Recently, while reading Adam Cherubini's article "Making your magazine come to life", I was struck once again by the development of the many books I have been both reading and evaluating for upcoming publication. Truth, is that at times I enjoy the digging up the books to read them under the guise of 'evaluating' them for suitable content even more than the idea of publishing them. Which might explain why it takes me so long to get to an end stage.
Adam discusses the need for first person training and demonstration in learning hand skills. Magazines and books have their place, but without that first person contact much is lost in the translation of actions to words and pictures. Why, then, are there so many books printed on trades and crafts? Where are we going if people think that:
a. a book can give them all they need to know
b. a 'mentor' is needed to really get the nitty gritty.
c. trial and error will, in time, teach you what you need to know
d. pictures tell stories better than words do
e. words tell stories better than pictures do
In modern books, we attempt to answer all the needs. Glorious images combined with explanatory text is abundant. Yet when we flock to a workshop. we come away with a sense of wonderment at the 'secrets' that have been exposed for 'the very first time' to aid us in our quest for handcrafts fulfillment. The books are reviewed and put on the shelf. After all, the books simply don't add up to what was learned in person.
Then we have the Manual Arts period of education and publishing, roughly 1880-1930. The more books from this period that I read, the more I admire the approach of melding books and class-room, hands-on eduction in crafts and trades. With the rare exception, books of this period provide a carefully thought out progression for the learning of a given set of skills in wood, metal, leather or textiles. The better books take the time to explain the small details that are often overlooked in earlier books as being "known to all and therefore of no import to this student at this time". There is an assumption that the student is a blank slate upon which the author and educator will construct the perfect crafts algorithm. Did I really just write that?
I've been reading The Teaching Handbook of Slojd, by Otto Salomon as well as Manual Instructions in Woodwork, by S. Barter, also known as The English Sloyd. Students are taken through a controlled set of training steps in which they learn of the materials to be worked, the tools to use in the work and the importance of concentration and attention to detail. Each project builds upon the tasks learned in a previous one. The goals are not in the making and production, rather they are in the assimilation of the importance of handwork to the development of a worthy person.
Go back some years to the early 1800's and the latter 1700's and you find that annoying reference to 'the task which is so well known as to be beneath the attention of this writer' and so on. Assumptions of knowledge may be one part guild secrecy and another part, simply an assumption. If previous famous authors did not see fit to delve into this minor details, why ever should the next author have the hubris to think that it was high time the purpose of a 'nail' was explained in detail?
It wasn't until folks like Moxon, Martin, Nicholson and Holtzapffel took up the arms of the author and began to spell out what we clearly all already knew. Bell, Woodward and Nicholson took up the same battle in the area of building construction, leaving bare to the eyes of the world the secrets of sticking two pieces of wood together. Isn't a blog a wonderful place to bare your rants to the world?
If there is one thing I realized, it's that years ago I tried to jump hurdles before learning how to walk heel to toe. I dove into dovetails, tackled tenons and mutilated mortises. All the while scratching my head at the wonderment of the less than perfect joinery. I now realize I would have been better off with a Manual Arts Training book that started me at using a tenon saw and chisel to create a stepped board or a lap joint. And even better off with a manual arts teacher who would watch over my shoulder while I worked my way through the various learning steps that would take me to that wonderment of... the perfect dovetail.
I have arrayed upon one shelf a series of sets of books that may very well be the titles to be published. Each set tells a story of craft from the viewpoint of a particular author or educational system. When we read the books as distinct items, the overall learning process is often lost. The intended progression of learned skills is interrupted by a haphazard reading of a book or of a set. Why would different authors take the time to each write a set of books, each title on the related but differing topics of:
- Woodwork Joints
- Woodwork Tools
- Staining & Polishing
- Fretwork
- Carving
I see this pattern turn up time and time again. Some are written well, some expertly so. Some are written from the standpoint of the skilled craftsman and some from the standpoint of the editor who is possessed of some general skills.
Clearly I have more books to read and evaluate. But I must really make time to actually start publishing some of them too. But there are so many more books...
Till next, Gary
