Peter Korn - Why we make things and why it matters : the education of a craftsman

peter korn

david r. godine publisher

Boston

First published in 2013 by

David R. Godine Publisher

Post Office Box

Jaffrey, New Hampshire 03452

www.godine.com

Copyright 2013 by Peter Korn

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information contact Permissions, David R. Godine, Publisher, Fifteen Court Square, Suite , Boston, Massachusetts 02108 .

Cover photograph of tools by Mark Juliana

library of congress cataloging-in-publication data

Korn, Peter, 1951

Why we make things and why it matters :

the education of a craftsman / by Peter Korn. First edition.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references.

hardcover isbn 978-1-56792-511-1 (alkaline paper)

ebook isbn 978-1-56792-514-2

HandicraftPhilosophy. WoodworkPhilosophy.

Furniture makingPhilosophy. Korn, Peter, 1951

5. WoodworkersUnited StatesBiography. I. Title.

tt149.k67 2013

745.501 dc

2013023170

I belong to a generation of furniture makers to whom woodworking initially presented itself as a lost art from a more authentic time. When I turned my first clear pine board into a cradle, and for many years thereafter, I was beguiled by rediscovering the how of craft. How do you sharpen a chisel? How do you cut a sliding dovetail? How do you make a chair comfortable? Eventually, though, I also began to wonder about the why. What is craft and why does it matter? Why do we make things? Or, more specifically, why do we choose the spiritually, emotionally, and physically demanding work of bringing new objects into the world with creativity and skill?

The answers I have found through considering the work of my own hands, through the practical education of a life in craft, and through the shared experiences of others all seem to lead back to one fundamental truth: we practice contemporary craft as a process of self-transformation. Why this should be so and what its ramifications are, not only for craft and other creative fields, but also for understanding our own humanity, is the subject of this book.

More than five years ago I told myself that if I put down at least one word a day about the things that deeply mattered to me, I would be ahead of where I was not writing about them at all. My previous efforts as an author had been in the how-to genre. Books such as The Woodworkers Guide to Handtools (Taunton Press, 1998 ) and Woodworking Basics: Mastering the Essentials of Craftsmanship (Taunton Press, 2003 ) were relatively straightforward to write. I knew in advance the material I had to cover, so all I needed to do was construct a thorough outline and put flesh on the bones as clearly and accurately as possible. Not so this book! The slow, focused work of translating elusive perceptions about the why of craft into language, one tentative word at a time, has taken surprising turns. Every statement has provoked new questions, until finally I have found myself mapping out terrain hitherto invisible to me. I could never have imagined, for example, the extent to which I now see individuality as an illusion, the formation of identity as a full-time project, and thought as a phenomenon independent of language.

In short, writing this book has been a remarkable process of discovery. This is only fitting, since what I have come to see, bottom line, is that creative effort is a process of challenging embedded narratives of belief in order to think the world into being for oneself, and that the work involved in doing so provides a wellspring of spiritual fulfillment.

There was a time when I assumed that becoming a master craftsman would be a process of enlightenment. My hands were still ignorant then, and I was searching for an occupation in which I could forge an adult self. Eager for competence, I thought that having ones craft together would mean having ones life together. Today, having become reasonably competent as a furniture maker, I know better. Spiritual enlightenment is not on the table. Still, the notions that drew me into the workshop forty years ago were not without consequence. The footing on which I started my journey has shaped my choices, concerns, and experiences throughout, and my transcendent expectations for a life in craft were rewarded in more palpable ways.

These days I teach more than I build. My students are adults from a wide variety of backgrounds, many with lives that could be considered highly successful by any normative standard. Yet, consistently, I find that they have been drawn to woodworking by a hunger similar to that which first impelled me. They do not invest time, money, and effort traveling to Maine to cut dovetails with hand tools because they need little hardwood benches, which are the introductory-class projects. What lures them is the hope of finding a deeper meaning by learning to make things well with their own hands. Many go on to set up workshops of their own, and more than a few develop a passion for woodworking they describe as transformational.

Beyond the red clapboard walls of our school I encounter many more people who express the same sort of longing. The banquet of work, leisure, and consumption that society prescribes has left some essential part of them undernourished. They are hungry for avenues of engagement that provide more wholesome sustenance.

The craft of furniture making is not a cure-all for this condition, but it functions as a source of meaning, authenticity, fulfillment call it what you will, for the moment for many people of my acquaintance. The same is true of other self-expressive, creative disciplines. They may not lead to the profound transfiguration to which I once vaguely aspired, yet their satisfactions are well matched to the earthly nature of our spiritual appetites. Furniture making, like all contemporary crafts, is a road less traveled. Yet it has much to reveal about the risks and rewards of sustained creative effort about what art is and why it matters in the context of our shared search for a better way to live.

Here I should mention three well-regarded authors who have already offered extracts of craft as antidotes to the spiritual deficiencies of modern life. Most iconic for my generation is Robert Pirsig, whose 1970 s best seller, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, was presented as a meditation on the subject of quality. Pirsig lays out his central theme in describing how two young mechanics had carelessly repaired his bike:

The mechanics in their attitude toward the machine were really taking no different attitude from the manuals toward the machine, or from the attitude I had when I brought it in there. We were all spectators. And it occurred to me there is no manual that deals with the real business of motorcycle maintenance, the most important aspect of all. Caring about what you are doing is considered either unimportant or taken for granted. On this trip I think we should notice it, explore it a little, to see if in that strange separation of what man is from what man does we may find some clues as to what the hell has gone wrong in this twentieth century.