I just re-read something i wrote a few years ago which still, for the most pat, seems to say what I think about Craft.

“The imperatives of craft create an internal set of standards devised by the maker (child development experts say that this sense of being in control is one of the most important characteristics of play). The craftsperson or team of craftspersons makes the whole thing, from start to finish.

The purpose of craft is generally not dramatic innovation but evolution and improvement, so standards are based on practice that refines the craftsmanship over time. It’s not practice for something else or performance against an arbitrary or competitive standard. When we make a piece of furniture, there’s a complete outcome, but it’s practice because it’s part of a continuum that is never complete. We are forever polishing our skills.

We, the makers, are never satisfied. Every design has flaws that we don’t see until it’s built. Each building could be detailed more coherently, each chair could fit the body just a tad better, and every color could be one shade closer to artful perfection. We grumble, we assess, and we curse our carelessness and foolishness. We are gratified when a tight fit leads to an elegant result. That is the craftsperson’s lot.

I’m still heartbroken (that sounds extreme, but I can’t think of a better word—it’s more than sad, I know, so maybe it’s slightly heartbroken) when I look at something we’ve done and see a room or a roofline or a detail that should have been better. I wish we’d come closer to the target. Often we put our heads together, in such situations, and think hard about how we could have, and whether it’s too late. Sometimes it’s not. Even when the solution takes serious reworking, we repair the cause of our slightly broken hearts when we can.”

That says it pretty well for me. And I love your friend George Baumgardner’s way of putting it: “Good judgment comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgment.”

I read your blog post where you mentioned the rocking chair Pinto made for you and Chris out of a thirty year old piece of wood. I laughed, because I just built a coffee table for Carol out of a piece of wood I’ve been hauling around since the late ‘70’s—probably through 8 or 9 moves. What’s that say about us woodies? It was a 2 ½” slab of black walnut, that I resawed, and the table was the first piece of “fine” woodworking I’ve done in years and years. My chops are rusty as the product shows, but it was good enough to make my wife happy and it was great to spend a few hours in the shop.

You also mentioned Mathew Crawford and “Shopcraft as Soulcraft.” I, too, was attracted by the title, but tossed the book aside after a couple chapters. I would probably agree with most of what he has to say, but the guy was setting off alarms. There was the “watch out for libertarians” alarm. And the “even though this guy comes from academia and is over-intellectualizing his topic, he’s acting anti-intellectual” alarm. And the “I’m gonna wade through this book and be pissed which is sometimes a good thing but probably not this time” alarm. Do you hear these kinds of alarms? Are they a blessing or a curse? Or both?

But mostly your post re-stimulated some thinking I’ve done over the last couple years about the definition of craft. I’ve been confused and dissatisfied by proposed definitions over the years. My timber framing colleagues speak of something being “well-crafted,” but when pressed for what that means, they give “well, you know…” kind of explanations, and imply that it’s obvious in looking at the object what it means to be well-crafted. But it’s not. So when I press further for a definition, about all that’s offered up is descriptions of work, that in my mind define precision—tight-fitting joints, for example, as if producing a tenon that is as square and true as one cut on a table saw (or Hundegger) is the ultimate achievement of craft. But that’s not enough!!! Craft has to be more than achieving machine-like precision, doesn’t it? And it has to be more than sentiment. I can’t listen to another wistful monologue about “my grandpa’s tools” and “they don’t build them like they used to.” My grandpa had those tools, too, and although he was a hardworking guy who got a lot done in a day, he could not be considered a craftsman.

David Pye wrote “design proposes and craft disposes”—a helpful notion. Pye also suggested that craft is not a matter of tooling–that is, not inherent to the use of “hand tools” versus machinery–but rather it’s the degree to which the quality of the outcome of an operation is dependent on the skill of the operator—a helpful notion, since it takes atavistic a/o moralistic arguments or arguments about the virtue of various tools or methods off the table. But there remains the inevitable argument about the definition of “quality,” and the attendant dangers of being dragged back into the swamps of virtue/morality/precision.

So what about quality? From the ‘fifties (I think in the statistical definitions of quality employed in industrial applications, and maybe from Dr. Deming’s work) I found the notions of “fit for intended purpose,” and “fitness for use,” which are satisfying because they bring the issue of service or serviceability to the discussion, and, at least for me, become a solid basis for discussing quality. I have always liked the phrase “good enough for who it’s for,” because it implies that context is an important consideration and introduces the concept of service. In fact, the ultimate judge of a given work might be what purpose does it serve, and does it serve that purpose, because without service you get “tenon polishers” and other acts of self stimulation with a more prosaic name of which I’m sure you are aware.

And what about people? In nearly 30 years of timber framing, I’ve worked with hundreds of guys, almost all of whom try on the mantle of “craftsman,” but a very few handful of them, perhaps, five or six (just so you know, I don’t include myself in this group—I’m a yoostawannabe), have really distinguished themselves in my eyes. They were all different personalities, but the thing they have in common is an uncanny “smoothness” that translates to a steady forward progress (unlike my own process of a couple steps forward and a few steps back; I usually end up building an object twice before I finish it once!) and consistently good results. I think the key is an ability to anticipate several steps ahead so that the “move” they make in the present sets up the next steps. Clearly experience is part of that, but experience appears to be more than a database from which to pick and choose “moves” but rather experience is a base from which they can project their intelligence into the future because they seem to be able to deal with new or unknown variables without complication. And of course none of these bubs is very verbal. You can ask them how they knew to do that, but don’t expect much of a reply. It remains a mystery to me, a very human one, but their acquired knowledge and skill guides judgement and creativity as they engage in building.

So what I’ve been looking for is a definition that avoids undue sentiment while making room for people, but not out of hand rejecting technology, with a component of purpose and service. Is that too much to ask?

And here’s what I got (so far):
Craft is a process requiring skill and judgment that transforms an idea or material from one state to another adding usefulness.

For example, acting is a craft that transforms written work into a performance (I suppose even oral reading of a text could be a craft). Writing transforms an unvoiced idea or yet-to-be connect bits of data into a story or a document. A timber framer transforms a pile of sticks into a structure. And when that happens, the original inspiration/idea/material becomes more valuable or useful (I prefer “adding usefulness” to “adding value” because it is more poetic). I suppose there could be arguments about what’s useful, but I don’t think they’d run very long. Similarly, skill and judgment* acknowledge the human elements by implying learning and creativity are essential to craft, and seem to be definable without much controversy (though I haven’t tried and probably shouldn’t underestimate a given group’s ability to overthink the room).

And what, then is the meaning of a well-crafted object? It’s one that faithfully expresses or executes the intent of the designer/ creator/ thinker-upper. Is that a cop out? I don’t think so, but it does bring up the relationship between art and craft which, for the sake of brevity, I won’t go into, except to say that I believe art to be vision or inspiration and craft to be expression of art. But that’s for another day.

I’d love to hear what you think about craft if you have time. I also look forward to seeing you sometime, though I don’t know when it will be. But if you’re ever in the area…

I hope all is well on the Vineyard. We continue to muddle through out here, and though there’s still not much visibility into the business future, there is a general sentiment that things are improving. Fingers remained crossed. And I’ll keep reading your blog.

So until next time, best regards,

*my friend George Baumgardner, one of the few real craftsmen I know, says “Good judgment comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgment.” I love the loop.