Bill Coperthwaite: Yurt Builder Extraordinaire

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PLOWBOY: Your view of crafts as a means of communication between cultures is much more profound than the usual idea . . . most people think of handwork as a hobby or pastime.

COPERTHWAITE: Hobbies are a construct of a society that needs to kill time . . . whereas life should be so exciting that you don't have time enough to get to all the things you want to do. People don't need hobbies, they need real, meaningful work.

Work that's useful and necessary is beautiful, yet I know few people who really enjoy it. When I was putting together the Eskimo project, one of the people at the University of Alaska criticized my plans by saying, "Coperthwaite, I think you're going to have a hell of a good time." That's not allowed in "serious" work. A common assumption of our society is that you're supposed to dislike what you do. "How can you have fun if you're learning something?"

My feeling is that if you don't like teaching that class, plowing that field or reading that book, stop being a prostitute, stop right now. Wait until you find the job that you want to do . . . even if you have to wait a long time.

In the words of Kahlil Gibran, "If you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy. For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man's hunger."

Some people feel that kids today just don't want to work. I say they haven't had the opportunity for training. I think true work is a skill that people can learn if they come to want to . . . but until they really enjoy the act — the way their bodies feel when they've finished some physical task — they will not see the beauty of labor.

The dominant culture gives a child work to do and only tells him that "work is good for you", instead of showing him the joy of being needed or the pleasure of accomplishment. It's silly to force a child to do something you could do more efficiently. But if that child can help you, really be useful, then it's another matter.

That's an advantage that comes naturally from living close to the land . . . there's plenty of useful work for a child — or an elderly person — to do. As a small boy I split kindling each day before my father came home. He could have chopped that wood faster than I . . . but he would have had to do it after a long day's work and usually after dark, so I felt useful. Or a little kid riding in a canoe may not be big enough to help out much by paddling, but the fact that he's up there in the bow holding it down with his weight is a contribution to the easy movement of the canoe through the water.

This kind of participation also helps a child begin to appreciate the beauty of a job well done — or of a good tool — for its own sake. So often these days, with kids rebelling against the dominant culture, they don't see the beauty of the utilitarian.

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