Hi, everyone. Okay, I've been around long enough to maybe pester all of you with a few observations about what really inspires me to go create something, including...well, bows and arrows
Maybe this won't be too strange a thread or topic - I've been a bit our of sorts lately because of the hours at work have been non-stop (or seemingly so), and since I write for a living, and deadlines don't care if you are not feeling creative, it is draining!
1. Shaker stuff, and other beautiful examples of craftsmenship. I am very lucky, in that I live within driving distance of Hancock Shaker Villiage, near Pittsfield, MA. Walking the grounds, and seeing the buildings, the household goods, the dry stonework and the colors in the various buildings, the cool plasterwork and the cast iron stoves, all of it is just breathtaking. I have a book here called The Shakers: Hands To Work Hearts to God, by Amy Stechler Burns and Ken Burns. (Yes, that Ken Burns). Glancing through the book was and is incredibly inspiring. Go to the library and check it out. What they did with their hands and simple hand tools is very much in the spirit of primitive archery.
2. JS Bach.
3. Zen Buddism
4. My pug Davenport.
5. But mostly, I want to point you to one of the strangest and most inspiring books I have ever read, The Aesthetics of the Japanese Lunchbox, by Kenji Ekuan, MIT Press. I found it in a used bookstore, formally a mill, and the construction of that structure alone is awesome to look at and investigate. If you get a chance to read this book, you may want to kill me, or may feel kind of how I do. I'm not even sure how to explain what this book is about, except that he argues this "lunchbox theory" for all kinds of designs and objects created by man, the lunchbox being a small lacquered compartmentalized wooden box, about a foot square and divided into four equal compartments, black in color. Some of the chapters are titled "Techology of Order: the Buddhist Home Alter and the Department Store," "Techology to Cope With Environment: Nature and Seasons in an Air-Conditioned Culture," and "The Ultimate Spirit of Service - Heart of the Merchant."
Here are Ekuan's 10 axioms of lunchbox structure, and I do view this, in many ways, as being applicable to bow design and bow making.
1. Beauty of Form - drive to make stylishness and beauty a primary function
2. Functional Multiplicity - belief in "the more functions the better"
3. Equipment Exciting Creativity - popular appeal yielding the broadest possible application of an object and its creative uses
4. Prototype - an exacting model promoting sound fabrication and generating ideas of use
5. Unification in Diversity - a sense of order ensuring maximal inclusion and effective arrangement
6. All-Inclusive Enhancement - pluarality in each element vividely brought to life
7. Profusion of Enjoyment - development capacity from which new types of enjoyment emerge
8. Ultimate Adapability - meeting needs in terms of time, quality, and quantity
9. Waste-avoiding Culture - a sense of design consistent with enviornmentally sensative lifestyle
10. Generosity - richness born from an ultmate spirit of service
Okay, back to bow building. Thanks everyone for indulging me. And feel free to call me crazy
