My copy came in a day or so ago. I finished reading it yesterday, which yesterday was part of said day or so ago. You figure it out. My time sense is lousy.
I spent some time reading various forum discussions of TATC. Why, you ask, can't I make up my own mind? Of course I can. It's simply that I like to see what other people are thinking to determine if their thoughts spark something deep within my head. Often this happens. Sometimes it's just a migraine and sometimes there really are thoughts kicking around inside my cranium.
In every culture (and woodworkers have many cultures within their chosen addiction) there are gurus who people follow: Roy Underhill, Tage Frid, Ian Kirby, James Krenov, Sam Maloof and so on. I'm a Roy Underhill, Tage Frid and Sam Maloof kinda guy. I admire James Krenov for the thoughtfulness he brought to the craft. Ian Kirby, well, never mind. Chris Schwarz has entered the pantheon of woodwork gurus through his writings and lectures on the joys of craft, the advent of the 'boutique' hand tool maker and the general resurgence of what I like to call the Manual Arts Era Part Deux (MAEP2).
Utilizing the mass communication power of the Blog, Chris has arguably been at the forefront of exciting the newbies, wannabees, isbees and hadbees to explore the Joys Of Handtools (PG-17). As I have often said to the EAIA, MWTCA and similar organizations: "get with it or lose it", referring of course to the need to utilize the internet to expand membership and to push the Voice Of Reason through the aether. Chris has got with it.
TATC stands as a definable step in Chris's development as a craftsman. MAEP2 is characterized by the focus on hand work as a development of the intellect, the body and the tangible possesions one owns in the way of tools and the furnishings said tools, when put to the task by the hands that own them, are capable of producing. As Chris points out, in sharp contrast to the mass manufactured Stuff of questionable design and durableness, hand crafted work Looks Better and Gives Us Pleasure in the use thereof.
TATC covers a great deal of the development of his Philosphy of Making, covering the raw beginnings of his introduction to handwork, through to the advantages and disadvantages of powered tools and, in a most appropriate circular fashion, returning to the importance of handwork. Whilst Chris describes himself as holding to a form of social anarchy, I do find some trouble in his so defining himself in the context of handwork while at the same moment in print he offers Rules and Musts for the doing of handwork. Social Anarchy preposes the dimunation of social authority to the aggrandizement of the individual. Largely a late 19th C and early 20th C ideal, Social Anarchy was a failed attempt to enlarge upon the precepts of One before the Many. Failed in that without the rules and strictures of a society, the individual cannot live well and prosper (the Back To The Earth people not-with-standing). Tom Hanks proved this in his relationship to his friend, Wilson.
If one believes that hand crafted is superior to mass manufactured and so denigrates the manufacturing of the masses, one elevates hand crafted to the level of a definable process and Way Of Being to follow. By doing so, one has created yet another social order and thus, departs from Social Anarchy. Therein lies the conundrum that caused the earlier Social Anarchists to go the way of all things.
All that said, I believe the message Chris proposes is that the hand crafted object is superior to the mass produced object in that hand crafting imbibes the object with an extension of the Self through blood, sweat and tears (one of my favorite musical groups) whilst mass manufacturing only serves to propogate the Capitalistic theories of mass consumption being a maximum of profit going to the few in exchange for goods of low or only acceptable quality for the many.
In my next post, I will discuss the salient procedural details of TATC in light of the advancement of MAEP2.
Till next, Gary
