Hardwood: Generally, one of the botanical groups of deciduous trees that have broad leaves, in contrast to the conifers or softwoods. The term has no reference to the actual hardness of the wood.

Distressed Hardwood Floors

Titanium Dioxide (TiO2): A white pigment used in paints and enamels primarily to increase hiding power and give greater brightness. It has a specific gravity of 3.9 and a relatively high oil absorption, which usually ranges from 20 to 26. The particle size is usually very small. Chatter Marks: Slight indentations causing a ripple effect on the surface of a wood floor. They are usually caused by sanding machines that have out of balance drums, bad drive belts or foreign objects stuck to the wheels. The marks are most noticeable on gloss finishes, in direct light areas or at eye level.

Ray: Tissue formed in a living tree that radiates from the pith towards the perimeter of a tree across the growth rings. Rays are very distinct in the oak species. Hand Scraped Engineered Wood Floors

Specifications: The detailed selections of the architect, covering all of the material and labor methods to be used in erecting a building. Usually prescribes types of material, sources, and often lists method of application or installation.

Sheathing: The structural covering, usually boards of plywood, placed over exterior studding or rafters of a structure. Wood Floor Scratch Repair

Knot: The portion of a branch or limb that has been surrounded by subsequent growth of the stem. The shape of the knot as it appears on a cut surface depends on the angle of the cut relative to the long axis of the knot. In hardwood flooring, small and pin knots aren't more than one-half inch in diameter. A sound knot is a knot cut approximately parallel to its long axis so that the exposed section is definitely elongated.

Hand Scraped Wood Floors

Hand Scraped Hardwood Floors - Wood Flooring Terms

Dry to Touch: That stage of drying of a film of finishing material when it has solidified sufficiently that it can be touched lightly without any of the finishing material adhering to the fingers. Equilibrium Moisture Content (EMC): The point of balance when the moisture content in wood is equal to the moisture content in the surrounding atmosphere.

Milk: Refers to a latex liquid used to prime dusty substrates or mix with an underlayment powder. Hand Scraped Hardwood Floor

Cupping: A concave or dished appearance of individual strips with the edges raised above the center. The opposite of crowning.

Reduce: To lower the viscosity of a material or to thin it by the addition of a solvent, thinner, varnish, oil, etc. Hand Scraped Wood Floors

Sealer: Any finishing material that is applied with the primary purpose of stopping the absorption of succeeding coats.

Hand Scraped Hardwood Flooring Hand Scraped Wood Flooring Hand Scraped Wood Floors

the thing that distinguishes the two have been on my mind a lot. and it don't think the distinguishing factor is an  easy one to pinpoint. clearly there are some mediums which make the distinction easier: oil paint, water color, bronze- in these cases we have good art and bad art. Even photography ranges from the home snap shot to the scenic tourist panorama to the REAL art of a Stieglitz or Mapplethorpe.

But when dealing with materials that fall into the craft/artisan realm it gets very tricky: clay, wood, fiber, glass, precious metals. So these are the materials and artists/artisans I am thinking about.

For example I have a friend who makes exquisite stuff with clay. porcelain, amazing glazes, all functional and when you look at her work you say "Oh I bet Celeste made that!" and Celeste is an impeccable artisan and maybe she  would even be offended that I don't call her an artist.

Because, for me,  the artist working in clay  takes that material just a few steps further and enters the realm of ART.   It's someone like Maria Simon who takes clay and makes it into a bas relief that tricks you into thinking she has spent months honing and carving wood. Or the late and beloved Bernie Marek from Boulder whose work ranged from the sublimely functional wedding bowls (I own one) to the Bosch like peeled globes writhing with small human figures beneath the surface.

Or the amazing perfectionist quilter who have a fabulous eye for color and design but it's still a quilt to the  black women who improvise  with color and shape and turn their quilts into jazz ensembles more like the ashcan painters than anything you have seen sewn at home.
 
Beads are really popular and there are wonderful artisans who make amazing jewelry and to me it remains with the realm of fine artisan ship vs Liza Lou who makes entire rooms out of peyote stitch so that even the eggs on her kitchen tables are all done in beads.

Glass- wildly popular and many fine workers are making bowls and plaques and lamp shades and then along come Dale Chihuly and throws all the concepts of what glass can do to the winds and brings you into another world- surrounded by the ephemeral sheen of liquid sand.

As a fiber artist this distinction lays on my mind as I was in show recently where two other women were working in silk and fabric. One painting exquisitely on silk. almost art but they were scarves dyed with a painting of an orchid. if she had tweaked it more and worked it more her  she would have made the leap into art. Or a woman who is an amazing stitcher making fabric vessels which i guess sit a top a table or a mantel and are wonderful 'garniture" ( a friend coined that name for the wonderful things that garnish our houses ans furniture like finials and tassels and even mantel adornment) and her work was incredibly made and she even had her "artistic statement" but she wasn't taking the medium of cotton /wool.silk much further than anyone else takes it and what emotional or felling did her work evoke? what story or whimsy or prophecy , controversy or  affect did her work transfer to the viewer? if she had done any of those things she would have lept into art.

Another example in the show I was honored to join was two women working with clay. One made quite competent vessel. cups bowls dishes- normal glazes and lots of brown and she sold a lot of stuff and then across the room from her is Willa Schneberg an amazing clay artist who has broken the boundaries of artisan and was making art: fantastic biological pieces, twisted delicate gilt pieces that were inspired by wire wisps. and miniature temples - the buddist  stuppa.... ok some might  call this woman an artisan - but to me her  work screamed A-R-T.

so where do I fit? Okay I will say it out loud I am an artist working in wool and felt. My pieces are intended to make you smile with their silliness, cringe with their raw anger, wonder about sexuality and mostly move you in some way. Now there are people who may not LIKE my art - like people didn;t like the action painters or (heaven forbid) the color field wonders. but clearly the purpose of my pieces are not to decorate- show my perfect skill- which is absent- but to make you think, pull you in deeper or maybe even repel you because one looks like a jeweled menstrual pad. But it does something. It's not garniture. it's not crafty flower pins. I know because I do craft and artisan work too. My weaving is artisan, my painted scarves, my tallitot, felt jewlery. I know where they fall. even my photography, some of it quite nice doesn't transcend the medium- but when small pieces of hand dyed wool and silk get formed into an abstraction that takes you somewhere else. then I am making art. get it?

And don't get me wrong I have enormous respect for the impeccable skill of a jewelry maker, glass worker, stitcher or  clay worker. And I adore craft. I own it in abundance. But it's not the skill that differentiates or the even the intention always, but  art transforms. plain and simple. Some movies are  a joy to watch : you laugh and cry and three months later hardly recall anything that passed your mind in the two hours you watched and then there are the films that change your view forever or enter your psyche and expand you experience permanently. and that's art.

So let me take you to some the amazing detailed painting I saw last Sunday - great technique and very very pretty flowers or pomegranates and compare them to the simple primitive watermelon painted my the late Mose Tolliver. and ask you... Is the finer painter the real artist or does Mose- with all his heart in that little fruit painted on recyled wood change  you more.?. I vote for Mr. T.

First of all, to be sure no one gets the wrong impression, I am not a materialist. I don't live for possessions. I'm not wealthy in the material sense, and anyone that visits my home can see that. That being said, I can and very much do appreciate nice things. That is, well-designed and built things. Beautiful things. I appreciate them very much.

As an aspiring engineer, however, I see things on a daily basis that make me want to vomit. I see the formed plastic stereos, the lifeless, characterless TVs, and the slabs of particle board held together with plastic bolts that make "couches" and "tables" and "desks" and "chairs"

Do you know how hard it is to fix something like that when it breaks?
You probably haven't tried.
Almost no one does.

People buy new stereos and TVs and furniture all the time.
They buy new crap that will break just like last month's crap.
New crap replaces old crap, and then maybe a profit.
Particleboard accumulates until an overconsumption equilibrium is reached.
Or until you run out of space for the excess plastic.

The life of a stereo is now determined by the life of an underengineered plastic clip holding one piece to another.

Determined by the life of the in or out jack that they could not afford a panel mount nut for breaking the circuit board.

Because it is so cheap, repair is out of the question.
Because it is so cheap, people will not go through the trouble of thinking, of concerning themselves with it. They buy a new one, for want of a screw or button.
Because it is accepted so cheap, it will be built to a standard that cannot be repaired.
Because it is so cheap, it will inevitably die because of the equivalent of a splinter.

This is important because our memories are tied to external objects all the time. Because an old record may remind us of an old relative, because the solid wood desk in your home reminds you of the hell of a time you and your friend had lugging it up three flights of stairs. Because owning it can be a rewarding memory in itself. Not the memory of screwing together particle board with plastic.

I'm not telling you that mass production is bad. We need mass produced microprocessors. We do. Do we need tables that turn into oatmeal when they get wet? No.

Voodoo Child is one of the greatest sounding guitar amps I've ever heard.
Not gloating.
I built it with my hands.
Do you know how rewarding that is?
Moreover, do you know how long I'll have it?
A very long time indeed.

I'm planning to build a stereo around similar components.
I'm going to build a stereo that is robust.
A stereo that I can fix in 20 minutes if anything goes wrong and I have the parts on hand.
A stereo hand built to a quality that cannot be bought.

That is my personal war on crap.
A war on overconsumption.
A war against cheap trash that will be replaced over and over.
I plan to replace most of the things I have in that manner.
I will replace the plastic bolts and particleboard with robustness, with the flesh of a strong oak.
With an item that will last as long as it took the trees that made it to grow.
Yes, I'll replace the foil and foam with pillars of steel.
Indeed, it is still impermanent.
It is, however, less wasteful.
It is not pissing on craftsmanship.
Its a careful, involved, human. One that cannot go as fast as the machines with careless, poorly trained operators. One that cannot be as consistent.

One that will be better.

YEAH! Finally!
After being married for 27 years and for the past 15 or so years begging for it, I'm getting my Laundry/sewing/mudroom built!!!
I'm so excited! My washer and dryer have always been in my kitchen since we built the house in 1980/81. I have never liked that! Now they will be moved to my new room! We took the existing deck and are turning it into my room. It will be huge! 12'x12'! Lots of room! Sewing machine will go in there, washer, dryer and a new laundry sink! Yeah! And I have a huge walk in closet designed for the room for craft storage and such. 3 windows and a new door with a canopy roof over the doorway entrance. Before our son left for college, James took the deck railing down and sawed off the posts.This past Friday he added wood to the existing deck sides and put the floor down. This past Saturday James went under the deck and built 3 reinforcement walls with block and 4'x6'x16' beams.One on each end and one directly in the middle. Under the deck gets very shallow up near the driveway, so he was under there crawling around on his belly and back all day. I was too, helping whenever he needed it. He looked like a pig by the end of the day! LOL   All muddy and nasty!
Then Wednesday, yesterday he framed out the first wall and got it up. Today, he and his brother got the rest of  the walls  framed out. Tomorrow the roof framework goes up cause Paul can help James tomorrow all day, so James took off from work. I am taking pictures as it goes along. I wish we had done that with our house as it was being built. We built it ourselves back then only getting someone else to do fireplace,wiring and plumbing. We built our house for $22,000 back in 80-81!  That in today's numbers would probably be quadrupled!         Here's the first picture:sides added and floor down.                                                                                         This is a picture of the support beams added in. Here's two of them.
Here is the third added support beam.
Should have showed a before picture! LOL It was just a deck with a rail and now all railing is up around my deck off our bedroom. Moved the table,chairs, and umbrella to the very back deck with the grill. James will put a rail up for me around it this Spring so I can hang all my hanging baskets of flowers from it like I did on the upper deck.
This picture shows the deck off our bedroom with the new rail from the old deck!

My whicker chair pictured on the far left was chewed up by my daughter's dog! A Siberian Husky! She is still a puppy and she has shredded a lot of my things! She started chewing the siding off the house so we moved her away from the house now! My chair looks horrible doesn't it?! Bad dog.....
Another picture of our deck from below:
We bought this canopy a couple weeks ago and put it up there. it helps keep it cool and now its my favorite place to snuggle up and read a book.
Here's James adding the framework of the first wall!
and here's the first wall framed out:
 
Here's today's pictures of all the walls framed out:

another one:
 
and yet another:

Tomorrow I will post the roof pictures and whatever else they get done!
I'm so excited!