind. He always has time for a visitor and is truly happy to see him or her. I consider Curtis a friend, but he is much too complex for anyone to really know, except for his wife and children and perhaps his friend Elia. His complexity is perhaps a result of his desire for simplicity, which is evident in this interview. Curtis calls himself a chair maker, but I would call him a doctor, in the true since of the word “teacher.” Not just a teacher, but one who passionately loves, constantly studies, and improves his art. He has an innate sense of design and an attention to detail that would baffle most craftsmen. I was amazed at his patience and dedication to his teaching from the very first day of my first class. I wondered how someone so accomplished in his craft could maintain his focus and bearing while a group of novices, mangled their spindles, carved V’s in the concavities of the seat, that should have gentle curves, and worse, bored holes in the arm rail into the surface of his beloved workbench. One student even broke his hammer!
Lunch and a nap and he was as attentive, kind, and devoted to helping his students as on the first moment of class.
I think Curtis has lived his life trying to see the truth in everything. The truth that is rooted in simplicity, form, function and purpose. He is constantly looking for the underlying importance and meaning in things. Just watch his videos of why he splits a log, then rives the wood along the ‘long wood fibers” to understand what I mean. He never said, but I know that he knows, that a chair is a tree or trees, in a different form and function, and so the truth of the tree is the truth of the chair. The strength and beauty of the chair comes from from the strength and beauty of the tree.
I consider it a real honor to have him as a friend.
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Beautifully and thoughtfully put, Mr Freeman.
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Thanks Scott, Bill, and John for your comments. They make the film even more meaningful.
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