![]() ![]() About midway through the program, the erstwhile craftsman changed his mind he realized his passion for clocks had turned into a lifelong pursuit. But despite his burning interest in the machines, Borden didn’t plan to work with them for a living.īorden decided to attend Wartburg Theological Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa, where he met his wife, Barbara. James Borden is a Midwest-based clock maker whose sculptural wooden works will be spotlighted at this week's Smithsonian Craft Show.īorden finished his first clock in 1980, and spent the following year after college in his parents’ basement, building pieces that included a unique Victorian clock with no box, dials, face or numbers-an aesthetic forerunner of his future works. This week, his work will be once more displayed among other fine objects at the Smithsonian Craft Show, an encore to last years’ event in which he participated for the first time and won two prizes including the First Time Exhibitor Award and the Gold Award. Now more than 30 years later, Borden is known nationwide for his business, Timeshapes, which sells large, hand-carved wooden clocks with sweeping levers, wheels and exposed gears whittled from black walnut, cherry wood and hickory. “We did a study on timekeeping, and we made this huge clock with wooden gears,” says Borden. He'd only tinkered with them as a hobby, but his varied coursework-reading about the history of American clockmaking, for example, to learn how early New England clocks were fashioned from wood, and seeing the famous Glockenspiel tower clock while studying abroad in Munich-inspired him and a friend to take the plunge and build their own for a class project. “You saw how all these different areas of thought connect with each other-just like a clock, which involves scientific principals of laws in motion, and physics and design.”īorden had always loved clocks and other mechanical objects, and had even grown up in Rockford, Illinois, which was then home to a vast private collection of time-measuring devices. “It was great for me because it involved integrating ideas, not studying just one,” says Borden. The Iowa-based craftsman attended Dana College, a small liberal arts school in Blair, Nebraska, where he took classes in history, art and science. Clockmaker James Borden and his sculptural wooden timekeepers make a compelling argument for the humanities.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |