[Art_beyond_sight_learning_tools] Article: Blindness doesn't stop man from running wordworking shop

[Shelley L. Rhodes]

Urbana/Champaign News-Gazette, Illinois
Thursday, July 14, 2005

Blindness doesn't stop man from running wordworking shop

By ANNE COOK

   HUME - Steve Naylor likes to say he lost his sight in 1986, but not his 
vision.
   The 51-year-old Mount Zion woodworker and furniture maker knows his 
limitations. He can't run a band saw. He can't match grains, and he can't 
cut freehand. He uses a Braille tape to make measurements, he marks projects 
with a scratching tool and he's working with voice software to interpret 
digital readouts.
   "Designs are in my mind's eye," said Naylor, who visited Shiloh High 
School this week to talk to woodworking teacher Mark Smith. "I have 
perspective there. And I often take things apart."
   Naylor brought Smith a possible project for his class, a martial arts 
belt rack sold by a Decatur friend on the Internet. "He sells hundreds of 
them a month and he buys them out of China," Naylor said. "We're talking 
about making a high-quality piece, and we like the idea of doing it locally 
so I came to see if the class here is interested in producing them, a 
collaboration."
   He came to Shiloh because the school has a commercial router, shaping 
equipment that sells for up to $70,000 that would make the rack 
manufacturing job easier.
   "I'm trying to get away from the idea that the old ways are always the 
best ways," said Naylor, who's been working with wood and making furniture 
since he was in the eighth grade.
    A Chicago area native, Naylor lived a normal life, working in 
manufacturing management and saving money to open his own woodworking shop, 
until 1986, when he was attacked by a robber who shot him in the head.
   "I lost my sight. I had lots of time on my hands and I had difficulties," 
Naylor recalled. "I had a lot of help. I started calling woodworkers, 
saying, 'I'm a blind woodworker,' without much success until one day I 
called R.J. Bennett of Wheeling and he listened to me."
   Bennett gave Naylor a chance, putting him in touch with woodworking 
artisan Sam Maloof, and they both helped Naylor make a copy of a rocking 
chair Maloof is famous for designing. That chair is still Naylor's proudest 
accomplishment. "He broke it down for me," he said of Bennett's approach to 
helping him.
   Meanwhile, Naylor met his wife, Claudia, and the couple started a family. 
When Bennett retired, Naylor moved his young family to Mount Zion, and he 
started his shop there.
   "I've had a full shop for eight years," he said. "You never master 
woodworking but I'm proficient. My wife helps me match grain and John 
Pierce, an industrial arts teacher, helps a lot."
   "I can match grains well, but I'm not good about identifying woods," 
Claudia Naylor said. "He can often tell the wood by the smell."
   Naylor does some public speaking, and he's appeared in commercials for 
Sears Craftsman tools. One major project he completed was building furniture 
for a training center for blind people at Milwaukee. "They're learning to 
adapt their lives, and I think it's appropriate for a blind man to have 
furnished their headquarters," he said.
   The Shiloh project is a step in a new direction. Naylor said he's 
"reinventing" himself, looking for ways to get more work done and move the 
industry closer to home..
   "We can't keep manufacturing here because we can't compete with the 
costs, but with high-tech equipment like the router, we can do the same 
things they do overseas by hand," Smith said. "Considering what's happening 
in the industry, we need to think out of the box," Naylor said.
   Smith will draw up specifications for the martial arts belt rack, and 
he'll turn plans over to his students next fall who will also be making 
wooden sunglass frames for a Kentucky company.
   "He's trying to train kids to compete in a larger world and that also 
fits with my concept of things," Naylor said. "I wonder why there aren't 
more opportunities like this for kids."
   Four of Smith's students earn money this summer working in the shop 
building computer desks, shelves and cabinets for classrooms.
    And Smith's taking eight of his students this month to a meeting of the 
Association of Woodworking Finishing and Suppliers at Las Vegas, a trip 
underwritten by program supporters. About half the school's 125 students 
typically take Smith's classes.


http://www.news-gazette.com/localnews/story.cfm?Number=18598


--
BlindNews mailing list

Archived at: http://GeoffAndWen.com/blind/

Address message to list by sending mail to: BlindNews at blindprogramming.com

Access your subscription info at: 
http://blindprogramming.com/mailman/listinfo/blindnews_blindprogramming.com

To unsubscribe via e-mail: send a message to 
BlindNews-Request at BlindProgramming.com with the word unsubscribe in either 
the subject or body of the message



-- 
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.323 / Virus Database: 267.8.14/48 - Release Date: 7/13/2005