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Human Potential Is Wood Shop's Raw Material

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Artisans has expanded Harper's world: Barinholtz took the class to the Smithsonian's Renwick Gallery, where they saw Wendell Castle's Ghost Clock. "It's this grandfather clock all wrapped in a white sheet, and then you get close and you see it's all carved mahogany," Harper says. "It was wild.

"Man, if they had this back when I was in school, I don't know what I could have been. I'm even turning my homies down. They say, 'You staying out tonight?' and I'm, 'No, man, I got to go to work.'" Now, she shocks herself by getting up at 6 each morning to get to work; last month, she started a job with a contractor.

"The skill deficits they come in with are daunting," says Larry Gold, a lapsed lawyer who volunteered at Artisans after running a wood shop for children in Takoma Park. "Whether they can carry the confidence with them after they leave here is an open question, but we have to try."

Several local furniture makers have hired Artisans, but the goal is not only to train craftsmen. "It's desirable to make woodworkers, but it's feasible to make taxpayers," Barinholtz says.

"We finished our first box," Harper recalls, "and I looked at it and I'm like, 'Hey, I made this joint -- I did.' "

Artisans needs volunteer woodworkers (202-610-6519 or artisans@chdc.org).

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