Understanding craft: the art of work

I have invested my lifetime learning my craft and this came only in the doing of it. I recall in times past reading the writings of those who only observed crafts and then wrote about how the crafting artisan felt about their working of the substance. Somehow they managed to convey information based on what they thought the artisan felt, thought, did. There is an art about work we often miss because of this perspective. Craft is the art of work, but the only way of knowing that is in the art of working. Art brings order to our working. The order is the placing of the tool on the bench and the picking it up. Placement of the cutting edge to the unformed tenon and mortise demands interest, order and care. This again is craft, the art of work.

I know little of my craft save what I have made in the limited sphere of creativity in which I live and work. My life is not a philosophy but lived. I twist the board, cast my eye to its surface and read what lies beneath the sawdust and the dirt from the saw mill.

 

My hands pass over the surface and I feel for content I cannot detect with my eye. My fingertips, though calloused and hard, tell me of fissures within, of a slight or deep undulation. My fingernails tell of reverse grain that will trip and snag my plane and my chisel or adze. The machinist knows nothing of what I speak. He merely feeds the insatiable gape of the machine with wood.

But I am learning of wood. I hold my stance for a while and think of the grain. I wait. My hands trace the surface once more and then I see what I couldn’t see before and there in my hand I hold the panel I need for my Hope Chest top. It’s quite lovely. The medullary rays glisten more the one side than the other; like jewels that catch the light for a moment. They are lovely though as yet uncut, unrefined. Quite wild and imperfect. Soon my plane will reveal them fully.