活动名称：2012木文化国际研讨会
会议时间：2012年9月2日
会议地点：浙江农林大学图书馆报告厅
报告嘉宾：Steve Ambrose

　　Steve Ambrose 先生1970 年毕业于美国科罗拉多州立大学并获得森林资源管理学学士学位。曾在美国农业部林务局任职39 年并于2009 年退休，现居住在科罗拉多州柯林斯堡。在美国林务局期间他曾先后担任阿拉斯加州首府朱诺市营林员、华盛顿特区法制办公室职员、科罗拉多州戈登市西部林业领导联盟联席主任和科罗拉多州柯林斯堡洛矶山研究站分管通讯的副站长。Steve Ambrose 先生还曾就职于柯林斯堡自然资源咨询委员会，现为科罗拉多州拉里默县公园委员会成员。Steve Ambrose 先生1998 年当选美国林学会院士，在亚利桑那州和新墨西哥州任职期间，Steve Ambrose 先生还考取了准考古学家资格认证。

报告摘要：The Spanish and Native cultures have a rich history of using wood throughout the ages. Although a small portion of Arizona and New Mexico are considered forest land, wood is used in religious ceremonies as well as for heating, cooking and home construction. For example in Arizona kachina is an important part of the Southwestern Indian Culture. A kachina (small wood carving) can represent anything in the natural world or cosmos, from a revered ancestor to an element, a location, a quality, a natural phenomenon, or a concept. Today there are master kachina doll carvers who still hold the traditional ways uncompromised.

Hogans in Arizona are another important part of Indian Culture. A hogan is the primary traditional home of the Navajo People. It can be round and cone-shaped, but may also be square or an octagon. A traditional hogan is made of wood and packed mud and earth in varying amounts, with the door facing east to welcome the rising sun for good wealth and fortune. Today hogans are still being constructed and used on the Hopi and Navajo Reservations in Arizona. Many have been modernized to feature current amenities.

Unique in Northern New Mexico is furniture construction. Unlike hardwood, pine has a tendency to split in straight lines along the grain, making it difficult to execute curved lines of baroque design. Given the soft brittle nature of pine and the coarse tools available, furniture made in New Mexico followed sturdy designs that precluded elaborate carving. New Mexican furniture of the mid-nineteenth century often combined traditional colonial construction elements with decorative techniques made possible by newly available milled lumber and tools, especially jigsaws and molding planes. By the late nineteenth century, decorative elements borrowed from other styles were grafted onto traditional Spanish furniture forms by New Mexican craftsmen, creating a lively and varied new style with an unmistakable character all its own. That craft still exists in communities such as Taos, New Mexico.

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