[TheForge] Re:Peter Ross speech

[Mike Spencer]

Mike Graf quoted  Chuck Robinson:

cr> The only response was from Mike Graf.  Peter and I are puzzled by
cr> the lack of reaction and discussion by folks on the list.

and wrote:

mg> In the interest of clarity I believe you have the wrong Mike. I
mg> tthink he response was from Mike Spencer.

He's right.  If there was only one response, it was mine.  I'll add
another here.

Peter remarked on David Pye's "The Nature and Art of Workmanship" and
goes on to propose a "machine mentality":

    I believe what I am seeing is the emergence of what I will call
    "machine mentality." I will also describe what I think of as "hand
    mentality". Please don't think of this as a comparison of hand
    versus machine or traditional versus modern. We would spend our
    time just as well discussing which is the best color. Instead,
    these terms suggest the orientation of the workman, not the
    methods; the mentality, not the process.

I read Pye's book long ago.  He makes a very nice distinction [1] that
should be intuitively apparent to anybody who beats hot iron and who
has ever seen an aluminum pop can. Rather than bloviate here, I'll
refer you to my "artist's statement" [2] on the web. [3]

The notion expressed there is that the intended piece -- the
"embodiment of mind" -- emerges slowly from the hot workpiece.  The
imagined or intended form may change with each blow, "accidents" may
happen that are then incorporated into the image in mind. [4]

I once had a piece rejected from a juried show on the grounds of
"uncontrolled workmanship". [5] This little gargoyle was partly a
demo, partly fooling around, partly group work with various strikers
at a week-long workshop.  There is a fracture in the metal that was
allowed to remain. Not a great piece but it embodies the process from
which it emerged.  The juror for the show from which it was rejected
was a German high-art guy who made little (but huge for jewelry)
box-like "jewelry" pieces composed of dozens of parts from different
precious metals, fitted together with perfect, machine-like precision,
soldered invisibly, dressed and polished to perfect planarity.  There
was clearly no meeting of minds here. :-) But it was a perfect exhibit
of Pye's distinction.

cr> At the last meeting of The Gulf Coast Blacksmiths. we discussed
cr> the speech.  The old farts like me, were in general agreement, but
cr> many of the younger members seemed bored by it.

I got into this stuff because I was taken (seized?) by the magic of
moving hot iron around with a hammer.  I didn't initially have
anything in particular I wanted to make.   I have a notion that many of
the younger guys start with an idea of what they want to make.  Then
getting to the end product is often much quicker with power tools and
arc welding.

Did I say "quicker"? Most people under 30 have grown up with
computers.  Things happen instantly.  If they don't, you strive (or
someone does) to make them do so.  You buy a new computer or optimize
the code or buy more bandwidth -- whatever your skills and pocket book
will support.  Imagine it, clikky-click, it happens. To the extent
that you use computers to do stuff, the computer experience frames
your perspective. Hitting apiece of iron a thousand times is
accompnied, then, by inner dialog about how to do it faster, not about
what's happening under the hammer, inside the iron, in your wrist,
elbow & shoulder.

This is not a slur upon youth (I'm one of the Old Farts, too) because
I see it happening to myself. After years with no electricity, I've
spent a lot of time doing computer stuff since I got my first CP/M box
in '87. Sit up all night, tweaking code, trying to figure out how it
works, compile, and after that the task can be accomplished over and
over again, instantly.  Don't have to re-type a whole page to correct
a typo.  I find I don't have the patience I once did when standing at
the anvil.  More, planning a project that will involve making the tool
to make the tool to... [rinse and repeat...] to make the piece looms
more intimidatingly that it once did.  I resist it but it still looms,
y'know?

There's another factor that might have some relevance. I recall that
when I first started meeting other smiths, their chops were very odd
for people in a manual trade: Many of the old guys had less than 8th
grade education.  The young guys had dual degrees in philosophy and
Germanic studies; PhD in biochemistry; master's in biology; BA in
psychology; BSc in chemistry; BSc in engineering; master's in fine
art. A similar situation existed in the 60s & 70s when the digital
world was being invented. There were no degrees in computer science.
Hackers were mathematicians, electrical engineers, chemists, musicians
(!) and the odd Not Elsewhere Classified eccentric genius.
I don't have any clear picture of how this might affect the latest
crop if blacksmiths because I haven't met very many of them but it
might be worth reflection.

FWIW,
- Mike


[1] My only picky criticism would be Pye's choice of the word "risk".
    We think of risk as taking a chance that something *bad* might
    happen.  The chance (stochastic, aleatoric) component of skilled
    hand work is that something *unexpected* might happen but
    unexpected isn't always bad.  Insights (enlightenment?) are
    unexpected.  Some happenstance effects are just lovely.

[2] They -- people in the Art Establishment -- told me I had to have
    one. :-)

[3] http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/hotiron.html

[4] Obviously not if you're forging a machine part to dimensional
    specs or the like. We're generalizing here about the process of
    hand craft.

[5] Meilach's "Decorative and Sculptural Ironwork", p. 149, if you
    happen to have the book handy.

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^