Work as art: Logging as an aesthetic moment in Clearwater County, Idaho

The emphases of this dissertation are: an experimental writing technique to produce an ethnography of Orofino, Idaho, and an analysis of the region's major industry, logging, as a source for understanding the aesthetics of work. The genre is based on vignettes derived from interviews. Many are introduced with bridges that position the writer in the scene. They provide the reader with a picture of the writer's role in ethnography. Authorship is shared by the community members and the writer. Using a "slice of life," approach means that Orofinoans and the public can read the ethnography as if it were a literary piece. It provides Orofino with a voice as it creates a work with broad popular interest. As the study unfolds, it gives details of the lives of old-time loggers and contemporary logging contractors. It sets the stage for examining whether loggers apply an aesthetic to their work, both in their daily life in the woods and in festival performances. A definition of aesthetics, applied to those who look at their physical labor as art, is developed at the conclusion of this dissertation.