Dreaming at the Edge of the Apocalypse

In my introductory blog post for North House Folk School, I described my work as the intersecting point between the three virtues of Craft, Land, and Play.

If you knew what a Tree really was, you would lose your fucking mind.

Once, a long time ago, three brothers went out hunting.

"The object isn't to make art, it's to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable." - Robert Henri ⭐⭐⭐ Slow work.

"Play must serve no other purpose than itself, and the satisfaction it gives must be derived from participation in it alone." - Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens ⭐⭐⭐ I want to take my time with this project.

"Aillil and Maeve [King and Queen of Connaught] played fidchell after that, and Froech began to play with one of his own people.

"The 'toy,' as it is understood in public debate and in Western culture in general, is above all a product of the adults' view of children, of physical objects, and of children in relation to physical objects." - Bo Lonnqvist, The Concept "Toy" and Cultur…

"One of the keys to magick is the use of the imagination.

"You need to crack open the mundane casing of ordinary technologies and trace their archetypal wiring.

"The self is not something ready-made, but something in continuous formation through choice of action." - John Dewey ⭐⭐⭐ You know what a demake is, yes?

"The oracles stand at the meeting-point between the individualistic, unpredictable, and sometimes anti-social behavior of the shaman and the responsible social functions of the priest." - Nigel Pennick, Secret Games of the Gods (1989) ⭐⭐⭐ In today's fast-…

"Never try to convey your idea to the audience - it is a thankless and senseless task.

"We believe that while our society is in a transitional stage between the destruction of an old order and the introduction of a new order, the creators of beauty must turn their work into clear ideological propaganda for the people, and make art, which at…

"The mill game, a pastime of ancient origin, was widely spread not only in European contexts but also in further areas.

"Creativity is for the gifted few: the rest of us are compelled to live in environments constructed by the gifted few, listen to the gifted few's music, use the gifted few's inventions and art, and read the poems, fantasies, and plays by the gifted few.

"All his best years of active life had been spent in the care and guardianship of trees. [...]

⚠️⚠️⚠️ We interrupt your month of handmade games with an important announcement!

"Rule 4: Consider everything an experiment." - Immaculate Heart College Art Department Rules ⭐⭐⭐ Today we're gonna make a whizzer!

"The most difficult thing is to know what we do know, and what we do not know." - P.D.

"It's not about what it is, it's about what it can become." - Dr.

"Divination can be accomplished by assigning qualities, values and meaning to almost any set of objects, natural or artificial." - Nigel Pennick, Secret Games of the Gods (1992) ⭐⭐⭐ Today's project is a puzzle.

"Every new participant in a culture both enters into an existing context and simultaneously changes that context.

"God does not play dice with the universe." - Albert Einstein ⭐⭐⭐ Today we're making a single die.

"Today we live in a world where you may ultimately lose your teaching job to a robot, but you have the opportunity for exploration and expression of topics and people which would have got you burned at the stake a few centuries ago." - Gordon White, The C…

"A game is a series of interesting choices." - Sid Meier ⭐⭐⭐ I have a new toy today.

"Many games now thought to be mere children's pastimes are, in fact, relics of religious rituals." - Frederic V.

"Though you like your ale with ceremony in the drinking-halls, I like better to snatch a drink of water in my palm from a spring.

"Games are an essential aspect of cultural activity, comparable in some ways to the performing arts." - David Parlett, The Oxford History of Board Games ⭐⭐⭐ Today I'd like to try and make a willow bark box.

"Interest in old board games may arise from finding some bygone relic in an antique shop, seeing a display on the shelves of a museum, from stumbling across obscure games in travellers' accounts, or in archaeological references to fragmentary gaming-equip…

If you're living in the northern wilds and interested in ancient gaming, there are still spots available in my Old World Games class!

I'm teaching a class on Old World Games like Hnefatafl and Nine Man's Morris on the north shore of Lake Superior in late November.

I'm teaching a class on Old World Games like Hnefatafl and Nine Man's Morris on the north shore of Lake Superior in late November.

There are still spots available in my Old World Games class at North House Folk School if you are in the mood to spend a few days making ancient board games out of wood, leather,a ⭐⭐⭐ "... as though evolution were suggesting, "if there's not enough of what

Some classes of mine have spots still available!

I'm teaching some upcoming classes at a variety of venues in Minnesota: Basketry (Mankato), Woodcarving (Mankato), Toys and Games (St.

I'm teaching some upcoming classes at a variety of venues in Minnesota: Basketry (Mankato), Woodcarving (Mankato), Toys and Games (St.

⭐ I'm teaching some upcoming classes: Basketry and Woodcarving at the Mankato Makerspace.

⭐ I am teaching lots of classes this summer, and there is room to sign up!

"Freedom is not earned or won, it is built." - Evelyn Bi, On Object Freedom In January of 2020, I began a one-year internship at North House Folk School with three other young folks interested in traditional crafts.

"A profound facet of gardening has been the way it fuses the act of caring for something else with the act of caring for myself." - Willa Köerner, interviewed by Rachelle Robinette Grab a scissors, or a pruners, or a strong knife, and walk outside.

"I get this shape in my head and sometimes I know what it comes from and sometimes I don't... and I think... there are a few shapes that I have repeated a number of times during my life and I haven't known I was repeating them until after I had done it