Yale, Winterthur, and Glorious Homeschooling

I’ve been able to spend some time the past few days polishing off some notes for my historic turning presentation at Yale this Friday.  It’s been great digging into period turning texts to mine their commentary. I find that there is so much information available today from folks with wildly different approaches to the same task that putting together material to present a skill can be a real burden. I’ve found it’s better to restrict my research to period texts and close my ears to modern divergent opinion. My logic is that if I’m presenting period methods, I should rely on period commentary. Simplifies the whole thing. I’m really looking forward to that presentation.

In other news, I’ve decided to reschedule my Winterthur trip to take advantage of an exciting opportunity. I was originally planning on doing my Winterthur research trip next week but after discussing the project with Charles Hummel, we both decided it would be a good idea to spend time together working on this Jonathan Fisher research when I am down there. Charlie has generously offered to spend time looking over my research to advise me. He also will be showing me his Dominy research methodology in order to shed light on Fisher. Needless to say, I didn’t hesitate for a second to reschedule this trip to accommodate Charlie’s schedule. I have moved it to November and I know it will be worth the wait.

In other news, the local paper ran a story on our house project. Read the full story here. I think it’s good that the community was told of the happy fate of this house because so many people assumed it was being demolished. Many people love this house so I’m glad the paper wanted to run this story.

Speaking of the house, I have to tell you a funny story from today… Eden went to his home school group today and the kids all presented something from their summer. Julia told me many kids talked about their stuffed animals and other “super important” kid stuff. What did Eden talk about? Nails. That’s right. He brought several examples of wrought, cut, and round nails and explained the difference between them to his peers. Pretty impressive for a six year old!