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Episode 35 - WHERE has all the COLOR GONE?
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Where has all the color and ornamentation gone??? Why has minimalism become so pervasive over the last century in America? Once, ornamentation and vivid color were celebrated hallmarks of art, architecture, and design—think Baroque paintings, intricate textiles, and the opulence of Art Nouveau. But with the rise of minimalism in the early 20th century, a dramatic change took hold. Clean lines, muted palettes, and functional simplicity replaced the flourish and decorative excess of previous eras. In this episode, we explore how and why ornamentation fell out of favor, and what that tells us about changing tastes, cultural values, and the evolving purpose of art itself.
To watch the YOUTUBE VIDEO of this episode and the irreverent & somewhat unpredictable AFTERSHOW, subscribe to our Patreon: http://patreon.com/user?u=91688467
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Transcript
Introductions and Icebreakers
00:00:16
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Hey, we're at it again, your favorite band of misfits and scientists and woodworkers and creatives all meshing together to take on an important topic. This is Woodworking is Bullshit.
00:00:30
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I'm your host, Paul Jasper, woodworker at night, scientist by day. And I'm here with my two co-hosts, Eric Curtis, fine furniture maker and content creator. And in the third chair tonight, someone who you know already, Jack Thomas, learning designer and former snooty college art professor with the pinky out right now.
00:00:51
Erocky
The former is definitely placed on the college professor and not the snooty, right?
00:00:56
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah.
00:00:56
Erocky
As as she as she sips from a goblet, highly ornamented.
00:01:00
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
She's snooty as fuck.
00:01:02
Jack Thomas
yeah Just for you guys.
00:01:04
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
S-A-F, snooty as fuck.
00:01:04
Erocky
But also, one of the best goddamn voices in podcasting, no? I mean, silky smooth.
00:01:09
Jack Thomas
Oh, thank you. o
00:01:11
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Jack, give us that buttery voice today.
00:01:14
Jack Thomas
I mean, just tell me what you want to say. What do you want me to say?
00:01:15
Erocky
Woo!
00:01:16
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Oh my God.
00:01:16
Erocky
Woo! Woo! that Save it for the Patreon feed. Come on, don't give that away.
00:01:21
Jack Thomas
ooh that's a good idea.
00:01:22
Erocky
i know.
00:01:22
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
It's getting hot here. Is that the whiskey or is that the...
00:01:24
Jack Thomas
so
00:01:24
Erocky
as
00:01:24
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
je Only Jags.
00:01:25
Erocky
This only Jax.
00:01:25
Jack Thomas
yes
00:01:29
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I see a new pivot in the career panel.
00:01:33
Jack Thomas
Look, we've all thought about selling feet pics lately, so no judgment.
00:01:37
Erocky
In this economy?
00:01:38
Jack Thomas
In this economy?
00:01:40
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
All right.
The Role of Color and Ornamentation in Art
00:01:41
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Well, with that intro, we're going to start with today's question. ah This is something, you know, how I think this came up just through a a naturally occurring chat between the three of us, right? On Instagram, we were just chatting about something.
00:01:55
Erocky
Yeah, you sent sent an Instagram reel.
00:01:55
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And I, judge was it Jack who sent it?
00:01:59
Erocky
Yeah?
00:02:00
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And it was kind of like, where did all the color go? And I think it was referencing like, the loss of vivid color use.
00:02:10
Erocky
I thought I was referencing that Paula Cole song.
00:02:13
Jack Thomas
Oh, I don't know that song.
00:02:13
Erocky
Where did all the color go?
00:02:17
Jack Thomas
Oh, who's got the good voice now?
00:02:18
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Right. Yeah.
00:02:20
Jack Thomas
no it was ah it was a a screenshot from that um that that Napoleon movie with Joaquin Phoenix.
00:02:20
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
anyway
00:02:25
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
right
00:02:26
Jack Thomas
And it's like, Jesus, why have all the movies and TV shows I've seen lately been so grayed out? Like they're dark and gray.
00:02:32
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
yeah All the colors are muted, like faded, pale versions.
00:02:35
Jack Thomas
Yeah.
00:02:37
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And so that got us thinking about, well, not only has color sort of gone away, but ornamentation, the use of ornamentation has gone away ah in the last century.
00:02:48
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And so we thought, you know what? These are really interesting questions because as artists, we think about how much to use color, how much to use ornamentation? Is it in, is it out? How does it make us feel? What's the point of it?
00:02:59
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And so all of these questions around the use of color and ornamentation, and this is not like some snooty pie in the sky issue, like color has direct links to our emotions and our reactions and ornamentation does too.
00:03:12
Jack Thomas
Thank you.
00:03:14
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Like you walk in some of these like cathedrals, like when I walked into the cathedral, ah the Duomo in Siena, there was so much ornamentation, I felt literally overwhelmed.
00:03:25
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
So our question for today's episode is Where has all ornamentation and color gone and why? Like, why did it fall out of fashion? Is it making a comeback?
00:03:38
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And can we explain what we've seen?
00:03:42
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
So we could start paying homage to Mary by defining ornamentation. Mary, this is for you, dear.
00:03:49
Jack Thomas
you
00:03:50
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Ornamentation is the elaboration of objects simply for the sake of visual pleasure. The point is to bring delight and happiness to those who see it and experience it.
00:04:04
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
That is the point. Bringing delight to the viewer.
00:04:08
Erocky
Did you, i this this may be an offensive question to you, buddy, and a preemptive apology. That sounds a little bit like a chat GPT definition.
00:04:17
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Mm-mm.
00:04:18
Erocky
No?
00:04:18
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Mm-mm.
00:04:19
Erocky
That's Webster's? Are you a Miriam guy?
00:04:22
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
um I think I got this from a series of different essays in the early 1900s. That's how it's defined in in a few essays I was reading.
00:04:27
Erocky
Interesting. can you Can you repeat it for me one more time? Because it was it sounded so computery that almost distracted me.
00:04:32
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Oh my God, you're the worst. The elaboration of objects, the elaboration of objects for the sake of visual pleasure. Period. Period.
00:04:44
Jack Thomas
I mean, that sounds about right to me.
00:04:44
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And I, allowed now I elaborated on it by saying, by saying the point, i like I wanted to put emphasis on it by saying the point is, the point of it is to bring delight and happiness to those who see it and experience it.
00:04:58
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Like that, it doesn't have other purposes other than delighting humans.
00:04:58
Erocky
Sure.
00:05:02
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah.
00:05:02
Erocky
So in first of all, where did all the color go is such a good question. um And my, like, I know the history of furniture. I know the evolution of, you know, action, reaction, ornamentation, simplification, et cetera, et cetera.
00:05:21
Erocky
I don't know. I'm not a smart enough man to know about how that applies to the two-dimensional arts. So, Jack, I'm wondering, like, when we say ornamentation and we're talking about art history, I assume there are the same movements, right, of, like, highly ornamented and then it gets a little bit...
00:05:42
Erocky
Maybe not, but but I guess I'm wondering what ornamentation looks like in a painting because when I hear ornamentation specifically, I think of that fancy little goblet you were just sipping out of, right?
00:05:43
Jack Thomas
They...
00:05:51
Jack Thomas
Mm-hmm.
00:05:51
Erocky
Like gold, ah vines, leaves, the acanthus leaf, carving, jewels, all of those kinds of things versus like in a painting, I can't quite visualize what ornamentation would look like.
00:06:05
Jack Thomas
Yeah, that's that's a good point. I mean, there's this there's this phrase, I can't remember who said this, but ah it really it hit me really hard. Somebody said that music is what we use to decorate time and art is what we use to decorate space.
00:06:18
Jack Thomas
And it's really good, right?
00:06:18
Erocky
Fuck, that's good.
00:06:20
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I remember that. That's very good.
00:06:21
Jack Thomas
Yeah. Can't remember who said it, but it was really good. So it's hard to say because to an extent, ah all of art, at least in my opinion, is ornamentation to begin with.
00:06:33
Erocky
Hmm.
00:06:34
Jack Thomas
I know that a lot of like conceptual artists are, you know, like rolling in their graves and also looking me up to dox me right now.
00:06:36
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Wow. Ooh. Hmm?
00:06:42
Jack Thomas
um But it's true. It's true. It is ah it is a decoration of space for for pleasure, for meaning, for conversation. But, but, all of the movements of art history regarding how minimalist they are, how maximalist they are, track really closely with those same movements in furniture and architecture.
00:07:00
Jack Thomas
Yeah.
00:07:00
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
So nobody was spared from these strong currents of of culture and preference.
00:07:03
Jack Thomas
No.
00:07:06
Jack Thomas
No.
00:07:06
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
It was, it it, it inserted itself in every form of art.
00:07:13
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah.
00:07:13
Erocky
That's not entirely surprising, right?
00:07:15
Erocky
Like if art is just a vehicle for reflection, self-reflection, broader cultural reflection, and the culture is headed in one direction, then all forms of art are going to follow those trends, you know, roughly.
00:07:15
Jack Thomas
No.
00:07:29
Jack Thomas
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, artists, artists, whether they like it or not, are basically cultural historians in a visual fashion, like the zeitgeist, like we, it's true, though.
00:07:37
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Oh, that's so good.
00:07:41
Jack Thomas
It's true. I mean, yeah, well, maybe I don't know.
00:07:42
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
you say that again? Sorry, seriously.
00:07:45
Jack Thomas
I've been drinking. So I don't know if i can repeat it exactly.
00:07:45
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
All artists are...
00:07:47
Jack Thomas
But all artists are cultural historians, whether they like it or cultural historians with within visual culture, whether they like it or not.
00:07:53
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I love that.
00:07:54
Erocky
in In what way? So are you suggesting that they are documenting history or or that they are not even intentional?
00:07:58
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yes.
00:07:59
Jack Thomas
Yes.
00:08:00
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yes.
00:08:04
Erocky
They're not documenting the history that has passed them by, but they are documenting their moment in time so that people can look back on it in the future and they understand where the zeitgeist is at.
00:08:09
Jack Thomas
The zeitgeist.
00:08:09
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And they don't even realize... Yes.
00:08:12
Jack Thomas
Exactly. But they don't realize they're doing it.
00:08:13
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And they probably... Yes.
00:08:15
Jack Thomas
They don't always realize they're doing it.
00:08:15
Erocky
Right, right, right, right.
00:08:16
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Right. Yeah.
00:08:16
Jack Thomas
Now, somebody like a photographer, like a documentary photographer knows that, you know, is overtly doing that thing on purpose.
00:08:22
Jack Thomas
But if you think about how people respond to the zeitgeist of a moment, right? Like, I mean, even even modernism, ah You know, in the in the wake of World War Two, right, it influenced furniture, it influenced architecture, it influenced art, and people were responding to this, like, great output of, ah you know, of industrial war material and the abundance of manufacturing in the post World War Two era in the United States.
00:08:47
Jack Thomas
It's all about that zeitgeist. And we are swept up in it, whether we like it or not, whether you're an architect, whether you're an artist, whether you're a furniture maker, it doesn't matter. You're both responding to it and you're leading the charge at the same time.
00:09:01
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Oh my God. How many like deep thinking points is Jack going to bring us this episode? Because that's already two that I'm like, I'm like, God damn.
00:09:08
Erocky
Buckle the fuck up.
00:09:09
Jack Thomas
It depends on how much more I drink.
00:09:09
Erocky
We're so we're nine minutes in.
00:09:10
Jack Thomas
We'll see.
00:09:11
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
All right. So maybe we could start at the question of, well, you know, or and this is, this episode is both about ornamentation and color. And what we're going to do is kind of weave between them back and forth. Right.
00:09:25
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Because I think they're largely related in many ways. For thousands of years, ornamentation was sort of the norm. Ornamentation was where it was. That's where it was at until the last 100 years or 150 years.
00:09:40
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
So you have 2000 years of ornamentation being the sort of de de facto norm of what made something special. And only in the last 100, 150 years ornamental.
00:09:51
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
did
00:09:54
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
vehemently avoided. And I guess the question is why? So, you know, ah did some research, Jack did some reading, ah Eric said, I'm just going to react to it and ask a lot of difficult questions.
00:10:04
Erocky
It's what I do. It's what I do.
00:10:09
Erocky
It's what I do best.
00:10:09
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
um so So we did some reading as to like, what are the reasons that ornamentation lost its popularity in the last hundred years? And here's like the top five reasons.
Ornamentation, Wealth, and Industrialization
00:10:20
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Number one, Historically, ornamentation was a sign of wealth. Ornamentation is difficult. It takes huge number of hours in craftsmanship and learned craftsmanship, like years of study, carvers. Eric, like you were saying, like carving, whether it's in stone or wood directly.
00:10:40
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
um So the wealthy who could afford those artisans would flaunt ornamentation in their house, in their clothing, textiles, as a way to show I'm special and you're not.
00:10:54
Erocky
So that brings up my first question, because as you're saying that we've lost the desire for ornamentation or it's lost its popularity over the last call it hundred years.
00:11:04
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah, let's say.
00:11:05
Erocky
We.
00:11:07
Erocky
Artifacts, given the nature that they're physical and they decay over time, have a recency bias that we can't deny. And objects that will be preserved are more likely to be the objects that were owned or commissioned and preserved by wealthy folks in the past.
00:11:25
Erocky
So... where Are we living in a moment or where are are we having a discussion where we're really seeing the degradation of ornamentation? Or is it just that in another thousand years, all of the things that are unornamented from our time are going to be seen as plain And the things that are highly valued are going to be Jack's little goblet.
00:11:48
Erocky
Like, is there a bias there? Because we just have more shit now from the last hundred years that we can look at and go, look at all the things that exist that are unornamented. Whereas, you know, a vase that's 4,000 years old, if it's a plain vase, it's less likely to get preserved in a museum.
00:12:06
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
That's an interesting point. I don't know the answer.
00:12:07
Jack Thomas
That is really interesting.
00:12:08
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah, I don't know the answer.
00:12:08
Jack Thomas
I wonder, okay.
00:12:09
Erocky
This is why I wing it, bitches. Let's go. Mm-hmm.
00:12:13
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Eric's already got us off track.
00:12:16
Jack Thomas
No, no, no. This is totally on track. And so here's here's here's my question.
00:12:18
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I'm just messing.
00:12:21
Jack Thomas
What we preserve and what so what ergo gives us that recency bias and yes I did just use the word ergo because I've been drinking. um What we preserve is what we deem to be valuable and what's deemed culturally valuable is generally unfortunately what wealthy people deem to be culturally valuable.
00:12:35
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
yeah
00:12:38
Erocky
ah
00:12:40
Jack Thomas
So now with wealthy people like minimalism, right, is a, you know, think about the the Eames chair, right, something like that.
00:12:44
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah.
00:12:47
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Right.
00:12:48
Jack Thomas
That's a sign of wealth, right? So that's what's going to be preserved, question mark. But if it were if the tables were turned, if, you know, gilded frames of Hudson Valley, Hudson River Valley, you know, landscape paintings were what we still valued, that's what would be preserved.
00:13:04
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I guess it's the the preservation of whether it's highly ornamented or not being the preference of the wealthy is going to go in phases. So I guess what is representative museums going to go in similar phases.
00:13:14
Erocky
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:13:15
Jack Thomas
Well, and what ends up in museums is really the dictate of the wealthy.
00:13:19
Erocky
ah
00:13:20
Jack Thomas
It's not dictated by us as people.
00:13:20
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
That's a good point.
00:13:22
Jack Thomas
It's by the the donors who contribute to museums and the rich curators that run them.
00:13:22
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
That's a good point.
00:13:25
Erocky
And and not for nothing, the the political entity that is a museum or a gallery, et cetera, et cetera. People who donate objects to those entities want to seem this is gross generalization. So forgive me if you are a wealthy person who's not a dick.
00:13:41
Erocky
But generally speaking, when when they donate those objects. They want to donate objects of value so that they feel like they're contributing.
00:13:52
Erocky
And our innate bias is to assume that a more highly ornamented object has a higher value. The only reason that an Eames chair, ah sure, again, I'm speaking in gross generalities, but the only reason that we think an Eames chair has value is because the Eameses have a name.
00:13:59
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Well,
00:14:00
Jack Thomas
Sometimes. Yeah. yeah
00:14:09
Erocky
In 100 years, if nobody knows who the Eameses are anymore, then they're not going to have any value.
00:14:09
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
yes.
00:14:14
Erocky
And somebody is going to look at that chair and they go, it's a fucking chair. Like, who gives a shit? Why does it matter? Whereas if a highly ornamented chair happens to be preferd preserved in somebody's attic for 200 years, somebody stumbles across it and they go, well, this is this might be something valuable.
00:14:30
Erocky
You know, like there's there's a bias there.
00:14:30
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Well, wait e Eric, are you seeing, sorry, are you seeing the bias comes from the ornamentation itself or it's the timing or what he's saying?
00:14:36
Erocky
No, I think we have an innate, we have an innate bias toward beauty being a valuable thing. And think ornamentation leans towards that.
00:14:42
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And ornamentation is, yeah, I agree.
00:14:43
Erocky
And so when people, when people donate to, them i kind of went off on a tangent there, but again, yeah we know how I do.
00:14:45
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah.
00:14:50
Erocky
When people donate to a museum, part of the donation is invariably that they want to feel like they're donating something of value.
00:14:53
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Hmm.
00:15:01
Erocky
And you have if you have two objects next to each other that are the same, but one is ornamented, they might feel biased towards donating the ornamented object.
00:15:09
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
So not only is the is the historical record biased, but what people contribute is biased.
00:15:14
Erocky
i think I think so, right?
00:15:16
Jack Thomas
i think
00:15:16
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Well, maybe.
00:15:16
Erocky
Like...
00:15:17
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I mean, this is more a study on like what what why museum collections are what they are.
00:15:22
Erocky
Sure. But I think that's part of it. If we're going to talk about why ornamentation has gone away, we have to look at what we're what we're basing the the contrast about.
00:15:24
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah, it is. Yeah, yeah. All right, so... All right. Well, let's let's let's go back to why, because you brought up why is it going away? So if the wealthy always valued ornamentation because it was unattainable for the working class person, well, then came the industrial revolution, right?
00:15:45
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And now... ornamentation could be mass produced and the value immediately dropped of ornamentation. If, you know, Jack wrote a ah great note in our, in our, you know, outline today, the value is lost to the wealthy,
00:16:03
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
class in part because mass production allowed the kitchenification of objects once considered art and craft only attainable by the wealthy. Once the working class can afford it, it becomes gauche, it is not sought after, and therefore ornamentation tanked.
00:16:21
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
So the industrial revolution is really what brought upon the loss of value, like like that got very much correlated with the loss of value of ornamentation.
00:16:21
Erocky
Yeah.
00:16:29
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
On top of that, in the early there were couple, there were a couple um I guess, other influences happening. So you had, for example, a few people saying that there was purity or morality component around ornamentation. for you know Eric, you remember our our episode about the shakers.
00:16:50
Erocky
Yep.
00:16:50
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
They believed ornamentation was sin, period.
00:16:50
Erocky
Yep.
00:16:53
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And that's why shaker furniture is devoid of almost all ornamentation. Not only that, but um there was...
Critiquing 'Ornament and Crime' by Adolf Loos
00:17:00
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
an essay written and this this borders on like purity morality, but also a fad cultural perspective. In 1908, there was this famous essay written by Austrian architect Adolf Luz, who called his essay ornamentation and crime. Okay.
00:17:18
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And okay and he was so viscerally against ornamentation. And I want to read for you the major points of his essay. And I want your reaction to each one of them.
00:17:31
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
All right. And this, this falls under the, the, the subject of like the fad or like cultural tide is turning against ornamentation through essays written by influential key opinion leaders, right? Like Adolfo's.
00:17:44
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
So here's the major points of his essay. And I want your reaction to him.
00:17:50
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Um, ornamentation is a primitive instinct. So he basically says, he basically says decoration is like primitive.
00:17:55
Erocky
Agreed.
00:18:00
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Like he talks about the Papuans of New Guinea, like tattooing their faces and children drawing on themselves with like ornamentation as if it's like, as if it's like some primitive garbage and that us in the modern society are better than that.
00:18:07
Erocky
Yep.
00:18:09
Erocky
Yep.
00:18:19
Erocky
Oh, see, that's an innate fucking bias that it is.
00:18:22
Jack Thomas
Huge bias.
00:18:22
Erocky
I agree with him. I agree with him 100% that it is ah innate that we have that instinct to decorate. And I think when we when we care about something, when we find passion in something, we want to make it more beautiful.
00:18:36
Erocky
But then to equate that to these people aren't white and they were decorating. So we're above that is like that's some fucking when was this asshole around?
00:18:46
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
1908. All right.
00:18:47
Erocky
Yeah, fuck this guy. Fuck this guy.
00:18:48
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
ah
00:18:49
Erocky
Straighten the asshole.
00:18:50
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
all Here's the next thing he said, Eric. He said that modern individuals who engage in excessive decorations, such as tattooing, are not only criminals, but degenerates.
00:19:04
Erocky
20 bucks says this guy like went to orgy parties.
00:19:06
Jack Thomas
ah
00:19:06
Erocky
Like there's something about this guy. He had to balance out his need for excess in some way. There was something he was doing. And now he's like people who ornament highly suck.
00:19:17
Jack Thomas
Look, that is so... Okay, that's incredibly biased. I mean, I'm also a very tattooed person, but that's neither here nor there. The body is a temple, so why not fucking decorate it?
00:19:28
Jack Thomas
We've been doing it since the beginning of time.
00:19:29
Erocky
Let's fucking go
00:19:32
Jack Thomas
Come on.
00:19:33
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
All right.
00:19:33
Erocky
Honestly.
00:19:34
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Next up. I have no tattoos and I know Eric and Jack both have a lot of tattoos. So I'm the only non-degenerate in this conversation. of
00:19:43
Jack Thomas
That is not true.
00:19:44
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Next up is that it's economically wasteful. Ornamentation leads to unnecessary labor, lower wages, and rapid product obsolescence, making it economically inefficient.
00:19:56
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
ah inefficient
00:19:57
Erocky
Sure, sure, sure. Let me know how efficient your workers are when they're fucking depressed all goddamn day long because you suck as a human being. Get the fuck out of here with that argument.
00:20:07
Jack Thomas
Absolutely, absolutely.
00:20:08
Erocky
It's bullshit.
00:20:09
Jack Thomas
Okay, so check this with the advent of like mass manufacturing, people stopped making whole things.
00:20:16
Erocky
Mm hmm.
00:20:16
Jack Thomas
We started to make pieces of things as human beings.
00:20:19
Erocky
Yep.
00:20:20
Jack Thomas
And consequently, a lot of us stopped being whole people, or feeling like whole people.
00:20:24
Erocky
Yep. Yep.
00:20:26
Jack Thomas
There's a lot to unpack there about the how like that's a whole episode.
00:20:29
Erocky
That's a whole episode right there.
00:20:30
Jack Thomas
Like when you when you make your labor fractional, your creativity fractional, how can you expect to become anything but a fractional human being?
00:20:39
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Oh, Jack, that's the third one. That's fucking tight.
00:20:43
Jack Thomas
That's a whole other episode, though.
00:20:43
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I love that.
00:20:44
Jack Thomas
You're right.
00:20:44
Erocky
That is, that is, we're going to run that back and putting that on the queue.
00:20:45
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I love, I love that. I love that. Okay, next up. Lou says that um ah this one's really, to me, crazy.
00:20:57
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Lack of ornamentation signifies cultural. So minimalism now. Minimalism signifies cultural and spiritual refinement. Modern individuals.
00:21:08
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Modern individuals. express creativity in higher arts, such as Beethoven's music rather than decorative design. And I'm like, wait a minute.
00:21:17
Erocky
wait wait wait Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
00:21:18
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
00:21:19
Jack Thomas
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,
00:21:19
Erocky
Well, hold the fucking phone. he's He's cool with Beethoven, but he's not cool with visual ah ornamentation.
00:21:26
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah, I'm like, if if you could if if you could rank Beethoven's music on minimal or ornamented, it would be severely ornamented.
00:21:27
Erocky
This guy's a fucking hypocrite. Fuck this guy.
00:21:28
Jack Thomas
hypocrite huge
00:21:36
Jack Thomas
severely
00:21:36
Erocky
Mm-hmm.
00:21:37
Erocky
Also, there's a difference between minimalism and ah like asceticism. You know, there's like two, two, because minimalism, there's still ornamentation and minimalism. But by we're going to marry a bitch by its definition, it's ornamentation is minimal, but it's not non-existent. And to just outright deny any ornamentation or pleasure, you're just like, it's it's just masochism. It's it's self-harm.
00:22:06
Jack Thomas
I mean, this is a good point.
00:22:06
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
but i was
00:22:07
Jack Thomas
Like, look at it. Okay. If you look at an Eames chair, right? It has, um ah what would you call it? Tufting, you know, like the the little buttons that hold things in place.
00:22:12
Erocky
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. It didn't have to.
00:22:15
Jack Thomas
Yeah, it didn't have to. could have been just a flat-ass, flat-ass piece of leather, right? But it's not.
00:22:18
Erocky
Yeah.
00:22:19
Jack Thomas
It's not aesthetic.
00:22:20
Erocky
Yeah, you look at ah shaker furniture again. There's minimalism.
00:22:24
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
There's some, there's some ornamentation.
00:22:25
Erocky
There's ornament. it Anytime you look at a fucking shaker cabinet, you know what those buttons are doing?
00:22:26
Jack Thomas
Mm-hmm.
00:22:30
Erocky
They're contrasting the rest of the fucking cabinet face, right? So often you see those with like a walnut cabinet or a walnut pole on a pine drawer front, or you see a little bit, just like a little touch, like a little texture on one side of the thing.
00:22:44
Erocky
That's ornamentation, but it's done minimally.
00:22:49
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
So it's a sliding scale. And his last point is that he made a call in the early 1900s to all of his architect friends and all of society a call for simplicity.
00:23:01
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
He champions minimalism as the future of society, as the future of design, urging artists to focus on functional, meaningful creativity rather than ornamentation.
00:23:13
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
So you can see with this kind of, like with this kind of, these kinds of essays hitting the main culture, you know, and and people talking about it and this kind of ideology, like sinking into the masses, you can see why, well, the,
00:23:27
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
well the you know, the the industrialization of ornamentation, making it less valuable to the haves versus the have-nots. You can see there's essays being written against it from a purity sense, from an economic sense.
00:23:41
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
It's wasteful.
00:23:42
Erocky
but but
00:23:42
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
We've got streamline society.
00:23:42
Erocky
But what is what does functional creativity mean?
00:23:43
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Like, you can just see... I know, Eric, but you could just see like there's like a tsunami of in like I'm just trying to like piece it all together. It's it seems like there was just ah in the early nineteen hundreds there seemed to be this tsunami of influence against ornamentation, which had been the norm for 2000 years.
00:23:51
Erocky
Sure, sure.
00:24:00
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And so we started a century of minimalism.
00:24:00
Erocky
But like...
00:24:05
Erocky
So we are talking about an era. I don't disagree with anything you just said. I think the industrial revolution has a huge impact on this.
00:24:10
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Hmm.
00:24:13
Erocky
I think your point earlier about ornamentation no longer having value is an excellent point. Like I, I always come back, you know, the, the sneetches by Dr. Seuss, you know, that, that story, right?
00:24:23
Jack Thomas
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:24:25
Erocky
Like it's that once, once everybody has a star on their belly, what's the fucking point?
00:24:29
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah.
00:24:30
Erocky
Yeah.
00:24:30
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah.
00:24:30
Erocky
and And so like you have this idea. So it's it's this real tense moment in time where for the first time in human history, everybody can have everything like everything is available.
00:24:41
Erocky
This this new horizon is available.
00:24:41
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Good point.
00:24:42
Jack Thomas
who
00:24:43
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Good point.
00:24:44
Erocky
And they I think they were really contending with the reality of if everybody has everything, nothing has value, nothing has meaning.
00:24:51
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Hmm.
00:24:52
Erocky
And so like maybe this functional creativity thing is, is like Henry Ford saying everybody, every, and anybody can have any color of model T they want as long as it's black, right? Like you, you all get the same fucking thing, but be grateful for it because this is the first time in history that everybody can afford a fucking car.
00:25:11
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
So Eric, are we at a point right now where you can have ornamentation, you can have minimalism, like the masses, right? You can buy ornamented shit, you can buy minimal shit, you can make your house look classic, you can make your house look modern minimal.
00:25:24
Jack Thomas
But it's a facsimile.
00:25:24
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
and So it is a, yeah, that's true.
00:25:26
Jack Thomas
It's not the real thing.
00:25:27
Erocky
Mm-hmm. That's an interesting point.
00:25:29
Jack Thomas
Yeah.
00:25:30
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Well, it's the real thing, but it's not the original thing, i suppose.
00:25:31
Erocky
Say, say, well, ah it's...
00:25:34
Jack Thomas
You can have a... you there' there There are people who build a McMansion and put PVC Doric columns on the front.
00:25:41
Erocky
Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're house poor.
00:25:41
Jack Thomas
You know? Their house port...
00:25:43
Erocky
They can't afford to to furnish it.
00:25:43
Jack Thomas
Well, even... But some people would say their taste poor as well.
00:25:45
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Hmm.
00:25:47
Erocky
Well, sure, sure.
00:25:48
Jack Thomas
it I mean, and they're right. They are.
00:25:49
Erocky
i Yeah, I wouldn't disagree.
00:25:50
Jack Thomas
But, you know, yeah yeah no offense to anybody that, you know, has actually total offense, total offense, actually, if you have PVC Doric columns.
00:25:51
Erocky
Yeah.
00:25:54
Erocky
No offense offense. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Please be offended.
00:25:57
Jack Thomas
But that's it. So the pendulum swings back and forth, right? It's like, as soon as something can be mass manufactured, and everyone can afford it, then everybody tries to afford it, and they get it.
00:26:08
Jack Thomas
But then when they get it, and it's available to the masses, rich people are like, Oh, now that, you know, that's gauche.
00:26:14
Erocky
Yeah.
00:26:15
Jack Thomas
Doric columns are gauche now.
00:26:15
Erocky
It's the Sneetches, dog.
00:26:17
Jack Thomas
It's the Sneetches.
00:26:17
Erocky
That's the fucking... That's the whole thing right there.
00:26:19
Jack Thomas
A thousand percent. Yeah.
00:26:20
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
So, so
00:26:20
Erocky
Once everybody can do it, it's no longer valuable, and so we move away from it.
00:26:24
Jack Thomas
Yep.
00:26:24
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
okay, so so now we're, Eric, I love what you said. We're at a time now where everything's available.
00:26:30
Erocky
Yeah. But I also...
00:26:31
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
So where where did the rich people go next?
00:26:33
Erocky
Well, so to Jack's point, like it's, it's a facsimile of the thing, right?
00:26:39
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Okay, yeah, yeah, totally, totally.
00:26:39
Erocky
So everybody can have it. And so I don't think it's dissimilar from what it was a hundred years ago, because you can, you can mass produce, you know, anything, literally you can 3d print anything you want.
00:26:51
Erocky
We're three, d we're actively 3d printing actual meat, like at this point, right? Like we're science is fucking wild. Uh, so nothing is off the table. So I don't know where it goes, but I think what is we're living in a moment now, which is different from the moment 100 years ago and push back on me if you disagree with this.
00:27:10
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
It is.
00:27:12
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Now it is.
00:27:12
Erocky
But I think I I think where it's different is we've we have grown up with everything.
00:27:21
Erocky
And so we are now for the first time developing kind of I don't want to call it taste because I don't think it is taste. But there is something, there's a sense, like an instinct that we have that senses the difference between manufactured ornamentation and real value ornamentation, right?
00:27:42
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
oh
00:27:43
Jack Thomas
Hmm.
00:27:43
Erocky
Like there's there's, you can, and like now maybe, maybe this is a biased point because all three of us are skilled craftspeople in our fields, but...
00:27:43
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Oh.
00:27:51
Erocky
you can, without even thinking about it, spot a CNC'd carving versus a handmade carving.
00:27:58
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Hmm.
00:27:59
Erocky
You can spot a ah machined you know block print versus something that's been done by hand.
00:28:01
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Hmm.
00:28:06
Erocky
Even if both of those block prints are quote unquote produced, they're multiples, but you can sense a difference,
00:28:11
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah. Yeah.
00:28:15
Erocky
And that immediately drops its value once there's no involved.
00:28:18
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
You know,
00:28:20
Erocky
there's no skill involved
00:28:22
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Eric, to your point.
00:28:22
Jack Thomas
does it who But to whom does it drop the value is the question.
00:28:25
Erocky
Well, that's the question. Somebody who can identify, like, because if I make a thing and I'm the only one making it and it's not been mass produced, like I've had clients say, I don't want you to reproduce this this piece.
00:28:29
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Hmm.
00:28:36
Jack Thomas
Sure.
00:28:36
Erocky
And it's like, well, I wasn't going to anyway. So that's kind of a weird thing to say, but you can like, that's the sense of it, right? Is it's one of one and I don't want it to be more than one because then it loses its value.
00:28:46
Jack Thomas
Yeah.
00:28:46
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
So I...
00:28:46
Erocky
So if you can sense that value, then...
00:28:49
Jack Thomas
But I mean to the end consumer, the the person who is exhibiting the taste, right? So let's think about it like this. Let's say that um I'm your average consumer and I'm on Etsy and surfing Etsy and I want to find a block print, something that looks like a block print, has the aesthetic of a block print anyway, right?
00:29:08
Jack Thomas
I see a handmade block print, woodblock print on Etsy and it's a hundred fucking dollars.
00:29:15
Erocky
Mm-hmm.
00:29:15
Jack Thomas
I don't either don't know or don't care that this artist spent 25 hours carving this block and only printed five of them. I'm not going to spend a fucking $100. If I go over to somebody else's Etsy page and I see something with a similar aesthetic, a digital block print, you know if you will, and it's 20 bucks, I'm probably going to slam the buy button on that because to me, it gives me the vibe, the aesthetic that I'm looking for.
00:29:40
Jack Thomas
Now, obviously, I'm not talking about myself. I just make my own fucking block print. but
00:29:44
Erocky
Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure.
00:29:44
Jack Thomas
you know But but it's about it's the trappings is the trappings of wealth is the trappings of craftsmanship without the real craftsmanship.
00:29:46
Erocky
But that is a point.
00:29:53
Erocky
But there's a... Ooh. Ah, you just dismantled my point with your last fucking clause there.
00:29:59
Jack Thomas
Sorry, dude.
00:30:01
Erocky
Because I can't disagree with that. Um...
00:30:03
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Eric, Eric, this is exactly... Do you remember I posted on... You may not remember, but I posted... ah carving on the side of a jewelry coffin and one I did by hand entirely and one I did on the CNC and I i held them up.
00:30:13
Erocky
Oh, I remember. Yeah. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
00:30:20
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
they One was on top of the other and I asked the audience, would you pay more for the hand carved piece?
00:30:22
Erocky
Yeah.
00:30:32
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And in the comments, 80% eighty percent said, I would absolutely pay more. It's more meaningful. It's more special. You can see the hands of the maker, tiny imperfections. It feels different. It looks different. I would pay for it. But these people didn't fucking pay for it.
00:30:49
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Like the rubber, you know, it's easy to say that, but when the rub, yeah.
00:30:49
Erocky
And that's what I was about to say. Uh-huh.
00:30:53
Jack Thomas
Like, okay, pony up.
00:30:53
Erocky
It's, well, so it's also a question of like, well, two things.
00:30:54
Jack Thomas
but
00:30:57
Erocky
Number one, your audience is probably biased towards your work and the majority of your work is is hand done.
00:31:02
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Hmm.
00:31:02
Erocky
So they are probably, they're following you because they like that handmade touch, the majority of them.
00:31:03
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Hmm.
00:31:07
Erocky
But the other thing is, If you say, would you pay more for X versus Y? And they go, of course, I would pay more for the handmade thing. And you go, OK, the CNC one is $400.
00:31:14
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah.
00:31:19
Erocky
And they go, OK, yeah, I would happily pay $500 for the hand carved one. Right. Like oh multitudes, my guy, multitudes.
00:31:27
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah.
00:31:28
Erocky
And and i so I think some part of that is probably a lack of education.
00:31:32
Jack Thomas
Which gets into the taste issue.
00:31:32
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Well.
00:31:34
Jack Thomas
You know, it's like, do you have to be educated to have taste? And like, is that is that an elitist idea to begin with? Right?
00:31:41
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
That just made me cringe a little bit.
00:31:42
Erocky
Yeah, dude.
00:31:43
Jack Thomas
I know.
00:31:43
Erocky
Physically.
00:31:44
Jack Thomas
oh i know.
00:31:44
Erocky
Physically.
00:31:45
Jack Thomas
It's like it's like the lowbrow, highbrow, middlebrow kind of argument, you know? I'm thinking about...
00:31:50
Erocky
Well, in fairness, I'm not highly educated and I feel like I have decent taste.
00:31:50
Jack Thomas
and and and so
00:31:54
Jack Thomas
You do, you do. But you're visually educated. You might, you know, you're, there's, which, which more and more people are becoming visually educated in in our culture, right?
00:31:57
Erocky
Fair. Fair.
00:32:02
Jack Thomas
Because of social media.
00:32:02
Erocky
Hmm.
00:32:04
Jack Thomas
But I think that part of this part of ah Paul, part of your audience, like saying, yeah, I'm willing to pay more for the handmade thing. Yeah, there's a little bit of bias, but there's also the pendulum swinging as a reaction to our machine age, right?
00:32:14
Erocky
Mm-hmm.
00:32:15
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yes, yes, that's it.
00:32:16
Erocky
Mm-hmm.
00:32:16
Jack Thomas
Like post-industrial, post-industrial revolution,
00:32:17
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yes, very good.
00:32:19
Jack Thomas
We're seeing like, you know, art deco, Beaux-Arts movement, arts and crafts, right? All of these things in revolt to the industrial revolution, to the machine age.
00:32:26
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah, yeah.
00:32:27
Jack Thomas
We again want to like have this sumptuous of nature and these natural color palettes and everything to counteract the chrome and the black and the gray and, you know, all all that shit that my husband really loves.
00:32:30
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yes, yes.
00:32:38
Jack Thomas
But um
00:32:41
Jack Thomas
bless bless his architect heart. um
00:32:43
Erocky
See, even if you are educated, maybe you don't have taste, you know?
00:32:44
Jack Thomas
This is that. Well, and that that's absolutely.
00:32:47
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
ah
00:32:48
Erocky
It's fine. I don't know him. I can make fun of him.
00:32:50
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
It's getting hot in here, y'all.
00:32:51
Jack Thomas
late
00:32:51
Erocky
he's He's not not going to sleep with me tonight. It's fine.
00:32:53
Jack Thomas
Look, well, he's not not going to sleep with me either.
00:32:54
Erocky
Sure.
00:32:55
Jack Thomas
So just
00:32:57
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
It's getting hot in here, y'all.
00:33:01
Jack Thomas
he look, he and I, he and i both are visually educated as far as taste goes and both have like terminal degrees in different kinds of design. And we have completely different opinions about ornamentation and color and how those things interact with taste.
00:33:13
Erocky
sure
00:33:15
Erocky
Sure.
00:33:16
Jack Thomas
I think that some people just react to the zeitgeist in a different way. You know, Greg as an architect is like, very much embracing the not only the current moment, the machine moment, but also all of modernism, you know, that has that has come before me.
00:33:30
Jack Thomas
I'm like, fuck, I spend most of my day looking at a computer that has no dimension, has digital color that's being shined in my eyes by some little fucking pixels.
00:33:35
Erocky
Mm-hmm.
00:33:40
Jack Thomas
I want to touch something that has actual texture.
00:33:42
Erocky
Mm-hmm.
00:33:43
Jack Thomas
I want to carve wood. I want to see paint that has depth to it.
00:33:45
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah.
00:33:47
Jack Thomas
I want to touch velvet. God damn it.
00:33:49
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah.
00:33:49
Erocky
so
00:33:49
Jack Thomas
You know?
00:33:50
Erocky
So is is part of that,
00:33:50
Jack Thomas
Yeah.
00:33:53
Erocky
The like, let's liken this back to like different learning styles. and Some people are visual learners. Some people are physical learners.
00:34:03
Erocky
Some people just need like rote memorization, whatever the thing is. I know I'm very much a physical learner. And if I do a thing, once you can explain it to me all day long.
00:34:14
Erocky
I'll fucking forget it. If I do a thing once, I will remember it. Right.
00:34:19
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Hmm.
00:34:19
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Hmm.
00:34:19
Erocky
If my hands physically do it, I will remember it.
00:34:19
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Hmm.
00:34:19
Jack Thomas
Mm-hmm.
00:34:22
Erocky
So I wonder if part of that is like you, your hands work in a certain way and you need to do the thing. And so you're drawn to that. Maybe his brain is wired to learn in a different way.
00:34:34
Erocky
And that kind of leads itself to two different philosophies over time just because people's brains are wired differently. So is it a right or wrong? Or is it just like a we have an education system right now that highly favors people who can sit in a chair and read a book and regurgitate information?
00:34:51
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Well, I would think Jack can do that. She just is so sick of...
00:34:54
Erocky
Oh, yeah, im I'm certainly I'm certainly not saying, Jack, that you can't do that.
00:34:55
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
yeah like
00:34:56
Jack Thomas
No, no, no. I know. I see. I see what you're saying. I mean, part of it is the bias of architecture school,
Modernism in Architecture
00:35:02
Jack Thomas
right?
00:35:02
Erocky
Hmm.
00:35:03
Jack Thomas
Like, I kind of wonder what would happen if somebody who is like a highly ornamented, um somebody who makes highly ornamented furniture now was like, you know what, I want to go back to school to become an architect.
00:35:14
Jack Thomas
How that would go. i think the bias of ah modernism, bias towards modernism in architecture school in general, and maybe, i don't know if Mary would say the same thing, but in the architecture industry in general, it is that way. So many architects have been churned out of architecture school since the 1960s, 70s, 80s with this bias towards modernism.
00:35:36
Erocky
But but how many like how much of the push to continue modernism in architecture is based solely on the fact of like, my clients are the ones who are going to pay my fucking bills, and I just got to give them the thing that they want.
00:35:50
Jack Thomas
I mean, that is true to an extent for sure.
00:35:51
Erocky
Right? Like, like they are running businesses in fairness to them.
00:35:52
Jack Thomas
Yeah.
00:35:54
Jack Thomas
Yeah.
00:35:55
Erocky
um So like, I don't know, I can't I maybe you have a ah much deeper understanding of the world of architecture and and how the world views architecture than I do given you're married to an architect. But I imagine 500 years from now people just woke up. There's nobody left on the earth, but people just woke up and they looked around and they saw, you know, ah whatever the, the Sears tower, the empire state building.
00:36:26
Erocky
And they saw couple of Frank Geary pieces, right? They'd be like, yeah, those ones are fucking tall squares, rectangles. Cool. But like this one over here, look how fucking wild this is.
00:36:38
Erocky
Right. That that lean to it.
00:36:38
Jack Thomas
Absolutely.
00:36:39
Erocky
And now Frank Gehry is working kind of he's splitting the hairs between like modernism, but also highly ornamented buildings because they're fucking wild. But I feel like we're naturally drawn to that thing that's crazy and draws our eye.
00:36:50
Jack Thomas
But look, it has an organic shape. It has an organic shape.
00:36:55
Erocky
Sure, but it's not like brutalism, you know, it's not like fucking obelisk.
00:36:59
Jack Thomas
Yeah.
00:36:59
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
No.
00:37:00
Jack Thomas
Yeah.
00:37:00
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Eric, you keep cut dancing around this point. You're basically saying, without saying it directly, humans prefer ornamentation.
00:37:07
Erocky
I think we do.
00:37:07
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
That's what I hear you saying.
00:37:08
Erocky
I think we do in the same way that we prefer like soft edges. Like I think, yeah.
00:37:12
Jack Thomas
It's evolutionary.
00:37:13
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I think it is. i agree.
00:37:14
Erocky
and And I, and I think part of the age we live in is fighting like,
00:37:19
Erocky
Because we came into the 20th century and we had this idea of we were reaching peak humanity and like now we transcend we can transcend everything to the point where we are now dealing with the ramifications of understanding that we might not actually be able to control nature.
00:37:26
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
We can transcend our impulses,
00:37:37
Erocky
For the last hundred years, we were promised that like hurricanes, not a big deal. We can build fucking levees. We can build walls. We can, we can keep nature at bay. And now we're going, oh fuck, we can't do that. And I think similarly in the, in the design world, in the art world, we had this idea of like ornamentation is old world.
00:37:57
Erocky
That's, that's, you know, bullshit that's behind us now. Modernism, minimalism.
00:38:02
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
is the new...
00:38:03
Erocky
And yeah. And we're, we're contending with the fact of like, yeah, I think it's just innate in us that we prefer ornamentation.
00:38:09
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
It is. but look look Look at how long it lasted. The ornamentation period was 2,000 years plus. The minimalism is 100 years plus. Come on.
00:38:17
Jack Thomas
way, way longer than 2000 years plus.
00:38:19
Erocky
Uh-huh.
00:38:19
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah, yeah, that's that's true, true.
00:38:19
Jack Thomas
So, so, oh, even, even older than that, even older than that.
00:38:19
Erocky
Uh-huh. I mean, we've got 4,000-year-old Greek vases.
00:38:22
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
True, true.
00:38:23
Erocky
You know?
00:38:23
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Sorry, right.
00:38:24
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah.
00:38:25
Erocky
The Lion Man.
00:38:25
Jack Thomas
So, I mean, let's, let's look at like, let's look at literally 12,000 BC, right? Let me, let me take us way, way back in art history. 12,000, approximately 12,000 BC.
00:38:36
Jack Thomas
There are these early, the earliest pieces of ornamented art that were, that were crafted instead of merely painted on a two-dimensional surface were knives. They were functional. They were knives for hunting, for skinning things, whatever.
00:38:52
Jack Thomas
But here's where it gets really, really primal. And of course, it goes back to, you know, who's going to get to have sex with who,
Historical and Cultural Significance of Ornamental Objects
00:38:58
Jack Thomas
like everything does, right?
00:38:58
Erocky
Sure.
00:39:00
Jack Thomas
Whoever had the most beautiful knife, if it was made of this beautiful precious stone, if it was carved to have a better, more pleasing curve in the way it sat in your hand, that's the guy that got to bone whoever he wanted.
00:39:17
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I love it.
00:39:19
Jack Thomas
Bottom line.
00:39:21
Erocky
Biggest knife wins the day, baby.
00:39:21
Jack Thomas
So, no, no, no, not biggest, not biggest. It's really all about how you use it.
00:39:25
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Most ornamented.
00:39:26
Jack Thomas
Yeah, exactly.
00:39:26
Erocky
ae
00:39:29
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
ah so then, Go ahead.
00:39:30
Erocky
So, well...
00:39:30
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
so wait go ahead eric
00:39:31
Erocky
Okay. Well, I was, i mean, to your point, Jack, like on the last episode, I brought up the, the lion man, the, the statue.
00:39:32
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
ahead
00:39:39
Erocky
Um, and like but Paul, the, the point of that was, you know, this was an object that was carved in their free time because they needed to express something and presumably was used as an aid for storytelling.
00:39:52
Erocky
what What is that statue if not an ornament to the story? They have a vehicle and they're taking this thing and they're using it as a visual aid.
00:39:56
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Right.
00:40:00
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah.
00:40:00
Erocky
That's ornamentation, right?
00:40:01
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I agree.
00:40:01
Jack Thomas
Absolutely.
00:40:02
Erocky
And like that's 40,000 years old.
00:40:02
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I agree.
00:40:03
Erocky
Mm-hmm.
00:40:04
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
All right. So question for both of you. if the If it's in our DNA to use ornamentation, why are we trying to deny it so hard even today?
00:40:15
Jack Thomas
Because we think that we're higher order mental supreme human beings that have transcended our primal sexual physical forms for some kind of more sterile, more valuable, more intellectual life.
00:40:27
Erocky
Mm-hmm.
00:40:27
Jack Thomas
Fuck that.
00:40:28
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
What an answer. Holy holy shit.
00:40:29
Erocky
Mm-hmm.
00:40:30
Erocky
I mean, I agree with you 100%.
00:40:33
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
and And Jack, what do you say to the people who are like, yeah, but I like the clean minimal look. I just like it. Sorry.
00:40:38
Jack Thomas
I have this conversation with my husband all day, every day.
00:40:39
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I'm not.
00:40:41
Jack Thomas
you know
00:40:41
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Okay. So.
00:40:42
Jack Thomas
But it's it's not wrong. It's not wrong. I think this gets into a conversation that could honestly almost be its whole its own whole episode about the elements of art and the principles of design.
00:40:53
Jack Thomas
Because to me, it's all about balance. And those don't just apply to 2D, you know, art and design. It's also a 3D thing, right? So things that we find pleasing to the eye and to the brain subconsciously as humans are Contrast is one of those things.
00:41:11
Jack Thomas
If you have some overly ornamented, super, super maximalist thing, okay, imagine like, and i'm goingnna I'm going to take myself back here and give myself away. Take yourself back to like your grandma's house with all of the fucking yellow and brown and orange doilies and all, you know, and like pink couch cushions on top of
00:41:29
Erocky
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:41:33
Erocky
I was thinking corduroy couches, but, you know, like, same difference.
00:41:36
Jack Thomas
Yes, exactly, exactly. you know And so i think that there can be too much, right?
00:41:42
Erocky
Yeah.
00:41:42
Jack Thomas
There has to be some restraint. and And even us, it all three of us exercise some form of restraint to create a contrast between ornamentation and simplicity.
00:41:50
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah.
00:41:53
Jack Thomas
Because when it's all ornamentation, it's no longer ornamentation.
00:41:53
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Okay.
00:41:56
Erocky
That's I was so as you were starting that point, I was visualizing the the the cathedrals that I visited when I was with Sarah this past summer, Paul, you were in Italy, visiting a bunch of cathedrals.
00:41:58
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Wow. Good point.
00:42:05
Jack Thomas
Mm-hmm.
00:42:07
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah.
00:42:09
Erocky
And you were i mean, we were texting the whole time you were overwhelmed.
00:42:10
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I was overwhelmed.
00:42:14
Erocky
But the reason that they had such impact is because of their rarity. And to walk into that building from the streets.
00:42:22
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah.
00:42:23
Erocky
Now, you know, old Italian streets, they have like there's there's a weirdness to them. There's a quirkiness because they're so old. But high ornamentation, they are not. Right. They're they're functional.
00:42:33
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
No.
00:42:34
Erocky
They're handcrafted, but they're functional.
00:42:34
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Right. Right.
00:42:36
Erocky
And then you walk into this cathedral and you're overwhelmed by how like the the beauty, the the ornamentation, the thought that goes into every detail, which is not what because it's abnormal.
00:42:45
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
It seems special. Hmm.
00:42:49
Erocky
If you walked out of that building and everything looked like that, it would be it'd be like social media. It's just fucking exhausting.
00:42:55
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Well, so Eric, Eric, I think that's because so few people were capable or had the ah resource to do ornamentation back then.
00:42:56
Jack Thomas
Yeah, absolutely.
00:43:03
Erocky
Yeah, no, 100%.
00:43:04
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
But the problem is today we do.
00:43:04
Erocky
But now we do. Which is why we're tending toward minimalism, I think.
00:43:08
Jack Thomas
Because ornamentation en masse is fucking exhausting.
00:43:13
Erocky
It's exhausting. It's just noise.
00:43:15
Jack Thomas
Yeah. And social media is doing that to us. And I i think that i think that part of the bias towards like neutral color palettes, minimalism in general, is in part due to social media, but for two different reasons.
00:43:24
Erocky
Hmm.
00:43:28
Jack Thomas
One, I think that we're so used to now being bombarded with overstimulating visual culture that minimalism actually feels really good to our brain.
00:43:32
Erocky
Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
00:43:36
Jack Thomas
It creates some quiet space where actual ornamentation can feel special again instead of just exhausting and oversaturating.
00:43:36
Erocky
Uh-huh.
00:43:38
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Hmm.
00:43:45
Jack Thomas
I think the other part of it, though, is that in popular culture, because it's what rich people are doing for the most part, minimalism and that kind of restraint is showing up on people's social media feeds left and right.
00:43:57
Jack Thomas
Now, things started to change a little bit, I think, in like mid-2000, mid-2020, late 2020, because COVID specifically started shifting that.
00:44:11
Jack Thomas
You know, we started shifting. um People didn't want like... open houses anymore, open floor plan houses.
00:44:16
Erocky
uh-huh
00:44:17
Jack Thomas
People were staying at home, really making their life at home for the first time in a long time. And people wanted sumptuous colors that were comforting. They wanted comfortable and they they didn't want open plan houses.
00:44:25
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
comfortable. Yeah.
00:44:29
Jack Thomas
They wanted private spaces again. And it's really, really hard to achieve ornamentation in a way that is not overwhelming when you don't have your own private space.
00:44:40
Jack Thomas
I mean, think about it. If you have an open plan house and you want the kitchen to be yellow, but your partner wants the living room to be green and you can see them both at the same time, that's a problem, right?
00:44:53
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah.
00:44:54
Erocky
I mean, didn't didn't we all do the thing when we were teenagers of like trying to decorate our room?
00:44:54
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Good point.
00:44:59
Jack Thomas
oh yeah.
00:44:59
Erocky
and And, you know, and it was it's it's never about what the room was being decorated as.
00:44:59
Jack Thomas
Yeah.
00:45:03
Erocky
What mattered is it was whatever pissed your parents off.
00:45:06
Jack Thomas
Oh, absolutely.
00:45:06
Erocky
Right.
00:45:06
Jack Thomas
Yeah.
00:45:06
Erocky
Like it was it was it was the contrast to the rest of the house.
00:45:07
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Mm-hmm.
00:45:07
Jack Thomas
Yeah.
00:45:10
Erocky
And that could be done because it was in a small space. And, you know, as well as I know, if we as teenagers had the ability to decorate the entire house in that same manner, we would have done it.
00:45:20
Erocky
And then we would have immediately changed it because have been like, this is fucking chaos.
00:45:23
Jack Thomas
Oh, huge regret. Yeah.
00:45:25
Erocky
This is ridiculous. So yeah, I mean, I agree with you 100%. I think there there has to be some balance. And we are so overstimulated so much of the time that coming to a visually quieter place is a really helpful reset for us.
00:45:43
Erocky
But also, I'm laughing at this current moment right now. Because the the trend away from like calm and neutral and more I don't want to call it maximalism because we're not there yet as a culture, but like you could first, just the fact that, but just the fact that even maximalism is a thing that we're talking about again is proof that we're headed back in that direction.
00:45:57
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
It's trending that way, Eric.
00:46:06
Erocky
But So much of that, I think, stems from people. This is going to sound real prickish, so forgive me ahead of time, but stems from people not having interesting things in their house to contrast the rest of their house.
00:46:22
Jack Thomas
Wait, can you say that one more time?
00:46:22
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Prick.
00:46:23
Erocky
So I think a lot of the problem is that people don't have interesting things in their house to decorate the house with, and so they rely on the house itself as decoration.
00:46:27
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Mm-hmm.
00:46:37
Erocky
So if I walk into my house, I have a bunch of shit that I've made. I have shit that friends have made. I have boxes that Paul's made. I have paintings from other friends. I have like ah this. my My house is my gallery. This is where I keep the things that I make.
00:46:50
Erocky
And if the house itself was louder than it is, you would walk into my house and it would be exhausting. It would be like, what the fuck do I look at?
00:46:58
Jack Thomas
Mm-hmm.
00:47:00
Erocky
But because it's kind of gray and beiges and I'm still working through a lot of the rooms that I haven't painted over the last owner, which was just the fucking rental and it's terrible, like periwinkle blue everywhere.
00:47:11
Erocky
But if if it was louder than that, then it would...
00:47:11
Jack Thomas
Oh.
00:47:19
Erocky
The pieces that I make, the the pieces that my friends make that ornament the space wouldn't stand out as beautiful. They would stand out as busy and you wouldn't know what to look at.
00:47:29
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
ah Eric.
00:47:29
Jack Thomas
There's a reason that the galleries, like art galleries walls are white. and
00:47:33
Erocky
Right, right.
00:47:33
Jack Thomas
yeah
00:47:34
Erocky
Hmm.
00:47:35
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Eric, I have a point about the ornamentation in your house. And I think this comes back to something you were saying. And so like where do we go from here? When everything's available, you could go maximalist, ornamented, available for your like your life, your space.
00:47:49
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
You could go minimalist, contemporary for your life and space, whatever. It's all available. Everything's on the table. So where do we go from here? And I feel like the answer was starting to come into focus, but we didn't like finish focusing it.
00:48:00
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And the start of the answer was you imbue your life with special pieces that are either one-offs or have meaning or are made by people, single people, because there's value in those objects.
00:48:16
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I hear, that but I sort of see you you almost saying that.
00:48:19
Erocky
i I would agree wholeheartedly with that. But here's the reason I'm laughing at myself or to myself and and holding back is because ah another way to phrase what you just said is the way to find meaning in it is to live with less.
00:48:25
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Go ahead.
00:48:31
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yep.
00:48:36
Erocky
But the objects that you have carry more weight.
00:48:39
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And intention.
00:48:40
Erocky
So so so in a way.
00:48:40
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah. Yeah.
00:48:42
Erocky
You are advocating for minimalism.
00:48:45
Jack Thomas
you're You're advocating for...
00:48:46
Erocky
Have less shit.
00:48:46
Jack Thomas
ah
00:48:47
Erocky
Have less shit, but the shit that you have matters more.
00:48:51
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
ah Ah.
00:48:51
Jack Thomas
So basically, it's Marie Kondo.
00:48:52
Jack Thomas
We're Marie Kondo-ing this conversation.
00:48:53
Erocky
Yeah, we're Marie Kondo-ing a bitch.
00:48:54
Jack Thomas
Okay.
00:48:54
Erocky
Yep, 100%. Sure.
00:48:55
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Well, no, I, not quite Eric.
00:48:57
Erocky
o
00:48:58
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Like I have objects that are made by people. I don't want factory. I don't want like something produced in an Indonesian factory. I don't want China made good.
00:49:08
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I want stuff made by the hands of a friend and someone I care about, whether it's minimal or whether it's ornamented.
00:49:08
Erocky
sure
00:49:15
Erocky
No, no, no. the the object The object itself, not minimal or ornamented.
00:49:16
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
i don't know.
00:49:19
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I know what you're saying.
00:49:19
Erocky
What I'm saying is you have you you own a ah fewer number of objects because the objects that you own are of a higher value.
00:49:20
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I know what you're saying. I do. Yeah.
00:49:24
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yes. Yes.
00:49:28
Jack Thomas
Or you might say they spark joy.
00:49:28
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Well,
00:49:32
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
but we're at a place when excess is so common.
00:49:35
Erocky
He's in the zone. He's going to ignore our jokes right now.
00:49:37
Jack Thomas
I know. I know.
00:49:37
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
No, no, i no i fuck it I love Marie Kondo. I do. I love Marie Kondo. I do. I totally bought into that. watched the documentary and I would ask myself, does this fucking sweater spark joy? It makes me look fat. So no, no, I totally, i totally, I'm into it.
00:49:51
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
But I, yeah, I guess it's like for so long growing up in our particular eras, Everything was so available.
00:49:58
Jack Thomas
Everything was so available. could have a mug.
00:50:00
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
You could have a mug.
00:50:01
Jack Thomas
have 50 bucks. You could have 100
00:50:01
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
You could have 50 mugs.
00:50:01
Jack Thomas
I don't want 100
00:50:02
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
You could have 100 mugs.
00:50:03
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I don't want 100 mugs. I want 10 made by 10 people i know.
00:50:03
Erocky
Yeah.
00:50:09
Erocky
But that's exactly what I'm saying, right?
00:50:09
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
That's what I want.
00:50:11
Erocky
in In a way, and this is maybe a stretch of the definition, but in a way that is minimalism.
00:50:13
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah, I see. I see.
00:50:16
Erocky
Like I own four coffee mugs in my house rather than like going to fucking Crate and Barrel and buying the set of eight.
00:50:16
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I see.
00:50:23
Erocky
And like sometimes people come over and I'm like, I'm out of cups, guys. You know, like I don't know what to fucking tell you. I'll wash one, you know?
00:50:29
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
But every time i go get coffee every single day, i look at that line of mugs. I have about 15 handmade mugs.
00:50:37
Erocky
Yeah.
00:50:38
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And each one was somewhere between $50 and $100. So I suppose I did put my money where my mouth was. And I look at those mugs and I think, which one of those am I feeling today?
00:50:49
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And it's like this little ritual, right?
00:50:51
Erocky
yeah
00:50:51
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Like life is so fucking, life is so tough, right?
00:50:52
Jack Thomas
That's great.
00:50:53
Erocky
Yeah.
00:50:54
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Like we ah we have to do we have to do things we don't want to do.
00:50:54
Erocky
Yeah.
00:50:56
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
In fact, my my neighbor's kid, yes, the other day, he comes over, he's in college and he's like trying to find himself. And he's like, I just want to have fun 100% of the time. So like...
00:51:05
Erocky
Oh, buddy boy.
00:51:06
Jack Thomas
Oh, friends.
00:51:07
Erocky
I got bad news for you, homeboy.
00:51:07
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Okay.
00:51:08
Jack Thomas
Oh, little friends. oh no.
Personal Value of Handmade Items
00:51:10
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I'm sorry. couldn't even say it. He goes, he goes, I just want to have a good time. A hundred percent of the time. And I was like, yeah, all of us fucking do, but I'm like, I'm like adult.
00:51:20
Erocky
he says 60% of the time it works every time.
00:51:24
Jack Thomas
Wait, and you said he's he's six?
00:51:26
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
no no' No, no, no, no, no. Sorry. He's 18. just, ah he's 18. He just started college. It's his first year of college.
00:51:32
Jack Thomas
Oh, oh, he's in college. Okay, that makes less sense, but now I understand.
00:51:33
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah. Yeah. No, Jack, hey jack he's trying he's struggling to find himself like and find what, and he's struggling.
00:51:36
Jack Thomas
Okay.
00:51:39
Jack Thomas
Okay, I see, I see.
00:51:41
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And he's like, man, I just don't know what I want to do. He's like, I just want to have fun 100% of the time. And I was like, dude, my dude, I love you to pieces, but adulting is 95% or 90% doing shit you don't want to do and maybe 10%.
00:51:48
Erocky
My dude.
00:51:55
Erocky
Yep.
00:51:56
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
So these little rituals, sorry, I'm coming back to my main point.
00:51:58
Erocky
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:51:59
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
These little stupid rituals of like looking at a line of mugs, And thinking about the people that made them and having like the warm and fuzzies because you know who they are. You picture them, their hands on the mug in the wet clay.
00:52:12
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Like that daily brings me joy. So I opt for that as opposed to the factory made mug.
00:52:18
Erocky
So, all right, so let's bring it all the way back down because we're already at 53 minutes. Let's bring it all the way back to the beginning of this conversation and ask like, I mean, i I know you're doing all right in life, but I don't know that you're donating museums.
00:52:34
Erocky
You might be, you might be, uh, without telling me you.
00:52:36
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Who? Me?
00:52:38
Erocky
Yeah.
00:52:38
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I'm not donating museums.
00:52:39
Erocky
i think I think you're doing just fine.
00:52:40
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Okay.
00:52:42
Erocky
Um, In 100 years, let's say, you know, fucking what was what was the town that got a caught up in the volcano in Rome?
00:52:53
Jack Thomas
Oh, Pompeii.
00:52:53
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Oh, Pompeii.
00:52:53
Erocky
Pompeii, thank you. Let's say Pompeii happens and you know you've got a thousand houses that get swallowed up in ash and and preserved.
00:52:56
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yep.
00:53:03
Erocky
And a thousand years later, a historian finds it and they come in and they look at everybody's got the same fucking mugs. They're all very practical. They're all very minimal. Even if they were handmade, they're all roughly the same.
00:53:15
Erocky
And then they come into your place. And they see these weird fucking mugs with leaf imprints in them with faces carved into them.
00:53:22
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Hmm? Hmm?
00:53:23
Erocky
Those are going to be the ones they pull out because they're different because of their ornamentation. And so a thousand years from now, the mass of people who are not more familiar with the history of objects are going to assume that we lived in an age where more people had ornamented objects because those are the things that get preserved.
00:53:28
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Hmm?
00:53:44
Erocky
Yeah.
00:53:44
Jack Thomas
Guys, are we like inventing a new movement right now that's like craft minimalism or something?
00:53:49
Erocky
Craft minimalism.
00:53:51
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Well, eric was Eric, you convinced me it's like live minimalist, but have maximalist.
00:53:56
Jack Thomas
Mm-hmm.
00:53:57
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Almost like like live with intention with a small number of objects, but those objects can be very flourished and very maximal.
00:53:58
Erocky
Yeah, yeah.
00:54:00
Jack Thomas
Mm-hmm.
00:54:03
Erocky
And consequently, when when you walk into your space, like those objects bring you joy because the space itself is not overwhelming. You know, like it's I think that's the contrast.
00:54:12
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Hmm.
00:54:16
Erocky
But if you have, I guess to your point, Jack, like if you if you walk into a gallery and there was a lot of shit going on on the walls and they were different colors and then you have a line of 15 handmade bugs, people will be like, okay, they wouldn't hit the same way.
00:54:16
Jack Thomas
Yeah.
00:54:30
Jack Thomas
and
00:54:31
Erocky
They wouldn't strike the same chord.
00:54:34
Jack Thomas
Yeah, no, i totally agree.
00:54:35
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Jack, I feel like we've ignored color to some extent. We've got so hung up on ornamentation and minimalism. Like, does color, and I know we're running long on of time, but does color parallel a lot of this conversation?
00:54:47
Jack Thomas
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, if we think about like color theory, I think that color is just another form of ornamentation, right? And it's it's either 2D or 3D, depending on what you what you put it on. But nonetheless, it's part of ornamentation.
00:55:00
Jack Thomas
When you walk into a room that's like an overwhelming cacophony of color, you don't really you don't really have a feeling. You don't get a feeling except maybe being kind of overwhelmed. but So let's just delve into just a second of color theory here.
00:55:15
Jack Thomas
If you walk into a room that has a warm color palette, warm olive greens, warm, rich Corinthian leather, mahogany cabinets, you know, what whatever, you feel a certain sense of coziness and like envelopment, right?
00:55:32
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
talk dirty to me with the grid.
00:55:33
Jack Thomas
Right.
00:55:34
Erocky
I mean, honestly, she said.
00:55:34
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
my God. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:55:35
Jack Thomas
Ooh.
00:55:35
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Hmm.
00:55:36
Jack Thomas
Oh, yes. Rich Corinthian leather. Polish mahogany.
00:55:40
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
but my god
00:55:41
Jack Thomas
Absolutely. Anyway, I'll drop the link to my OnlyFans in the chat. um But you get a feeling, right? It is this like sense of calm and, you know, ah connection and coziness and envelopment.
00:55:54
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
yeah yeah yeah
00:55:56
Jack Thomas
On the other hand, when you walk into like a fucking CrossFit gym and everything is painted black or white and then you see like these like blue and orange, you know, lightning bolts up against a ah barbell on the wall, blue and orange, those are contrasting colors.
00:56:07
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Neon. Yeah.
00:56:13
Jack Thomas
They create a very, very high energy, high impact feeling.
00:56:16
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Hmm.
00:56:17
Jack Thomas
And so color is feeling.
00:56:17
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Hmm.
00:56:19
Jack Thomas
But when we are overwhelmed with too much color, with all of it at once, you don't get a feeling. You just get overwhelmed. So I think that as a as a woodworker, as any kind of craftsperson, as an artist, whether you're dealing with interiors, you have to be really intentional about your use of color, because if you're not, you're going to make somebody feel something that you don't necessarily want them to feel.
00:56:40
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
i guess it's I guess this leads us into our second segment.
00:56:41
Erocky
ah Haven't we all done that in the past, both in woodworking and in relationships?
00:56:45
Erocky
I mean, that's just how, you know,
00:56:45
Jack Thomas
Yeah. Yeah.
00:56:50
Erocky
it does 100%.
00:56:51
Jack Thomas
Oh.
00:56:52
Erocky
So, all right. So here's here's what I want to know. um First of all, as you were saying that, what I was thinking of, and, you know, this object comes up fairly quickly.
00:57:04
Erocky
consistently on the show but i was thinking of the ponchette cabinet because i put ah a white osmo on that a white hard wax oil finish and it stripped it of all its color right it becomes kind of statuesque in the way that it's perceived and i think maybe yeah and i i think maybe that's why it's not all that interesting to me because it lacks color like it felt like i stripped its color away but but
00:57:18
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
It looked like marble. It looked like a marble statue.
00:57:20
Jack Thomas
o
00:57:24
Jack Thomas
Hmm.
00:57:29
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
No, you stripped the color away, which made me appreciate the form and the shape more.
00:57:34
Erocky
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not going to disagree with that. I think the form is lovely. But there there is something because i I do it so rarely where I manipulate color. I'm so my safe zone is to use wood tones as color.
00:57:44
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Right.
00:57:49
Erocky
And so there are a couple of rules that I have, right? Like it's it's one contrast, you only get one. If you go more than one, you're starting to get two maximalists for me. Um, I also, this is less color, but it's kind of like it's texture. So it's related.
00:58:04
Erocky
I very rarely mix open port and closed port woods.
00:58:07
Jack Thomas
Mm-hmm.
00:58:07
Erocky
Um, because I think they just like, they look very different. That's just a me thing. I see, I see the face you're making Paul. I'm just saying they, they look different. And so I don't do it all that often, but here's what I want to know because I'm admittedly terrified of color.
00:58:25
Erocky
And I know only enough color theory to know that most wood tones being warm pair well with a blue tone to to pair the warm in the cool.
00:58:36
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
They do
00:58:37
Jack Thomas
Do they?
00:58:38
Erocky
I mean, it's usually it's usually like a walnut or an ash.
00:58:39
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
They do? i hate blues in my woodworking.
00:58:44
Erocky
And that's why you listen. Hey, hey, we can have differing opinions, buddy.
00:58:46
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Huh. Okay, keep going, keep going.
00:58:48
Erocky
Why you got to attack my humanity like that?
00:58:50
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
No, no, keep going, I love you, going. Keep going, Eric.
00:58:51
Jack Thomas
As long as the blue is not part of a river table, I don't have too much trouble with that.
00:58:52
Erocky
So
00:58:56
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
keep going here
00:58:57
Erocky
so So I want to know,
Applying Color Theory in Woodworking
00:59:01
Erocky
number one, ah if you could give me and us and our listeners some advice on how to apply color theory to woodworkers.
00:59:11
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
and mistakes you've seen.
00:59:11
Erocky
call it like... And I mean, what we could say maybe sans river tables, because that feels a little too low hanging fruit, but you can shit on them a little bit if you want.
00:59:13
Jack Thomas
ah
00:59:19
Jack Thomas
We could just go on all night about that. Yeah.
00:59:22
Erocky
So yeah, what mistakes you've seen woodworkers make using color theory, and that could be in into in wood tones or outside.
00:59:28
Jack Thomas
Yeah.
00:59:30
Erocky
um But also like, genuine practical advice on like, how how do we incorporate color into our work?
00:59:36
Jack Thomas
Yeah.
00:59:36
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
This is called color for dummies. The segment go ahead, Jack.
00:59:41
Jack Thomas
Okay, so
00:59:42
Erocky
You're going call me a dummy so blatantly, brother.
00:59:44
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I'm calling us dummies.
00:59:44
Erocky
Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.
00:59:45
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
This is, basically, we're asking Jack to fucking tell all woodworkers what they're doing wrong with their use of color, Eric.
00:59:52
Jack Thomas
okay so here's here's what you first have to understand. we have to We have to go back and acknowledge that color is just one kind of ornamentation, right? And I hope that i hope that everyone you know leaves this episode and immediately goes and Googles elements of art and principles of design.
01:00:10
Jack Thomas
and Okay, so the elements of art are things like ah line, right? ah And then the the principles of design are the principles that dictate how the elements of art are used.
01:00:23
Jack Thomas
um So...
01:00:24
Erocky
Can I ask you a question just as ah one former art teacher to a real art teacher? Because I pretended to be an art teacher for a lot of years. The way I described it, maybe this is helpful for our audience, but I want you to tell me if you disagree with this, is I always told people that the elements of art or the elements of design are the tools or that you're manipulating and the principles are the raw materials that you're using the tools to manipulate.
01:00:37
Jack Thomas
Okay. Okay.
01:00:54
Jack Thomas
i would I would flip that. I would say that the the elements of art are like the building blocks of art. Those are like the raw materials.
01:01:02
Erocky
hu and Okay, all right, fair, fair.
01:01:03
Jack Thomas
And then the principles of design are like how you apply those things. They're the tools that you use to manipulate them. So like... So like elements of art would be like color. i mean, color is an element of art, line, shape, um form, value, like light and dark um space, whether you have, you know, a lot of emptiness within or around something. Those are all elements of art.
01:01:26
Jack Thomas
The principles of design are how you apply those things. And this is the part that really, really gets into ah what's important for woodworkers. Color is important for sure, but it's an element of art that you don't want to overwhelm with because every element of art impacts how your piece is going to look. So balance, for instance, is one of the principles of design.
01:01:47
Jack Thomas
And balance, I think, is one of the most important ones. If you put a metric fuckton of color into a piece that you are working on, but it also has a cacophony of different kinds of form and different kinds of texture and different values of light and dark, that is going to be an overwhelming fucking mess. And I have seen it happen before.
01:02:12
Jack Thomas
And I don't want to call anybody specific out, but I do just want to say that
01:02:17
Erocky
It's fine.
01:02:17
Jack Thomas
It's, it's, I would never, would never, would never.
01:02:18
Erocky
I'm right here. You can just say it to my face.
01:02:22
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
do it
01:02:23
Jack Thomas
i want to, I just, I want to say in general, in general, a lot of, um a lot of folks who are new to woodworking and honestly new to, to any kind of craft in general, but especially to woodworking, they're trying so hard to put all the fancy things
01:02:39
Erocky
Mm-hmm.
01:02:39
Jack Thomas
in one piece. And that's exactly where you go wrong. And that's not me being a minimalist. That's not what I'm saying. But you have to pick where you put your emphasis. And emphasis is another principle of design.
01:02:51
Jack Thomas
So if you're going to lay on a lot of color, you need more simplicity of form. If you're going to have a lot of different value changes, like very light wood, whitewash pickling,
01:03:03
Jack Thomas
ebony, all these things together, you need a super, super simple form and do not add any color. You have to pick your battles, so to speak, because you only want to focus, you want to put emphasis on one thing.
01:03:16
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
So Jack,
01:03:17
Jack Thomas
Does that make sense? Mm-hmm.
01:03:17
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah, Jack, can I make a comment about something I've been struggling with my own work with that, what you just said?
01:03:22
Jack Thomas
Mm-hmm.
01:03:23
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I love ornamentation. I love it so much.
01:03:25
Jack Thomas
Mm-hmm.
01:03:26
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I love carving. I love every bit of ornamentation. it's i just want to eat, breathe, and sleep it. And I look at my repertoire of things I make, and they're so clean and modern minimal. And I'm like, what the fuck is wrong with me? What am I doing?
01:03:39
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I love this, and I make that. Why am I making that? And then I realized because I love figured woods, like beyond.
01:03:47
Erocky
Yeah, I was going to say, they're not unornamented.
01:03:47
Jack Thomas
a
01:03:49
Erocky
they're not unornamented
01:03:51
Jack Thomas
No.
01:03:51
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
They're not, they're they're physically, the form is quite simple, but the figure woods are dazzling.
01:03:55
Jack Thomas
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
01:03:59
Jack Thomas
Mm-hmm.
01:03:59
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And I just can't put on ornament on top of that because it's too much.
01:04:03
Jack Thomas
You don't need to. So one of the um ah one of the principles of design is pattern, right?
01:04:04
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah.
01:04:10
Jack Thomas
And I would i would classify figured wood as a pattern in this in this particular case. um With that beautiful emphasis on pattern, if you were to add a lot of color or you were to complicate the form, you would immediately overwhelm it.
01:04:23
Erocky
Mm-hmm.
Proportion and Design Challenges in Woodworking
01:04:24
Jack Thomas
um even Even something like proportion can totally fuck a piece, right? Like let's say you have a chunky ass piece of highly ornamented, don't know, you're making a fucking dresser or something, right?
01:04:36
Jack Thomas
If you do that, if you have this massive chunky ornamented piece and then you put it on some tiny, tiny, tiny little shitty little legs that you can barely see, well, that's going to look squat as hell because the proportion is all wrong, right?
01:04:41
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah.
01:04:51
Jack Thomas
Right?
01:04:51
Erocky
the The irony is I think that's the thing that most woodworkers struggle with is getting the proportion, right?
01:04:55
Jack Thomas
Proportion? Oh.
01:04:57
Erocky
Yeah.
01:04:57
Jack Thomas
Mm-hmm.
01:04:57
Erocky
Because i think like we often limit our color palette, right? And and sometimes we ornament with figured woods. But so few people understand classical proportioning.
01:05:10
Erocky
that they, it just looks funky. And so often we overly rely on kind of ah what we'll call industrial standards, right? So everything's three quarters of an inch.
01:05:19
Jack Thomas
Mm-hmm.
01:05:21
Erocky
um You know, every person at a table gets 26 inches for a place setting. So a table is X size, right? Like just, these are the things that they are what they are.
01:05:30
Jack Thomas
Mm-hmm.
01:05:31
Erocky
And if you don't know some of those industrial standards and you get it wrong, it doesn't matter what you do. It looks fucked.
01:05:39
Jack Thomas
Oh. Mm-hmm.
01:05:40
Erocky
But also if you over rely on those industrial standards, no matter what you do, it looks mass produced because you and your beginning kind of, your your flow when you're trying to figure it out as a younger woodworker you go well i'll just make what crate and barrel made but i'll i'll make it out of purple heart and you get well it still looks fucking stupid well because i like this that that's how we try to ornament it yeah i'm not trying to knock them yeah
01:05:59
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I knew you were going say Purple by the way.
01:06:01
Jack Thomas
Oh my God.
01:06:02
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Jack,
01:06:03
Jack Thomas
I mean, imitation, i get it. I get it. And imitation is is a it's not a bad place to start. You know, we we we have we have painting students copy the Mona Lisa, you know, and and shit shit like that to learn to learn the strokes, right, so to speak.
01:06:15
Erocky
yeah
01:06:16
Jack Thomas
But here here is what I would encourage for any woodworker at any level. Next time you start something, focus on emphasizing one only word.
01:06:29
Jack Thomas
of the principles of design and only one of the elements of art. So if you are going to, one and by that I mean one of each. So like, let's say you want to focus you want to use a figured wood, that's pattern.
01:06:41
Jack Thomas
So that's one of the one of the principles of design. So you get to pick one of the elements of art, not a bunch of them. So for instance, texture. So if you're going to be working with a figured wood,
01:06:53
Jack Thomas
That's your principle of design. If you want to employ texture as your element of art, it might be like you're you're hand carving like a a sort of scooped texture on the doors, but the top is completely smooth.
01:07:04
Jack Thomas
You know, you can't do more than one element of art and one principle of design without overwhelming people in general.
01:07:12
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Oh, what a great starting point.
01:07:13
Jack Thomas
That's what I think.
01:07:14
Erocky
I agree with you. i agree with you 100%. I think that's fantastic advice. um I just want to, can I add on to that by telling people as you become more comfortable manipulating the elements and principles of design, you will quickly realize that you're always manipulating multiple elements of design.
01:07:35
Jack Thomas
So true.
01:07:35
Erocky
it's It's like that's just how it goes. Every piece you ever make will have all of the principles in there.
01:07:38
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Hmm.
01:07:42
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Hmm. Hmm.
01:07:42
Erocky
You just have to pick one to focus on.
01:07:44
Erocky
And there are times where you go like, OK, it's kind of like music in that like, is it written in three, four or is it written in six, eight?
01:07:44
Jack Thomas
Bingo.
01:07:52
Erocky
Like, is it is a six, eight or three, four with a swing? I don't know. Let's we can debate that endlessly. So is your figured would ah ah a rhythmic principle? Or are you manipulating line because you're trying to pull that eye around a corner using a crotch?
01:08:08
Erocky
Whatever way you want to look at it, the point is you're focusing on one and manipulating that thing.
01:08:08
Jack Thomas
Bingo.
01:08:12
Erocky
So don't get confused of like, is it this or is it that?
01:08:12
Jack Thomas
And they're all.
01:08:15
Erocky
That's not the point.
01:08:16
Jack Thomas
Yeah, no, you're totally correct. You're totally correct. Whether we like it or not, everything that we make is going to in some way contain all of the elements of art and all the principles of design.
01:08:26
Erocky
Mm-hmm.
01:08:28
Jack Thomas
But it's what it's about the the principle of design known as emphasis.
01:08:32
Erocky
Mm-hmm.
01:08:33
Jack Thomas
as to whether what dictates whether piece is good or not. Because if you try to put emphasis on too many of the elements of art and principles of design, it's gonna fucking suck.
01:08:42
Erocky
Mm-hmm.
01:08:42
Jack Thomas
But if you pick one element of art and one principle of design to focus on while acknowledging you're going to manipulate all of those, whether you like it or not, because they're all present, then you can start to make something really, really good. And and not only good, but something that's actually yours.
01:08:55
Jack Thomas
And I think that this is where a lot of woodworkers fall short, They're making things that look like what's popular, cough, cough, river tables. They're making things that, you know, that look like something that they want to own for themselves. And there's nothing wrong with that.
01:09:08
Jack Thomas
But is it really yours? And until you understand how you prefer to manipulate the elements of art and principles of design in your woodwork, you're never going to make work that's actually yours.
01:09:14
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Oh.
01:09:17
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
So fucking good, Jack. Yes to all of that.
01:09:20
Erocky
ah
01:09:23
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I feel that all of that.
01:09:23
Erocky
Uh,
01:09:24
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yes.
01:09:25
Jack Thomas
I'm glad.
01:09:26
Erocky
I just want to let folks know that if you're looking for visual aids, that I have both definitions of the elements and principles on my website and, uh, definitions with images of woodworking in there.
01:09:44
Erocky
They are, i don't know if Jack, you have a better place to download these. I've had these up here forever. For some reason, for some reason on Squarespace, I couldn't just put it up there so that you could download it.
01:09:48
Jack Thomas
That sounds great.
01:09:54
Erocky
You have to actually like put in your credit card information and then like buy the free thing, but you don't get charged for it. So if you go to my website, iancurtis.com under plans, you'll just see the definition of elements and principles of design and then one with visuals as well.
01:10:09
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Kick ass, Eric. Thank you.
01:10:11
Jack Thomas
Yeah. Thank you so much. I mean, to me, this is really right up there with like, like, can you, do you know how to, do you know how to correctly and and beautifully like master a mortise and tenon?
01:10:12
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
i
01:10:20
Jack Thomas
I mean, that's great.
01:10:22
Erocky
Yeah.
01:10:22
Jack Thomas
You know, especially those fancy angled ones that you're thinking about doing in your class, Eric.
01:10:25
Erocky
Mm-hmm.
01:10:26
Jack Thomas
But, but if you, if you can, if you can fucking do mortise and tenon all day, but you cannot understand that you shouldn't overload people visually with texture and form and color and pattern, you know,
01:10:35
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Okay. Okay. Jack, last question. If this is so important, and it is, all three of us agree, this is so fucking important.
01:10:47
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
The balance of, I love this, elements of art and principles of design. ah ah wait why Why is this not in every episode? This is everything to finding your artistic voice, to differentiating your work, to making it visually appealing and beautiful.
01:11:03
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
like This is everything. Why don't woodworkers talk more about this?
01:11:08
Jack Thomas
Honestly, I think it goes back to this this um lack of democratization of taste and this stupid, stupid fight between art and craft.
01:11:17
Erocky
That's what I was thinking.
01:11:18
Jack Thomas
It's such bullshit.
01:11:18
Erocky
Yep.
01:11:19
Jack Thomas
It's such bullshit. I mean, as ah as somebody who went to art school and then went to art grad school and then taught in art school, but was a craftsperson before that and during that and after that, I really lament schools that don't put an emphasis and art schools that don't put an emphasis on excellent craftsmanship, on really mastering your craft And a lot of them don't.
01:11:43
Jack Thomas
By the same token, you probably will not go through a lot of woodworking programs, maybe any, even legendary ones, and have someone sit down and say, look, you can make an angled mortise and tenon all day.
01:11:50
Erocky
not one.
01:11:53
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Zero.
01:11:55
Jack Thomas
You make an angled mortise and tenon, nobody's going to fucking see it or appreciate it if you have a cacophony of color and texture and proportion and line and form that is distracting people's eyes.
01:12:07
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Actually, Jack, I think it's the opposite normally. There's not too much. There's too little. So much woodworking is boring as fuck.
01:12:12
Jack Thomas
Oh, interesting.
01:12:15
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
they haven't They haven't explored these avenues to find their creative voice.
01:12:15
Erocky
and
01:12:19
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And it's just like repeating the same tired forms again because they enjoy the making more than the art.
01:12:22
Jack Thomas
Why?
01:12:24
Erocky
Because that's that's, well, I think that's definitely part of it I think that's a huge part of the the world that we reside in on social media and in the hobbyist world.
01:12:27
Jack Thomas
o
01:12:33
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Eric, Eric, what percent?
01:12:34
Jack Thomas
Is it because of function? is it because is is Is it because woodworking is function?
01:12:36
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yes, yes, yes.
01:12:37
Erocky
But but i think I think it comes back to your point.
01:12:38
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
yes
01:12:40
Erocky
I think you you nailed exactly you've nailed it exactly on the head, which is like you go to an art school and you learn how to design.
01:12:40
Jack Thomas
That's bullshit. Okay.
01:12:49
Erocky
You learn the elements and principles of art. You learn how to compose. And there's never an emphasis placed on your technical skill to become a great painter because it's not valued.
01:12:55
Jack Thomas
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
01:12:58
Erocky
You're seen as a thinker. And then you go to a craft school and your job is to learn how to make a thing. And I want to give credit to my teacher, Alan Lewis, who is a really good furniture designer and he was a brilliant teacher.
01:13:12
Erocky
um And he does a really good job, um at least when I had him and presumably still now, of finding where people are at and then pushing them like 10% farther, like just outside their comfort zone.
01:13:25
Erocky
But I think the problem is, it's kind of, I'm just going to speak from the craft school perspective, because that's the world I live in. I think it's a twofold problem. Number one,
The Art vs. Craft Debate
01:13:35
Erocky
there aren't that many woodworkers who know how to articulate what they're doing.
01:13:42
Erocky
in the terms that we just discussed, like the elements and principles of design.
01:13:44
Jack Thomas
Hmm. Hmm.
01:13:46
Erocky
I think the people who are really fucking good at designing objects in the woodworking, but in the functional furniture space, just kind of have the innate thing, you know?
01:13:56
Erocky
And they they can't really describe how they do it. They just do it well.
01:13:59
Jack Thomas
Hmm.
01:14:00
Erocky
Like, Paul, I don't think you're dissimilar from this. You don't have a background education in in design. And yet, like, the overwhelming majority of the things you make you You hit it so fucking close to like, like it is, it's either out of the park or it or it hit the wall for a standup double, you know?
01:14:19
Erocky
But you can't tell me why the thing works. Usually you're just like, it just worked.
01:14:21
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I just know. i look at it and I know.
01:14:23
Erocky
Yes. And so I think the overwhelming majority of people who succeed in the furniture world, because we are, we see ourselves as craft people and we're seen as a craft have that.
01:14:24
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Hmm.
01:14:32
Erocky
And they don't have the ability to articulate it in the way that Jack just did.
01:14:35
Jack Thomas
But some of the some of the best craftspeople and some of the best artists are also some of the shittiest teachers sometimes.
01:14:41
Erocky
Well, that's also true.
01:14:41
Jack Thomas
Because, yeah, because because they go from, in their mind, they go from point A to point C. And they never go through point B. And so they can't teach point B.
01:14:49
Erocky
but Because it's innate to what they're doing.
01:14:50
Jack Thomas
Exactly. Exactly.
01:14:51
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Oh, that's a great point.
01:14:51
Erocky
But i think the other I think the other problem with craft schools is the reality is people who will pay money to attend a craft school are more likely to see themselves as craftspeople or care about the building of the thing and care less about learning to design.
01:15:05
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah. Yeah.
01:15:07
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah.
01:15:08
Jack Thomas
And art, on the other hand, like i I had an incredible sculpture professor in school and I went to this like tiny little private college called Swanee, the University the South.
01:15:19
Jack Thomas
Fucking incredible school. And the sculpture professor, Greg Pond, a brilliant thinker, but also a brilliant sculptor. He told me something that cut me to the fucking bone when I was a sophomore. I mean, it it shook me.
01:15:33
Jack Thomas
I was sitting in the sculpture studio late one night, sketching out the umpteenth sketch of some like overly fucking intellectual exercise that I was planning to make. But I hadn't I hadn't turned on a saw. I hadn't picked up the welder. I hadn't cast any plaster.
01:15:48
Jack Thomas
And he walks in. It's like fucking 11 o'clock at night. And he just looks at me and he goes, you know, the ideas are not the work. And then he just fucking walked off.
01:15:56
Erocky
Mm. Mm. Mm.
01:15:59
Jack Thomas
And I was just like, my whole life is a sham.
01:16:00
Erocky
Fucking preach.
01:16:05
Jack Thomas
And I immediately set out to get very, very good at craft, but not a lot of my peers did. And it really, really shows.
01:16:15
Erocky
Mm. Yeah. But um
01:16:16
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
that
Interrelation of Art and Science
01:16:17
Erocky
we also live in an age where...
01:16:19
Erocky
and in pop culture at least, and we're talking about modern art, the idea is the work. You know? Like, it's it's...
01:16:27
Jack Thomas
it In some cases, yes.
01:16:28
Erocky
I mean, listen, again, again, we can have a whole other episode about this, like fucking banana on a wall, but...
01:16:31
Jack Thomas
That's a whole other episode.
01:16:31
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Okay. but all Sorry, Eric, last question for you guys. Is this right brain, left brain? The right brain being the creative artistic side and the left brain being the execution analytical side to make like it's almost like k craft is the analytical execution engineering piece.
01:16:43
Erocky
To some extent, maybe.
01:16:48
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And the right is the design elements are what is it you know, what does it mean piece? And like you have to find people who are comfortable using both right and left brain.
01:16:58
Jack Thomas
The people who do both, I think the people who do both have always been the best. I mean, like if you if you look at Da Vinci, right, legendary, most people don't know that he was also like an extreme engineer, right?
01:17:03
Erocky
Mm-hmm.
01:17:11
Jack Thomas
Like, like focus to a hyper.
01:17:11
Erocky
Mm-hmm.
01:17:11
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah. Yeah. Scientists engineer.
01:17:13
Jack Thomas
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
01:17:13
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah.
01:17:14
Erocky
Invented the helicopter.
01:17:15
Jack Thomas
Yeah, there you go. I mean, and and and built built entire sculptural theatrical sets and designed wings to help people fly.
01:17:19
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Right. And it studied the human body and muscles and.
01:17:21
Jack Thomas
And yeah, all of that, all of that.
01:17:23
Erocky
Yep. Yep. Yeah, I agree. I think the, I guess, Paul, the way that you phrased it, right brain, left brain, I don't disagree with, but that's looking at it black and white.
01:17:35
Erocky
And if we do anything in our current age that I, that I agree with is recognizing that everything is a scale, right?
01:17:36
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Well,
01:17:41
Erocky
Because there's, because we we could say that it's like a Venn diagram, right?
01:17:41
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Okay. Sure. Sure. Yeah.
01:17:44
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
not Yeah. Yeah.
01:17:45
Erocky
Where like,
01:17:46
Erocky
you know And then there's a few people in the middle who kind of get it ah from both sides versus I think there's a lot of people who are like, yeah.
01:17:49
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Well, so Eric, yeah.
01:17:54
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I don't disagree.
01:17:56
Erocky
And and and maybe they only play with, of course, of course.
01:17:57
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
No, we're a spectrum. We're a spectrum of right brain, left brain, right?
01:17:59
Jack Thomas
Mm-hmm.
01:18:00
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
But Eric, my day job and for the last 20-something, 30 years of science is with highly analytical, highly science-minded, left brainers like extremophiles.
01:18:09
Erocky
Sure, sure. So you live in an extreme. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:18:14
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And I am the weird one in that world who loves art. I just fucking love it. Like, I can hang in that world. I'm not quite as lefty as they are. And like, they're better...
01:18:25
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
than me at a lot of like super, super technical shit, but I relate more to people and I understand the feelings better and I see the beauty more.
01:18:35
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
So like that whole right brain piece like comes into me and I kind of see the two at play in both my work and now what we're working.
01:18:43
Erocky
maybe maybe i do fall pretty close to the center of that sliding scale but i i am i am of the opinion that science and art are not as far apart as we like to pretend that they are no i don't think they are i think the artistic process and anybody who's good at their craft whether whatever their fucking medium is is a series of experiments you go i have an idea
01:18:48
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I think you do.
01:18:53
Jack Thomas
Oh, they're not.
01:18:53
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
They don't have to be. They don't have to be.
01:18:54
Jack Thomas
Yeah.
01:18:56
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
no
01:18:56
Jack Thomas
Yeah.
01:19:05
Jack Thomas
Absolutely.
01:19:06
Erocky
I know what tools I have to execute the idea. I'm going to do the thing and see if it works. And the people who are really good and often successful at what they do look at the thing and they go, the result is not exactly what it should be.
01:19:19
Erocky
So I'll run another experiment and change
01:19:21
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Okay,
Future Episode Ideas and Audience Engagement
01:19:22
Erocky
5% and see if something happens.
01:19:22
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Eric, Eric, I would argue that that's an aptitude that you have. Sorry.
01:19:27
Jack Thomas
But let's also look at this from the science of learning design. I have to put on my my silly learning design professional hat. Paul, I have to ask, like the people that you work with, do any of them engage in and tangible, manual, ah creative-based skills like you do?
01:19:36
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah.
01:19:47
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
A couple, not a lot.
01:19:48
Jack Thomas
Okay. The reason I ask is because um ah there's ah there's a truth in learning design that if somebody tries to learn something through ah exposure, rote memorization, etc., it's going to take a minimum of 20 synaptic connections to be able to make that new idea stick, to make it a habit, to make it a skill that you can repeat.
01:20:10
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
20 times of of experiencing it.
01:20:12
Jack Thomas
Exactly.
01:20:12
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Okay.
01:20:12
Jack Thomas
Minimum, minimum of 20. Whereas the average, if you can learn this thing through play, through some kind of experimentation is six. It's just six.
01:20:22
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Oh.
01:20:23
Jack Thomas
And I think that that has a huge impact on how people who are analytical, but also creative can learn to pick up things on both sides of the brain faster, because we can think of it as this experimental play and engage with it that way. Basically fuck around and find out in a good way, you know?
01:20:39
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Jack, that's number four for this episode or five. That was fucking brilliant.
01:20:43
Jack Thomas
I think it's five.
01:20:47
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Oh, that you guys, what a great conversation.
01:20:48
Jack Thomas
It's true, though.
01:20:49
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Like it's, we're at an hour 20 and I just want to keep going. But like, this is, this is so compelling to me.
01:20:52
Erocky
We could keep doing it.
01:20:53
Jack Thomas
We've got three more episodes in here.
01:20:53
Erocky
We could. we got. Yeah, honestly.
01:20:57
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I fucking love this topic.
01:20:58
Erocky
Do we? All right. You know what I want to know for everybody listening who's an hour and 20 deep into this episode now for everybody still listening. Please let us know whether on Patreon or Instagram, if you want us to do full on deep dive episode into the ah elements and principles of design, because I think there's real value there.
01:21:18
Erocky
I just don't know. but Like, what's the broad appeal? Like, this is... We're going to have this conversation off air, of course. We got to figure out what the question is. But there's real value to that.
01:21:29
Erocky
I just don't want it to be like ah an hour and a half of us teaching.
01:21:33
Jack Thomas
Yeah, for sure.
01:21:33
Erocky
You know? Like, we got to have something
Sponsor Segment and Episode Conclusion
01:21:35
Erocky
to argue about.
01:21:37
Jack Thomas
Maybe we could come up with something that's like interactive that people can do as they're listening.
01:21:41
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
We could do a Patreon live.
01:21:41
Erocky
Or or maybe...
01:21:43
Jack Thomas
oh oh
01:21:44
Erocky
Ooh, maybe it's, that maybe it's a mailbag situation. Like if people have, if people look at the elements and principles design and like maybe send us visuals and we try to like figure out how to critique, maybe it's a critique apps.
01:21:48
Jack Thomas
o
01:21:55
Jack Thomas
Oh, that would be so fun.
01:21:55
Erocky
I don't know We'll figure it out. A critique episode could be good.
01:21:58
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I love it.
01:21:59
Jack Thomas
oh but don't I hope but nobody comes with soft feelings, though.
01:21:59
Erocky
All right. Oh yeah. Don't you got a developing thick skin at a critique is one of the most valuable things that you could have.
01:22:03
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Well.
01:22:06
Jack Thomas
It is. But also learning to be good at critique, which doesn't always mean being tough at critique is also really important too.
01:22:11
Erocky
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:22:13
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Oh, that's six.
01:22:13
Erocky
yeah
01:22:14
Jack Thomas
Yeah.
01:22:14
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
That's six.
01:22:16
Erocky
right. All right. We got to end this fucking episode at some point.
01:22:17
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
All right, y'all.
01:22:18
Jack Thomas
All right.
01:22:18
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Well, yeah.
01:22:19
Erocky
Here's, here's what we're going to do. We're going to dive into, our ad read, which is, ah once again, from our Lord and savior, WTV woodworking, William T.
01:22:30
Erocky
Burkle. Uh, so Jack, I want to ask you three questions about WTV woodworking, and I want to see what, you know, what you know about what they do, what they have, what their vibe is.
01:22:38
Jack Thomas
Okay. Okay. Mm-hmm.
01:22:42
Erocky
Um, So here's the first question for you. WTB Woodworking is offering on the 2nd of April, which is probably after this comes out.
01:22:53
Erocky
They're offering something called the FezTool Experience. And I'm wondering what you think the FezTool Experience entails.
01:22:57
Jack Thomas
Mm-hmm.
01:23:00
Jack Thomas
Oh, well, I mean, it sounds expensive and kind of sexy.
01:23:05
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Oh,
01:23:05
Jack Thomas
I mean, can you give me the address?
01:23:05
Erocky
I mean... Are
01:23:08
Jack Thomas
Like, I think I might swing by.
01:23:10
Erocky
you trying to... Trying to backdoor it?
01:23:12
Jack Thomas
yeah Hey, that but I don't know about the back door.
01:23:12
Erocky
What are we doing here?
01:23:15
Jack Thomas
I'll come in the front.
01:23:16
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Only Fez.
01:23:19
Erocky
Only if that is. Okay.
01:23:20
Jack Thomas
Hashtag only says Oh, my God.
01:23:25
Erocky
You're going have to tell me what you think goes on behind those closed doors in that windowless room.
01:23:27
Jack Thomas
o I think in the in the the closed door windowless room of the FezTool experience, I get to play with all of the FezTool toys I want in in the in oh in a group setting or is it private?
01:23:41
Erocky
I mean, that's maybe up to you. I don't know.
01:23:44
Jack Thomas
i think I think I'm going to get to touch every tool that I want to touch and then probably take something home.
01:23:48
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah, you will. Oh my god.
01:23:54
Erocky
Okay. All right. All right. ah It is. I just want to put one asterisk on that and let you know that it is.
01:23:59
Jack Thomas
Only one.
01:24:00
Erocky
It does start at 9 a.m. So if you're in that vibe at 9 a.m., I fucking love what life you're living, buddy.
01:24:05
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
hey
01:24:07
Erocky
ah Nine to one. Okay. Here's another question for you. And this might be directly related to the festival experience that you just described. um What do you think a micro jig does?
01:24:18
Erocky
Yeah.
01:24:20
Jack Thomas
Is it like, is it like when you do a tiny dance because you're so happy about your tool?
01:24:27
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I love it. I love these.
01:24:28
Erocky
so so after after the festival experience you're so elated that you do what if is you have like a tiny tiny helper like maybe a little oh it's a finger dance oh okay i was i was picturing i was picturing a micro friend that you had that like does the dance
01:24:34
Jack Thomas
Yeah, but just ah just a micro one.
01:24:36
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Well,
01:24:41
Jack Thomas
It's just a little finger dance.
01:24:41
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
it's micro. It's micro.
01:24:43
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
did did did da did did
01:24:43
Jack Thomas
Yeah.
01:24:44
Jack Thomas
o
01:24:49
Jack Thomas
Oh, like a little leprechaun friend. that No, it's me.
01:24:51
Erocky
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:24:51
Jack Thomas
I'm doing the smallest possible jig that I can because I'm so jazzed.
01:24:54
Erocky
Okay. I do like the idea of finger dances, though.
01:24:57
Jack Thomas
Yes.
01:24:58
Erocky
That's a micro jig.
01:24:59
Jack Thomas
see
01:24:59
Erocky
You can just I'm going to pitch micro jig on that now.
01:25:02
Jack Thomas
Absolutely.
01:25:02
Erocky
ah Okay.
01:25:03
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Oh, fantastic.
01:25:04
Erocky
and And finally, our last question. ah William T. Burkle comes from the distinguished heritage of the Scandinavian boy calls. And I'm wondering how do you think that the, the Scandinavian boy calls created their woodworking legacy? Cause there's a long, long history, long family history.
01:25:24
Jack Thomas
Hmm. That's a good question. I'm going to say it probably has something to do with Viking ships, right? Because like, isn't Boykle like ancient Icelandic for like really big fucking ship with a dragon on the front?
01:25:39
Erocky
Oh, I thought it was ah Icelandic for fish, but that's interesting.
01:25:42
Jack Thomas
Oh, is it? They're in the same ocean. I mean, it's it's there.
01:25:45
Erocky
thereirsty Yeah, maybe that's what it is. Maybe a fish-shaped vessel.
01:25:48
Jack Thomas
Yeah, absolutely. a fish shaped vessel. And they that that's that that's the origin of the legacy.
01:25:50
Erocky
Okay.
01:25:50
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
ah oh oh fantastic
01:25:51
Jack Thomas
And they just took it from there.
01:25:52
Erocky
That's what it is. That's what it is. William T. Teresa Burkle from...
01:25:57
Jack Thomas
Well, I'm really excited to like, you know, get on this ship and check out these tools and do a little micro if it's not, I'm not going to be nearly as excited.
01:26:01
Erocky
as well you should do you think Do you think the festival experience happens?
01:26:01
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
and do a micro jig
01:26:05
Erocky
is Is that what the boicle is? It's on the boicle. then you're quitting.
01:26:10
Jack Thomas
I mean, I'll come, I'll come, but I won't be as excited about it.
01:26:17
Erocky
Bill, I'm sorry. i hope you still continue to sponsor us, buddy.
01:26:21
Jack Thomas
Thanks, Bill.
01:26:22
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Oh boy.
01:26:22
Jack Thomas
See you soon.
01:26:23
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Okay. Well, I'm going to put the pause button on that shit. That was fantastic. Thank you, Jack, for answering our questions. My favorite part is that Eric asks you what these things are and never gives any other answers about what they actually are.
01:26:23
Erocky
Thanks, Billy boy.
01:26:39
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
He doesn't even dignify an answer.
01:26:41
Erocky
not What it actually is is less important.
01:26:44
Jack Thomas
I mean, I, i but I do want to know. i mean
01:26:47
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
We'll talk about that in the after show. Thank you all so much for joining this episode.
01:26:49
Erocky
There it is.
01:26:51
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
i This has been one of the most like thinking profound. Like I have enjoyed this topic more than a many in a long time. Like I love this fucking topic.
01:27:02
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I hope you did too. I hope you think about the use of elements of color and principle, sorry, elements of art and principles of design. in your work and think about balancing them. I think you, I hope you think about the use ornamentation or minimalism as it suits you and why, and it sort of like makes you think more about it.
01:27:22
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And I guess at a 10,000 foot view, I guess I'm hoping to say that I hope this conversation affected your perspective on your future work. Thank you, Jack, so much. You're awesome as always.
01:27:32
Jack Thomas
Oh, thanks so much for having me, guys.
01:27:33
Erocky
Thanks, Jack. Goddamn champion.
01:27:35
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And we'll see you all in the after show. If you want the video feed to look at our, you know, Eric's got a beautiful face, Jack's beautiful face.
01:27:45
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I'm, you know, mediocre at best, but if you want the video feed, you just, you subscribe, you subscribe to our Patreon and that'll also give you the after show.
01:27:49
Erocky
You're a bear. Stop lying.
01:27:51
Jack Thomas
We're all good looking. Come on.
01:27:56
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
We'll see you there, everyone.
01:27:58
Erocky
Appreciate you, friends. Okay, bye.
01:27:59
Jack Thomas
Bye.
01:28:00
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Bye.