When the membership was larger and the organization better funded, it was worth trying to have a school that specialized in teaching repair of vintage timepieces. Sorry, but my vote is to close the school. I am afraid that many board members will not be willing to share their views here and this breach of protocol may result in more polarization of a board of directors that is designed to be a consensus body. I felt that was appropriate in this instance since the action represented a major change in the structure of the organization and needed the reactions of the membership before final decisions were made. If is, of course, very unusual for the topic of a motion to be announced before the board actions transpire. The entire procedure for our electronic meetings may be found on the NAWCC website at. This process is similar to the caucus process used by publicly elected government assemblies. This current period in our board meeting cycle is for the crafting of motions with discussion within the board. There has not been a motion made on this topic and it will not be made until the 10th of the month. I personally have no problem with such discussions, but I know from conversations with other board members that they do have such objections. Debate that normally is not public is being held here. The discussion seems to me to be moving in a direction that will likely be problematical to a number of directors. We have a forum that is private to the members to do this.īecause this particular topic potentially affects many who are not members, I have not brought up this issue or moved the discussion to the appropriate forum. “That’s true,” she says, “including all things that are magic like that.While I feel this discussion is very useful, we do not normally discuss NAWCC business in this forum. Those things include an uncanny silver swan in a museum, or a finger-size songbird in Cox’s workshop. There are so many things we have to thank horology for.” “Thank you for sending the rocket to the moon, horology, because that mechanism was invented by Charkes Sauter who worked for the Bulova watchmaking company. We’re able to calculate longitude at sea because of a horologist who invented a timepiece that was seaworthy, the first chronometer,” she says. “Knowing something has sat silent for 50 years or even longer maybe, and to have the privilege of hearing it sing once again, just for you, it’s phenomenal.”Ĭox sees her work as a way to preserve our common cultural heritage, and to remember the fundamental mechanical knowledge embodied in a well-crafted watch, music box or automaton.Īnd why, in the age of the Apple Watch, does that stuff matter?Ĭox has an impassioned answer for that: History is worth knowing, and horology has contributed a lot. “When it starts working for the first time, that’s the best feeling that anyone could ever experience,” she says. Often she works on restoring pieces that haven’t functioned for decades, work that brings a special reward. So really I had no choice from there, I had to move forward with pursuing working with and being with these objects.” That to me was everything I could’ve ever hoped for. “That’s the only one anyone has ever seen. Floating on a water-like bed of contra-rotating twisted glass rods, the swan preens its feathers before bending its neck and catching a tiny fish in its bill, which it proceeds to eat. The sterling silver swan contains three clock mechanisms and a carillon of bells. No less a figure than Mark Twain wrote that the swan had “a living grace about his movement and a living intelligence in his eyes.” It’s a famous example of clockwork simulating life. “People were basically trying to simulate what god can do, how to make life,” she says.Ĭox’s favorite object of all time is the Silver Swan, an 18th-century automaton housed in a British museum. That included early proto-robots, even precursors to artificial intelligence. Credit Brieana Ripley, KPLU Her workshop.
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