We’ve posted six photographs from our recent trip to Seiffen in the Erzgebirge, which may be found here. They show the Füchtner workshop (two pictures) and Christian Werner’s workshop, and include some images of Reifendrehen in progress. (For more information about this style of woodcarving, visit the Folk Art information page.)

Our visit to the circus made me think of some other children who went to the circus: namely, Tommy, Annika and Pippi Longstocking. While we were content to watch and perhaps dream of doing what we saw, Pippi jumped right in, riding behind the horseback rider, walking the tightrope and even besting the “World’s Strongest […]

It was my sister’s birthday this past weekend, and to celebrate, my mother bought the family tickets to see the Big Apple Circus outside of Hanover, NH. Saturday afternoon found us at the Big Top, waiting to see one of the last performances of the season.
I haven’t been to a circus since my youth, a […]

We received an e-mail from a German toymaker recently, responding to our question as to which song plays in a certain music box he makes. The title was unfamiliar, so I turned to the ever-helpful Robokopp Folksong Index / Volkslieder Verzeichnis and quickly found both the lyrics and a MIDI of the music.
I have […]

Although school has been out here for only two weeks, we are already thinking about September and the next school year. Our middle child will be starting kindergarten, and it is possible that he will be in a class that is not only collaborative (twice the number of students and twice the number of teachers), […]

We should soon have pictures to post of our just-completed trip to Seiffen, Germany, where we met with several of our favorite craftsmen and got to see their newest designs firsthand. We will be getting several new pyramids (to add to those that arrived in April), and have an exciting project in the works that […]

June 30 saw the start of Dan Cole’s “Knitting Machine” project at MASS MoCA, a museum in North Adams, Massachusetts. Mr. Cole will be knitting an oversized American flag, using two John Deere excavators fitted with 20′ knitting needles. Once finished, the flag will be displayed in the museum.
I am afraid that this is one […]

“The Coo Coo is a pretty bird, / She warbles as she flies,
She never hollers “Cuckoo” / ‘Til the Fourth of July.”
Clarence “Tom” Ashley, “The Coo Coo Bird” (The Anthology of American Folk Music, Vol. 3).
It is a haunting piece, this “Coo Coo Bird”. Clarence Ashley sounds ancient, or ageless; the verses he sings are […]

If Independence Day is in part a celebration of the American spirit, I can think of few better ways to acknowledge it than with a reference to the “American Memory” pages at the Library of Congress. As the name implies, it is a repository for all sorts of American artifacts, from oral histories to photographs […]