[TheForge] artisan or factory?

[Ries Niemi]

On Thursday, January 15, 2004, at 05:44 AM, George Dixon wrote:
>  However, at the small shop level, the closer one gets to mass 
> production techniques the less of a competitive advantage you have in 
> exclusive markets.  Their are any number of folks who can invest in 
> purchased tooling.  This, coupled with the reality that production 
> most often calls for design simplifications and standardization, means 
> that the competitive edge of quality or uniqueness is traded for 
> production speed.  That is fine for Walmart or Ford, which operate as 
> a different economic model.  Their size and markets demand and 
> comprise a level of efficiency which is not possible nor desirable in 
> a small shop.  I believe that the model of hand assisted process and 
> tooling solutions from the end of the last technological period is 
> better geared to making art and a living in a small shop than trying 
> to emulate a production model that is based on scale and speed.
>

This is a question I wrassle with on a daily basis-
Most people take the approach George described- one off, hand made 
objects.
I, however, am both contrary and stubborn, and have spent my life 
looking for my own, middle path.
When I was young, I worked at a few places where I did semi-production 
line type work, and I found there were actually parts of it I liked. 
This makes me pretty weird, but that may be an accurate description.
I love seeing a whole bunch of items that I have made, all lined up in 
rows like some little model army. I get a perverse pleasure from making 
lots of something. And I find that I get into a kind of zenlike 
repetition mode while  making things over and over again that is not 
wholly bad. Now dont get me wrong- I dont want to work in a widget 
factory and make the same widget every day til the day I die.
I like the whole package- designing the piece, figuring out how to make 
it, making a whole bunch, putting em together into some larger whole, 
but then moving on to a new piece.
I used to do production crafts, with part runs ranging from 6 to 200. 
Not 10,000 or 100,000.
But I often design work that involves multiple elements, and I have 
tooled my shop accordingly, with some larger scale tools, and with 
tools that are somewhere between what you would find in a turn of the 
century blacksmith shop, and what you would find in a late 20th century 
factory.
I am intrigued and  amazed by what you can do with sophisticated 
machines. I find that most of the parts designed for them were not 
designed by artists, craftsmen or artisans, but by engineers working 
towards the lowest cost and easiest assembly.
The machines themselves have all kinds of possiblities if the right 
people (read ME) get ahold of them. I would love to get my hands on a 
$300,000 Trumpf CNC combination plasma cutter turret punch press. Of 
course, after the part is popped out of that machine, to give it any 
spirit or interest, it would have to be worked more, quite possibly 
involving hand processes. I dont wanna be a designer for Ford- I want 
to see what else could be done with some of those processes.
Grant Sarver is somewhat of an inspiration to me in that respect- he 
has an wideranging  knowledge of industrial techniques, but he combines 
them with his knowledge of blacksmithing to produce things nobody else 
does, in ways most nobody else can.
His value to his customers is the same as George's- whats in his  head, 
combined with how he uses that to guide his hands.
That is what I aspire towards as well- working smart, regardless of the 
tool or technique, utilising my brain, eyes and hands.

ries