I think I'm not alone that when I hear the word "craft" I think of, well, disgusting yellow squares marketed as cheese. But when I read the word "craft" my mind fills with hot glue guns, pipe cleaners, Elmer's glue rolled up as black maggots all over my hands, and those brightly colored puffy balls. Punching holes in paper plates and an incident of my giving a hot iron a high five when I was 6 also make strong appearances. Not that I dislike craftiness, I honestly love it. Even the less prepubescent manifestations of craftiness I am downright enthusiastic about. I have taught myself knitting & crochet. I have tried my hand at calligraphy and embroidery, and window shop on Etsy quite frequently. In my mind craft has always been hand making something with an attempt at it being aesthetically appealing. I have come to realize that I still completely agree with that definition but the subtle sway and emotional reaction to that definition has become entirely altered.
For a few weeks now I have been jonesing for a hobby. I have come down with a severe case of RHS (restless hands syndrome). Which is surprising because growing up I always assumed I would be the soft handed, intellectual variety of man. The one who has memorized lengths of poetry, fumigates a pipe, and sits by a warm fire in a smoking jacket sitting in an overstuffed leather chair. I can very quickly memorize things and in an even more time efficient manner forget them. I have become an avid pipe enthusiast but shockingly have enjoyed making them as much or more than smoking them. Deep within my fleshy, university designed exterior is a rough handed man. I think many children growing up are romantic about the ability to create. Kids draw and paint, color and mold much more intentionally than most adults do. They are still willing to risk failure to generate something that they have created and it is only after years of other people not caring about what one has produced that many of us have stopped creating. We as a culture have lost the ability to craft. I have two Grandfathers that I always considered two sides of the masculine continuum but as I am realizing now were really just different personalities creating idiomatically. My Maternal Grandfather (MG) was an engineer with Lockheed. Worked in a top secret facility and was a very intellectual man (though on meeting him not of the poetry/smoking variety). As a side note he did share 1 poem with me that he had written while he was alive and I did discover a pack of old cigarette papers in his workshop but he did not have a fireplace in his house whatsoever so the stereotype quickly falls apart. But this workshop in which I found said cigarette papers after his passing was always, to me, a magical place. It was not pixie filled and I don't think I ever saw the slightest hint of glitter but it had a very alchemical feel. Everything had a place. There was a wall with his paintbrushes meticulously hung by the door. 1/2 of the garage was filled with piles of junk and boxes. Always like a buried treasure that I was too afraid to dig through. The other half was where this engineer crafted. A 6' cast iron metal lathe and standing drill press dominated the space with many other tool boxes to compliment the limited available space. As a child I always pictured my MG in his office with his mechanical sketches and slide-rule. I did not really associate his inside personality with the magical workshop out back. Only once did he use those tools with me and we turned a bit of something on his metal lathe. I think I actually made something of wood, I don't remember, but the memory of us actually using the delicate instruments of his secret laboratory together in one of the few powerful childhood memories I hold onto.
One of the strongest childhood memories of my Paternal Grandfather (PG) is also based around a lathe. This time a wood lathe. I remember horribly creating something chewed up and dismal looking but I remember making something with a power tool. Holding the gauge in my hand and the terrifying exhileration of that moment. The metal lathe and the wood lathe are interesting metaphors into the personalities of these two great men, which I will not bore you with, but the fact that they were both craftsmen was totally lost on me growing up. My PG was much more of what struck me as a craftsperson. He tended his garden, caught and skinned skunks who invaded it, made things out of wood, and had a laundry room filled with stuffed water fowl. He had the rough hands of a craftsman and one can still vividly see the series of lines that mark the back of his neck after years working and living outside in the sun. I would stare at those neck creases as a child and still I want to someday be a man with those copper lines marking me. He tattooed himself and sewed up his own split lip. It was easy for me as a corpulent bibliophilic youngster to see myself growing into my MG, sitting on the couch with his lap blanket watching a dodgers game. But a part deep in my soul always stirred in me to somehow metamorph into the utilitarian outdoorsman that I saw my PG as.
Growing up, however, I had a mother who had a full room of craft supplies but my father was much more of the computer wiz. I would watch him on our greenscreen computer as he showed me the miracles of the BBS forums, which eventually became the internet. He and I would put the innards of computers together and I loved those times. I loved doing something with my dad, I loved the fact that it was nerdy, but I really enjoyed having the screwdriver in my hand, the satisfying click of electrical connectors going together, properly seating the data ribbon. I don't want to downplay my dad's other gifts, he is a great computer guy. He is loving and compassionate. He is quick to laugh, and laugh loudly. My dad invigorates me when I am around him I feel like he is one of those people that takes a deeper draft of life than I do. In spite of those things he is not a mechanical thinker. Growing up I would hear the same "Point the flashlight where I'm working" spout out in frustration over the oily complexities of the family's mode de jour of transport but my dad didn't have the knack. I just assumed that I also didn't have the knack and so settled myself firmly in the intellectual artistic camp. I operated under that assumption all of my developing years. The one change was when I took Intro to Woodworking in 7th grade. I loved it. The smell of the wood shop The shavings on the floor, the feel of the sharp plane cutting ribbons of wood to make the napkin holder. Again I felt that same thrill as I did with the lathes growing up and the computer building experiences. I was starting to suspect that these hands were made to hold tools.
But like many flashes of personal discovery during those development years, I rightfully suppressed it to conform to the status quo that I had somehow assigned to myself. The big change happened when I started making pipes in college. I acquired more tools and made some pens as well. With only a lathe and a band saw and a plethora of hand tools and various other bits I was able to create things that I felt were somewhat beautiful that that people could use. A bit of confession here. Though I always aspired to be a great pianist author/sketcher, in reality I was not. I have the less than exiting ability to be above average at most things and excellent at very few. I think the highest compliment I received in my artistic pursuits was that I was the greatest waste of natural talent my piano teacher had ever encountered. So although I was not very capable in the most traditional forms of high art I started to see myself as a bit of an artisan, something I now would call a craftsman (I apologize for the implied, but unintended, sexism. Although I am a person I am also a man and feel like I can use this term without guilt). So I woodworked away for about a year until the major revolution happened in my life. I'm not sure if the XS850 came first or the reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance but they were about the same time period of my life and when their forces combined I was a changed man. Now before any fans get upset I understand that ZATAOMM is not primarily about motorcycle maintenance but the description of the systems of the motorcycle and his love of maintaining it through the dialogue help me to see the art of mechanics. His discussions on quality and the art of building a BBQ opened my eyes to something that I had, to a degree, always felt: That I had a passion for fixing things and that to fix things well was art.
Why did I give this lengthy biographical sketch you may ask? Recently, in the midst of my desire to have some free time to use towards my various interests, I unintentionally stumbled across a BBC series called MasterCrafts. It is basically survivor for Makers toned down for British audiences. I loved it. They take interested people and have them learn the basics of Crafts like woodworking, stone masonry, and weaving to compete for a spot as an apprentice in the craft. It was great to watch people's almost spiritual connection with the act of creating something with their hands. It has been very interesting to watch people from our modern age learn the joy of creating, becoming connected with the process of something, to be forced into the discipline of learning basic skill sets. All things that are somewhat foreign in our western cultures. And it reminded me of that soulful spark that I had the first time I touched a gouge to wood. The first time my motorcycle piston ignited, the first time I put the final buff on one of my briar pipes. It reminded me that what I was really missing was not just something to do, I have almost no free time as it is. The reason I am going through hobby withdrawal is there is a piece of me that needs to create, to art if you will. I read a quote that says we do not go into the wilderness to rough it, we go to smooth ourselves. I craft not because I want to create something but because I am someone who creates things.
For a few weeks now I have been jonesing for a hobby. I have come down with a severe case of RHS (restless hands syndrome). Which is surprising because growing up I always assumed I would be the soft handed, intellectual variety of man. The one who has memorized lengths of poetry, fumigates a pipe, and sits by a warm fire in a smoking jacket sitting in an overstuffed leather chair. I can very quickly memorize things and in an even more time efficient manner forget them. I have become an avid pipe enthusiast but shockingly have enjoyed making them as much or more than smoking them. Deep within my fleshy, university designed exterior is a rough handed man. I think many children growing up are romantic about the ability to create. Kids draw and paint, color and mold much more intentionally than most adults do. They are still willing to risk failure to generate something that they have created and it is only after years of other people not caring about what one has produced that many of us have stopped creating. We as a culture have lost the ability to craft. I have two Grandfathers that I always considered two sides of the masculine continuum but as I am realizing now were really just different personalities creating idiomatically. My Maternal Grandfather (MG) was an engineer with Lockheed. Worked in a top secret facility and was a very intellectual man (though on meeting him not of the poetry/smoking variety). As a side note he did share 1 poem with me that he had written while he was alive and I did discover a pack of old cigarette papers in his workshop but he did not have a fireplace in his house whatsoever so the stereotype quickly falls apart. But this workshop in which I found said cigarette papers after his passing was always, to me, a magical place. It was not pixie filled and I don't think I ever saw the slightest hint of glitter but it had a very alchemical feel. Everything had a place. There was a wall with his paintbrushes meticulously hung by the door. 1/2 of the garage was filled with piles of junk and boxes. Always like a buried treasure that I was too afraid to dig through. The other half was where this engineer crafted. A 6' cast iron metal lathe and standing drill press dominated the space with many other tool boxes to compliment the limited available space. As a child I always pictured my MG in his office with his mechanical sketches and slide-rule. I did not really associate his inside personality with the magical workshop out back. Only once did he use those tools with me and we turned a bit of something on his metal lathe. I think I actually made something of wood, I don't remember, but the memory of us actually using the delicate instruments of his secret laboratory together in one of the few powerful childhood memories I hold onto.
One of the strongest childhood memories of my Paternal Grandfather (PG) is also based around a lathe. This time a wood lathe. I remember horribly creating something chewed up and dismal looking but I remember making something with a power tool. Holding the gauge in my hand and the terrifying exhileration of that moment. The metal lathe and the wood lathe are interesting metaphors into the personalities of these two great men, which I will not bore you with, but the fact that they were both craftsmen was totally lost on me growing up. My PG was much more of what struck me as a craftsperson. He tended his garden, caught and skinned skunks who invaded it, made things out of wood, and had a laundry room filled with stuffed water fowl. He had the rough hands of a craftsman and one can still vividly see the series of lines that mark the back of his neck after years working and living outside in the sun. I would stare at those neck creases as a child and still I want to someday be a man with those copper lines marking me. He tattooed himself and sewed up his own split lip. It was easy for me as a corpulent bibliophilic youngster to see myself growing into my MG, sitting on the couch with his lap blanket watching a dodgers game. But a part deep in my soul always stirred in me to somehow metamorph into the utilitarian outdoorsman that I saw my PG as.
Growing up, however, I had a mother who had a full room of craft supplies but my father was much more of the computer wiz. I would watch him on our greenscreen computer as he showed me the miracles of the BBS forums, which eventually became the internet. He and I would put the innards of computers together and I loved those times. I loved doing something with my dad, I loved the fact that it was nerdy, but I really enjoyed having the screwdriver in my hand, the satisfying click of electrical connectors going together, properly seating the data ribbon. I don't want to downplay my dad's other gifts, he is a great computer guy. He is loving and compassionate. He is quick to laugh, and laugh loudly. My dad invigorates me when I am around him I feel like he is one of those people that takes a deeper draft of life than I do. In spite of those things he is not a mechanical thinker. Growing up I would hear the same "Point the flashlight where I'm working" spout out in frustration over the oily complexities of the family's mode de jour of transport but my dad didn't have the knack. I just assumed that I also didn't have the knack and so settled myself firmly in the intellectual artistic camp. I operated under that assumption all of my developing years. The one change was when I took Intro to Woodworking in 7th grade. I loved it. The smell of the wood shop The shavings on the floor, the feel of the sharp plane cutting ribbons of wood to make the napkin holder. Again I felt that same thrill as I did with the lathes growing up and the computer building experiences. I was starting to suspect that these hands were made to hold tools.
But like many flashes of personal discovery during those development years, I rightfully suppressed it to conform to the status quo that I had somehow assigned to myself. The big change happened when I started making pipes in college. I acquired more tools and made some pens as well. With only a lathe and a band saw and a plethora of hand tools and various other bits I was able to create things that I felt were somewhat beautiful that that people could use. A bit of confession here. Though I always aspired to be a great pianist author/sketcher, in reality I was not. I have the less than exiting ability to be above average at most things and excellent at very few. I think the highest compliment I received in my artistic pursuits was that I was the greatest waste of natural talent my piano teacher had ever encountered. So although I was not very capable in the most traditional forms of high art I started to see myself as a bit of an artisan, something I now would call a craftsman (I apologize for the implied, but unintended, sexism. Although I am a person I am also a man and feel like I can use this term without guilt). So I woodworked away for about a year until the major revolution happened in my life. I'm not sure if the XS850 came first or the reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance but they were about the same time period of my life and when their forces combined I was a changed man. Now before any fans get upset I understand that ZATAOMM is not primarily about motorcycle maintenance but the description of the systems of the motorcycle and his love of maintaining it through the dialogue help me to see the art of mechanics. His discussions on quality and the art of building a BBQ opened my eyes to something that I had, to a degree, always felt: That I had a passion for fixing things and that to fix things well was art.
Why did I give this lengthy biographical sketch you may ask? Recently, in the midst of my desire to have some free time to use towards my various interests, I unintentionally stumbled across a BBC series called MasterCrafts. It is basically survivor for Makers toned down for British audiences. I loved it. They take interested people and have them learn the basics of Crafts like woodworking, stone masonry, and weaving to compete for a spot as an apprentice in the craft. It was great to watch people's almost spiritual connection with the act of creating something with their hands. It has been very interesting to watch people from our modern age learn the joy of creating, becoming connected with the process of something, to be forced into the discipline of learning basic skill sets. All things that are somewhat foreign in our western cultures. And it reminded me of that soulful spark that I had the first time I touched a gouge to wood. The first time my motorcycle piston ignited, the first time I put the final buff on one of my briar pipes. It reminded me that what I was really missing was not just something to do, I have almost no free time as it is. The reason I am going through hobby withdrawal is there is a piece of me that needs to create, to art if you will. I read a quote that says we do not go into the wilderness to rough it, we go to smooth ourselves. I craft not because I want to create something but because I am someone who creates things.
