I don’t mean to offend any machinists, craftsmen, artists,
hobbyists, or anyone else out there. Or to say that you can’t combine any or
all of the catagories. This is just a
ramble of thoughts.
Most of the time I don’t consider myself to be an artist, or
really even a craftsman, despite making knives, bows, bowls, pens, and a
variety of other things. I am a hobbyist
or something like that. I don’t focus on
one particular topic, get bored easily with doing the same or even similar craft
work, and therefore, rarely spend enough time on a particular craft to get very
good at it. I often feel like my first
attempts at something are the best because I haven’t gotten bored with the
particular task. In my mind, Craftsmen
are those who take the time to get better and better at a particular
craft. So what are artists? I think they
are people who put a great deal of themselves into their work no matter the
medium.
So what is my point today? I see a lot of mechanization in
the field of knife making. And those
products tend to be cleaner and more precise than “handcrafted work”, and most
importantly – repeatable as long as the materials and tools hold out. I can’t do that as a hobby craftsman. I can make something that looks pretty
similar, but it won’t be the same. The hammer doesn’t fall in the same place,
the grinder (or sandpaper) marks are different, the gluing shifted slightly,
I burned my finger, the heat treat was
25 degrees different. I am not a
machine. So which is better?
Neither.
There is something to be said about the ability to repeatably
make an item, once you get the design and set up out of the way (something that
isn’t as easily done as said), and have the process for finishing put together,
pieces and parts “just” need to be assembled (see children’s toy assembly for a
simple vertion of “just”) and finished, not necessarily in that order. Mistakes may happen, but generally, the
process is repeatable. Repeatability
doesn’t mean that it isn’t art! But the art may be in the design, and assembly
and finishing rather than in the machining. I don’t know, maybe there is a grey
area.
There is also something to be said about raw crafting – and don’t
get me wrong, I use plenty of tools, otherwise my hands would be burned bloody
stumps and I still wouldn’t have a product. But at the same time, I rarely
measure anything, everything is “by eye”, or until it feels right, or until it
fits. Yes, there is some rough marking
of important points, but either I or my machines aren’t that precise most of
the time. I have – rarely – attempted to
repeat a project, or make two of something, but inevitably, they are
different. I don’t know if the
unrepeatability of my work (by me at least) makes them more artistic. They generally don’t have the same level of
fit and finish as a machined piece, and overall may not be the same “quality”
but are they more because they are unique?
Perfect in their imperfection?
Which would you rather have as a tool? Or as an object to set
on your shelf and look at? Does it make
a difference? Sometimes? If I make a bowl on my lathe – for me a
moderately repeatable task, although
there are likely to be slight variations in shape and size and thickness and symmetry. I would still rather have that hand turned
bowl on my shelf rather than a machine turned piece identical (except for the piece
of wood) in all dimensions to 50 or a thousand others. But a tool? A knife? Yes, there are machined
knives that are beautiful, but if there are a thousand of them are they as
beautiful? Why not? At the same time, the fit and finish and precision, and the
ability to tweak the process to make them even better in future iterations, has
a great deal of appeal.
If you want the “best” of something, the ability to tweak
the design is key. Craftsmen can only achieve it over a great deal of time and practice
(Apprentice, journeyman, master), and although there are certainly different
skill levels of machinists also, specifications can be transmitted from one to
another and the results should be pretty close.
I’m sure that any Japanese swordsmith would cringe at the
plethora of very functional machined katana out there, but is the hand forged,
hand polished, version that much functionally better, or even more beautiful? What
if you consider that one takes 10 or more times as much time to make?
I’m a bit jealous of the mechanized craftsmen, and I still
want a power hammer, but I don’t think that I will stop being a hobby craftsman
for now.
