Arts & Crafts

Arts & Crafts

All through my youth in Middle America (not so much when living the survivalist regime in the tropics or the ethereal existence in Rome) I kept getting taught about how to do arts & crafts. In some sort of shop course in middle school in Middleton, Wisconsin (I was actually in middle school in Middleton in Middle America), I had to make a pump lamp where the pump handle was attached to a light socket pull chain that turned the lamp on and off. I remember the piece well though I can’t be certain where along the road of life it departed my possessions. It was perhaps ten inched high had a small base with a smallish trough for catching the imaginary water and a small bent copper spigot from which the faux water was supposedly to come forth once the pump handle was pumped.

I remember the design and creation process quite vividly. This project was not the only thing we created during that semester of sixth grade, but it was to be the crowning glory of all the shop skills we were to learn over the course of the semester and through the practice on smaller projects. For the wooden portions (the main stem, the more slender handle, the base, the top piece and the four-walled small trough) the main lessons were in sizing, cutting, drilling, sanding, fitting and attaching, all of which were more detailed and time-consuming than an eleven-year-old would logically dedicate to those tasks. I almost think the overarching lesson being taught was one of patience and care, perhaps also attention to detail.

The main stem, and top and bottom pieces needed to be drilled in the center to accommodate the cord of the lamp. I recall that there was lots of measuring and marking involved as well as learning how to pilot the drill press with safety and precision (safety goggles not optional). Sanding was considered a core skill and the key take-away was how to maintain shape integrity while rounding off all corners to create a smooth (though somewhat unrealistically so for an old farmyard pump) lamp that would bear no splinters to the user, be smooth and pleasing to the touch and make the piece worthy of standing for years in a place of honor in the home (perhaps right next to Billy Crystal and Bruno Kirby’s “stupid, garage-sale, Roy Rogers wagon wheel coffee table”). The rest of the project involved the delicate task of imbedding a thin metal rod/wire through the carved recess on the stem and through the end of the pump handle so as to create a simple hinging mechanism that would allow the handle to easily move up and down. The trick to that was in the drilling of a minute needle-sized hole in one side of the stem (preferably the side not to be face front) as well as the handle end and then gently pushing the metal needle rod through and gently taping it below the surface of the stem. This surgical procedure was accomplished with the help of bees wax to both “lubricate” the rod and push a bit of the excess into the recessed set-hole on the stem. Very delicate indeed.

The finishing touches of the project, now that we have a constructed but non-functional wooden lamp with working, but limp pump handle, is to insert the electrical guts of the lamp. There is a clear order to the installation that must be followed. First there is the wire insertion from the bottom of the lamp. This makes the lamp cockeyed on its base. This makes you immediately aware of why the shop teacher had you make a mysterious trough in the base plate underside. The second wire-related necessity is to be sure to put a top knot on the wire so that an inadvertent tug wound not short-out the connection with the socket (this is a little shop teacher trick that was probably learned through trial and error from irate parents with blackened pump lamps in hand). Leaving just enough excess wire to enable the connection to the socket is secondary, but also important or you end up with too much excess wire to tamp into the top socket hole. Hooking up the wire to the socket electrical screws was no big deal and then glueing the socket into the top hole was a bit of a cheat, but considered an acceptable cheat with no points off from the teacher. Making sure the socket was straight was important for grading, but not so critical for functionality since the shade was one of those light-bulb-gripping affairs that covers a multitude of leveling sins. On the bottom, tacking in the cord to the trough was important for base leveling, but using the thinnest of tacks through the middle of the rubber wire coating was even more key to avoid a short.

So, the lamp got finished and I think I recall getting an A- on the project. Why the minus, you might wonder? It was non-specific. I had done nothing wrong, per se, but there were guys in that class who were simply more talented woodworkers and the caliber of workmanship in their projects was noticeably better. That taught me that some things really are about innate talent and cannot be made up through simple diligence and attention to detail, even if, as Malcolm Gladwell would advise, you spend 10,000 hours doing it.

Today I have found an arts & crafts project I want to undertake. I have to hang around this afternoon for a washing machine delivery from 2-6pm. During that four-hour window, a time I don’t want to be in the pool with the need to scramble out for the delivery, I have time for a necessary project. I have an ottoman for my leather living room chair that needs repair. I bought that leather chair and ottoman fully forty years ago and it is one of the few furnishings that have stood the test of time and remembrance to stay with me (albeit in a homey spot in Ithaca, the homey-spot capital of the western world). Note that I say western world because logically something called an ottoman probably has a more homey spot in some place like eastern Turkey, where the Ottoman’s actually invented the ottoman.

The rip is rather large on the leather of the top of the ottoman. I could stitch the leather, but the leather is so old that it might not hold up well with multiple piercings. I could, of course, take it to an upholsterer (Kim’s suggestion), but that seems as though it disavows my arts & crafts training and the general theme in a place like Ithaca of self-sufficiency. Why buy a tomato when you can grow a tomato. Why not try to DIY it?

My plan is to go to Joanne Fabrics this morning and buy a piece of leopard fabric that matches the leopard low back pillow that sits on the dark brown chair. Buy a piece that is one square yard (ample size for the top of the ottoman) and then, after cutting it to size, sew it with decorative strong nylon thread of some sort around the welt at the edge. This will require cutting to size, binding a seam, dealing with the corners and then slowly and precisely stitching it decoratively to the top welt and creating a nice new top coat of the ottoman. I like it (at least now in concept) and I will head off to buy supplies in a moment. Ithaca is my arts & crafts locale and this ottoman is my personal bit of upholstery memorabilia, so off I go into the wilds of the fabric world, where men generally fear to tread.