Good stories are often built around a plot line of “the last one.” Something once grand and beautiful has dwindled, fallen out of favor, or disappeared from common knowledge, until there is only one left somewhere in the world (or universe). I think of The Last of the Mohicans, written almost 200 years ago by James Fenimore Cooper, or The Last Jedi, about which I shall say no more. The premise is compelling (whether or not the actual script manages to be) and I often find myself drawn into such tales. A young boy discovers he is the only remaining heir of a mythical kingdom and possesses strange powers? A computer programmer finds that he is the one long-awaited hero...
John, a former student of the M&T Apprenticeship and current Daily Dispatch follower, recently sent me a link to an interesting article posted on the BBC. The piece discussed historian Roger Ekirch’s research into human sleep patterns throughout time. Ekirch’s interest in the subject became part of his book about the history of night titled At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past, and it reveals a fascinating aspect of human society and ubiquitous change. The insight this article highlighted was the worldwide pre-industrial human pattern of “biphasic sleep” – two sleep sessions (the first starting somewhere around 9:00 pm and the second starting around 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning) with a several-hour wakeful period of productivity in the middle...
Watching vintage films of woodworkers in action is one of the most illuminating avenues of woodworking research. Watch this guy carve a spoon – there is so much to learn. The way he wields that axe to do the vast majority of the shaping is humbling. And inspiring.
Then the knife work – so swift and confident.
This is craftsmanship.
-Joshua
In my last post, I defended the value of ornamentation in furniture-making, and also introduced the architect Aldolf Loos’ famous 1910 polemic, “Ornament and Crime,” in which he propounded that – you got it – ornamentation was bad. Here’s one redeeming thing about Loos’ proclamation, though. By glorifying pure form, he was condemning an awful turn-of-the-century factory culture. One that appropriated countless variations of traditional, culture-specific craft ornamentation – then figured out how to industrially stamp or impress those patterns onto bowls, wallpaper, dress hems, and all the other everyday items with machines in a form of “surrogate art” or “add-on intarsia.” As the architect Ingeborg Rocker puts it: “Loos’ critique responded to the increasing alignment between ornament and fashion,...
In this episode of the M&T Podcast, Joshua and Mike take a big-picture, global look at pre-industrial handcraft. This was not a region-specific or time-bound set of practices or traditions but was much more diverse and variegated than we can possibly imagine. Try to picture the breadth of creative work done by human hands before the homogenizing effects of the Industrial Revolution came into play, and you’ll begin to get the picture. Starting from their recent efforts to source an obscure Spanish chairmaking tool, they discuss the fascinating pursuit of studying handcraft heritages around the world, and how we can learn more about ourselves in the process. SHOW NOTES: Amy Umbel's Article from Issue Eight William Coperthwaite, A Handmade Life The...
Just published a new video in our “Setting Up Shop” series. This time, Mike talks about smacky things: hammers, mallets, mauls, and even the polls of axes – tools far too often overlooked.
In case you hadn’t seen this video yet, I highly recommend it (and all the others from this channel). This is a 1965 film of Albert Bock, the last wooden bench plane maker of William Marples & Son in Sheffield, England, at work at the bench. There are a number of interesting techniques and approaches shown in this brief clip. I’m especially fascinated by the brutal (but effective) shoulder paring technique. Ken Hawley, the narrator, said of Bock, “He told me that when he went on holiday, and came back, the hard patch of flesh was like a piece of raw liver for the first few days while he ‘got it back into form,’ as one might say.” Yowch. I’ve...
Yes, for those of you wondering, Mike got his article done on time. And so did our other Issue Twelve authors. Today, after reconvening since the holiday break, Mike and I began sorting out the new articles and working through them. Even though the back-and-forth editorial work happens through shared digital docs, it always starts as a printed text for us. The experience of reading in print is so radically different than that on screen, and especially because these words will end up on paper, we want to begin our first interaction with these authors in the most focused and uncluttered presentation: print. Every six months, we divvy up the printed articles and settle in with red pens to...
Once the book is closed on 2021, we at M&T will begin in earnest on the production of Issue Twelve. Our authors’ manuscripts have already started trickling in, and Joshua and I are nearly wrapped up with our own article drafts. And once again, the process of putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard, as the case may be) has me thinking about inspiration. I find it almost impossible to write without inspiration. If I’m not fired up about my subject matter, the flow of words freezes up like a winter stream and I find myself doing a lot of staring out the window. Part of that is certainly a lack of discipline on my part – a good writer...
Whenever I finish up joinery on a piece and glue everything together, I’m always tempted to call it done. You might relate. Especially if everything miraculously came together and the table or chair or whatever I’m building manages to stand unsupported without wobbling too badly, or bursting spontaneously into dark flames, I want to move on to the next project. But I don’t. Inevitably, I also look for ways to forever prolong the making process, since that’s where the fun is. Which is why I think you should paint your furniture. Paint your furniture the breathtaking way Aspen Golann does. Or at aspire to do so, in a way that’s yours. Or paint it to accentuate the plane marks in...
