DOUG STOWE: One of the things about box making that's particularly appealing is that you can use it for whatever technique you want to learn.

So if you want to learn wood carving, for example, make a small box.

[music playing] There's something special about creating something with your hands.

The uniqueness of each object that a craftsperson makes adds value and a personal touch.

The Ozarks is full of people who do wonderful work creating handmade items.

On this episode of "OzarksWatch," I will be talking with Doug Stowe, a woodworking craftsman who for 45 years has been making items with his hands in the Ozarks Hills.

ANNOUNCER: Ozarks Public Television and Missouri State University are proud to present "OzarksWatch Video Magazine," a locally-produced program committed to increasing the understanding of the richness and complexity of Ozarks culture.

Visit our website for more information.

Well, Thanks for joining me today, it was really kind of fun to come down to Eureka Springs.

I'd forgotten how curvy the roads are coming in.

They certainly are.

Thank you for making your way all that way, and I-- JIM BAKER: Oh, it's a beautiful drive.

I mean, really love it.

But it was interesting to get here.

And now that we're here, we're going to learn a lot about woodworking and some of the things that you do, and more about this school-- and it's a very impressive facility.

Surprised me when I came down and started walking around it of how big it is and all the things you do.

As we get started, why don't you kind of tell me a little bit about yourself, your background, how you got into woodworking.

Well, I actually got into woodworking when I was a kid, of course, as many woodworkers do, you know.

My father bought me a shopsmith, which some of your viewers will know what a shopsmith is-- I actually know what a shopsmith is, yeah.

And so my father bought me a used 1948 shopsmith.

So it and I are the same age.

And-- and he bought that for me on my 14th birthday.

And so, you know, I remember being down in the basement in Omaha, Nebraska with me and a lathe tool, and he's standing over my shoulder, you know, giving me directions.

And so that-- And then I fooled around a little bit and then I went to college because that was expected of me.

Uh huh.

And-- and then in-- in college, you mentioned statistics, that you've taught statistics.

And statistics was my-- it was-- it pushed me to that breaking point, you know?

And it's been the downfall of many a person, yes.

DOUG STOWE: And I thought, well, there's got to be more to life than statistics.

So this-- this friend of mine who'd helped me restore an antique Ford-- I had a 1930 Model A Ford, he said, Doug, I don't know-- I was studying to be a lawyer.

So he said, I don't know why you would be studying to be a lawyer when it's so obvious to me that your brains are in your hands.

And that just threw me for a loop, because you never think of the brains and hands as being even closely related to each other.

But it stuck with me and it made me actually turn-- turn course.

And I went back to school where I'd been thinking of dropping out, and I took a class in pottery and just-- it was like my saving grace to have something that was so concrete to be engaged in each day.

And it-- it was like my salvation.

And so I moved to Eureka Springs as a potter, and then got sidetracked when the pottery studio that I was a part of went out of business.

And then I went back to my earlier love of woodworking and then stuck with it.

So you do-- we'll look at a few of these boxes.

So you do a lot of different kinds of boxes and they're absolutely beautiful, and we'll look at those in more detail later.

But most of these are-- these are all generally hardwood?

DOUG STOWE: Yes.

Why-- why-- why hard-- well, it's local and-- Arkansas hardwoods, I guess, but is it-- is that a choice?

You just don't prefer working with softer woods or-- DOUG STOWE: Well, one of the things that happened when I was first moving to Eureka Springs, I was kind of oriented towards being an environmentalist.

I really believed that the natural environment needs to be protected, and one of the things that was happening when I moved here Eureka Springs in 1975 was that there were large areas that were being cleared to create pastures.

And generally, some hardwood logs would be harvested, but the rest would be pushed down into ravines.

And then they were building motels and gas stations, and the same thing would apply there.

They just bulldoze the woods away.

And during that same time, they were-- the US forestry service was using defoliants that were left over from-- re-engineered from Vietnam, and were using them to clear, large tracts of hardwood forests to enable the pine trees to grow up.

And so I became very interested in promoting the idea that these woods that were being bulldozed and just wantonly destroyed were of value.

So I chose Arkansas hardwoods because I thought that they had a story that needed to be told.

Is there a lot of different species of hardwoods, I guess, you'd have access to and work with?

I have-- I wish I'd brought this one box with me.

It's what I call a reliquary of wood, because-- you remember that old thing, here's a church and here's a steeple, open the doors and here are my people, right?

And so this is designed on that, and it's designed as a small chapel.

And when you open the doors, there are 25 different kinds of Arkansas hardwoods inside.

JIM BAKER: Wow.

And that's just that's not counting the 19 kinds of oak that we have.

So the-- the broad array of species that we have here is amazing.

Just as an aside, which-- which species do you like to work with?

I mean, which ones are the ones that actually are the best for you to, at least for your talents and how you like to do things?

Well, I like to work with cherry because I love the way it-- it enriches to a darker color like this.

Yeah, that's a beautiful color, yeah.

And I like working with walnut because that's a wood that people recognize and they-- and they associate it with quality.

So something's made of walnut, people are like, whoa, that's made of walnut, right?

But I also like using all kinds of other woods like-- so this little box stem is made with sassafras, honey locust, walnut, maple, and sycamore all arranged in a box made of walnut.

And so I've made these little boxes for many years, and I like making them because it's kind of like having a collection of woods.

And it's introducing you to the idea that the various woods work together in harmony, you know?

It doesn't-- like a few years ago we had a late frost that killed all our acorns, you know?

Well, wildlife would have been in deep trouble if we didn't have other diversity to sustain it.

And so I really like just showing the value of diversity, and-- and that's why I did that really little reliquary of wood, to-- to show that they're 20-- Yeah, I was looking at it.

This box really called my eyes, and it's a beautiful piece of work.

And I was asking how you did the carvings and everything else.

Those are hand-carved like the flowers and-- and all the detail in it.

It's a-- now what-- what type of wood is this?

That's basswood, which is known as a very-- very good carving wood.

I could have done it out of walnut or some other wood that would have conveyed the detail the same way, but I like the contrast between the-- the edges that that provides.

That's a very simple carving in comparison to some of the things you see wood carvers do, but it's a very effective-- One of the things about box-making that's particularly appealing is that you can use it for whatever technique you want to learn.

So if you want to learn wood-carving, for example, make a small box.

If you want to learn different kinds of joinery like that used in those or this joint or that joint, you can apply those to furniture as well.

This is the first wood hinge I've seen.

Well, this-- this was done for an article in "Woodwork Magazine."

And at first, I thought wooden hinges look kind of clunky, and then I realized that clunky could be a good thing.

Yeah, really, wood works.

I like doing things that are new to me.

They may not be new to anybody else, but if you want to test your own abilities, and that's one of the things that's wonderful about craftsmanship, you know?

And a friend of mine had described it as developing islands of competence, you know?

JIM BAKER: That's a good way of describing it.

You learn how to do one thing, and then based on the competence that you get from that, you stretch out the same way a snail will stretch out a little bit to go from one place to another.

And you pull your shell in behind you, but you keep trying new things.

And that's-- and there are no limits to your potential in growth.

I always-- when I talked to artists-- and you certainly are an artist, one of the things I always like to ask is like, if you have a block of wood, I don't know, whatever it is, walnut or whatever it is, do you actually visualize in your mind what that's going to look like when you're done or do you just start working on it and it comes out like Eureka!

Pardon the pun.

DOUG STOWE: Yeah.

About, you know, what you expect?

How do you go about-- For me, it's a little bit of both.

So I have enough experience that I know certain things about a table, for example.

A table has to be a certain height in order-- depending on whether it's a hall table or bedside table or dining table, there are certain heights that work for those.

And you know a certain thing about the size that you want.

And then you know certain things about the type of joinery you want to use.

And so you take those things, and I'll often do a little sketch on the end of a board.

So I bring some visual element into it.

And then knowing those pieces, I can just start in.

But it's with a plan it's just not always like a full-blown sketch of it.

Yeah, sometimes there's creativity that takes place with all-- do you have to-- do you have to worry about the structural characteristics of the type of wood you're using?

I mean, some wood would fall apart a little bit easier than others.

Well, you have to worry about a number of things.

For one thing, the wood is-- you think that once the tree's cut down, it's dead, right?

But it's still moving, and that's something that a lot of woodworkers-- all woodworkers have to wrestle with that if they're working with solid woods, because the changes in moisture content cause it to swell or shrink across the wood grain and while it remains stable in length.

And so you have to know something about the structure of the wood and you have to know something about the moisture conditions under which it's stored.

And any single board you can look at as a science experiment, if you really want to-- JIM BAKER: Yeah.

And just because you say hardwood doesn't mean that all the woods are alike.

I mean, they have their own characteristics, right?

Well for example, this is made of basswood, but it's-- basswood is actually softer than some of the southern yellow pine that we get around here.

And it-- so it-- hardwood and softwood is not really an accurate description of it.

Hardwoods are generally harder, but not always harder.

So normally when you're saying hardwood, it's hard in relative to softer like pine is-- Relatively.

Relatively harder, but-- but-- and so all the different species-- you know, at one time, the-- the-- the pioneers that lived here, they would know what each tree was suited for, you know?

And if they wanted to make this, then they know what-- what tree to make it from, because Eric Sloan had said that at one time, you could tell the sound-- the type of tree being cut by the sound of an ax, because people were so attuned to the forest.

And now we tend to be kind of basically ignorant.

JIM BAKER: Like chainsaw-- You're not going to tell the sound of the-- well, maybe you could.

If you listened hard enough, you might be able to tell some-- Change-- I'll change gears a little bit.

I can talk about the actual-- the craftsman and the art-- artistic part of this forever, but you were very much involved in creating an artist guild and you're involved in a school.

Can you talk a little bit about the guild, how that came into being?

And then talk a little bit about the school, it's very fascinating.

Well, I had visited a friend who had told me he thought that Eureka Springs was a crisis waiting to happen, and it was waiting for the right people to be ready to pick up the pieces.

So that was a story that he told me, and I thought-- so I was driving back from visiting with this person, and I thought, well, who would be the right pieces-- people to pick up pieces?

I thought, well, of course the artist would be the one, because they'd be the ones to steer the community in a more favorable direction, taking into consideration the beauty of the place.

Right.

And so-- so when I got back, I thought, well, I read an article in the paper that said that someone was saying, well, we needed to have an art guild in town.

So I thought, well, why the heck don't we start one?

So I visited with some of my friends and I said, we're going to meet on the shores of Lake Leatherwood to form an art guild, and about 25 to 30 people showed up.

And then they elected me president because I was the only one that had a piece of paper that I could write their names on.

And so I ended up president of the guild for a short time, and-- and then I became president of the guild later on in its kind of waning days.

We were trying to redirect the guild into being able to become a 501(c)(3) nonprofit so that we could get grant funding.

And the IRS was not very cooperative in that.

So we disbanded that organization and formed the Eureka Springs School of the Arts or ESSA, which is where we are now.

JIM BAKER: Yeah, why don't you kind of describe some of the facilities and everything for you.

Well, we have a-- this, of course, is our woodworking machine room.

And-- Unfortunately we're here at a time when there's no students working away.

There are no students right here.

We have classes starting tomorrow, but in a room adjoining this, we have all kinds-- we have work benches in there, so people can do the real manual part, fitting of joints and things.

Then we have a large wood-turning studio that's just full of lathes, and that wood-turning is an extremely popular subject.

And adjoining this building we have blacksmithing and welding, which are also a very popular subject.

So then we have studios for painting and drawing, and a pottery studio, and a leather studio.

And then we have some multipurpose studio rooms.

And then we have instructor lodging that we just recently built, and it's going to be used for having residents during the off-season.

So we can have groups of more professional artists come in and work together on-- on collaborative projects.

Now most of your students are adults?

Yes.

We-- our-- our model for building the school is on the East Coast are Arrowmont and Penland and Haystack, and they're primarily adult schools.

We-- we do have parent-child classes.

So we're not a place where the people can come and drop their kids off and pick them up later.

We're a school where parents can come with their kids and learn together.

And so we do serve children, but only in that way.

And then also, some of our residents when they're here, serving as a resident-- serving a residency will go and liaison with the school to offer them-- JIM BAKER: Are mostly adult learners local people or do they come from different places?

DOUG STOWE: They come from all over.

We-- probably about 40% of our students come from Carroll County.

And then we get quite a number of students from Benton County-- Bentonville and Fayetteville.

And-- and I think the farthest my students have come from my box-making classes have been-- well, I had one from Las Vegas.

So, you know, we have-- JIM BAKER: --different places.

We're developing a national reputation.

You just have like a website that kind of explains-- we'll put that up on our-- yeah.

So we have a website and a Facebook page and tells what our offerings are.

And-- and-- It sounds like a very busy, busy place.

COVID has slowed us down, you know, but we're-- but we're everybody's recovering and we're recovering.

Why don't we-- I wanted to talk a little bit about-- you're also-- well, you teach some classes at another school.

And can you kind of talk about that for a minute?

And then I want to talk a little bit about the books that you write.

So in addition to-- so at ESSA, I teach probably four classes a year.

And other-- we have teachers that come from all over to teach here just as we have students come from all over to teach.

But my other teaching is at Clear Spring School, which is a small independent school in Eureka Springs.

And there, I teach kids from kindergarten through high school.

And so my-- my youngest students are five years old.

And-- and they're actually my most excited woodworkers.

The-- the kids just absolutely love coming to woodshop.

And-- and it's interesting, because children and adults, we think the children and adults would learn differently, but in actual fact, we all learn the same.

And-- and we learn from our interests, you know?

The first thing.

And what we really need are self-motivated, self-engaged, self-interested persons.

Yeah, and I think there's a whole subject of active learning and participating in your learning.

So we could talk about that for a long time as well, but I want to get to your books.

You've written several books.

Those are on the website.

On my website.

Yeah.

And there's a new book that you're coming out with about the wisdom of the hands.

And can you kind of explain what that book's about?

You alluded to earlier about the guy that told you about the wisdom in your hand, so I assume that's where that came from.

DOUG STOWE: And that's-- that's really what the book is about.

It's-- it's actually kind of written as a-- it's more or less-- I guess you could sort of call it a spiritual guide, because I think that we get more in touch with our spirit when we use every part of ourselves.

But it starts-- this book, "Wisdom of Our Hands," starts out with the idea that our hands and our brains are intricately entwined.

And it's not just me making this stuff up.

You know, I mean, I-- I rely on a lot of other experts that have observed the same things that I have.

For example, Einstein said my pencil and I are smarter than I am, you know, knowing that he couldn't carry everything in his brain.

He had to take the pencil and put it on paper and then reflect upon it.

And so the book starts out with an introduction, but then followed by an exploration of the materials, the tools, the techniques, and the principles of design, because those are kind of your-- your basics on-- my publisher, when he contacted me, wanted me to write a book that would just help woodworkers lift their work to a higher level.

But the way you do that is by approaching those four things, through the materials, the tools.

But then it's not enough just to think about these concrete things, you also have to think about other things, like your relationship to your community and to your family.

All of these have impact-- you know, I like to say no-- no artisan is an island unto himself.

JIM BAKER: Right.

You know, we are deeply entwined in our environment and in our relationships.

And those things are the source of our creativity.

So like in your case, the strong thing is the environmental kind of understanding and-- Two things, you know?

The-- the discovery that my hands are essential to learning, right?

And-- and then the importance of our natural environment and sustaining that learning.

And when it comes to the hands, you know?

I mean, I had mentioned earlier that my friend told me my brains were in my hands.

And then as a craftsman, I began exploring that.

And so I'd be working quietly alone in my shop, but thinking about the way I was interconnected with other things.

And I realized that the hands are not just hands, they're symbols of the whole person.

The full depth of engagement, right?

And so when the first mate says, all hands on deck, he's not talking about empty minds coming up, he's not talking about hands that are disconnected from the mind.

He wants people to come up that are in readiness to save the ship.

JIM BAKER: Right.

And so the hands are actually symbolic of the whole person.

And-- and so-- and I realized that as I was exploring my own relationship with my hands, that I wasn't alone.

Anaxagoras said that man is the wisest of all animals because he has hands.

And most people won't have heard of Anaxagoras, but he was a pretty Socratic Greek philosopher.

And-- and so-- so I realized that not only was-- it wasn't enough for me to just work with my own hands and understand how important they were to me, it became important to me that I share what I was discovering with other people.

Well, I-- we're out of time, and I think we could talk forever.

I really enjoy the conversation, and thank you for having us down today.

And I really do appreciate it.

Beautiful work, and it was really nice to learn a little bit about your philosophy and everything as well.

So thank you very much for being with me today.

Yeah.

I appreciate it, Jim.

JIM BAKER: Thank you.

We'll be back in a moment.

ANNOUNCER: Ozarks Public television and Missouri State University are proud to present "OzarksWatch Video Magazine," a locally-produced program committed to increasing the understanding of the richness and complexity of Ozarks culture.

Visit our website for more information.

I want to thank my guest Doug Stowe.

I hope you enjoyed our program, and that you'll join us next time for another edition of "OzarksWatch Video Magazine."

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