Wordworking Unplugged: a new/old Mini Course
Everyone knows technology is constantly changing our daily lives. Some things get easier; others get much more complicated. This spring, Wisconsin Union Mini Courses will be giving members a chance to step away from recent technology with the class appropriately titled, ‘Woodworking Unplugged.’
The class gives participants a chance to immerse themselves in the classic art of woodworking entirely by hand. Woodworking Unplugged focuses on the use of hand tools alone to create a 4-legged bench through the traditional wood crafts of Norway. Instructor Nels Diller spent two summers studying this technique in Norway.
Diller describes his craft as largely “self taught by experimentation, but supplemented by books and talking with other carpenters.” Diller has been making a living as a woodworker and carpenter for more than 40 years, and the Union is fortunate to have him as an instructor. He greatly enjoys this cordless method of interacting with the timber and with the past.
“Hand tools connect me with a long tradition of crafts people going back thousands of years who have been doing much the same thing as I am doing right now. It gives me an appreciation for the skill and talent of those earlier workers that in many ways is superior to my own. I feel connected to that history and find an antidote to the modern feeling we call ‘alienation’.”
Through two meetings, participants will become amateur crafts people and grow in their ability to sculpt wood. The process is a slow and gradual one that is handled without power tools, yet it also requires less set up and produces minimal waste. The student’s body works through the control of tools moving over the wood in a way that electric grinders ignore.
In Diller’s words, “In [this] Mini Course, people sweat and realize that they are performing work. [Shaping] the raw materials, sculpting your piece, using hand-tools safely, sweating, and ending up with something beautiful that you can use in your home are key ingredients to what we hope is a joyful experience.”
To find out more information about this class or other Mini-Courses offerings visit the website or call 608.262.3156.
By Patrick Callan
