CELEBRATING FINE CRAFT

ARTICLES: The Hands of Craft

Written by: Mark Stobbe
All Photos by: Trent Watts
May 12, 2008

It was a day of meeting craft makers and shaking hands. At about 2:00pm the realization struck me.

These hands were different. They were strong hands, rough hands, confident hands, big hands. They were knowledgeable hands, experienced hands, skilled hands. They were the hands of craft artists and artisans. They were different hands than those of other people.

The hands belonged to people arriving at the EMMA Collaboration in northern Saskatchewan for a week of collaborative making. They belonged to wood turners, visual artists, blacksmiths, textile artists, glass blowers, jewelers and potters. The hands were attached to bodies that came in different ages, genders, nationalities and experiences in Craft production. But within this diversity, the hands were the same.

Once I realized that I was shaking special hands, I paid more attention to them. My goal was to understand what made craft hands different.

The first difference was in the hands’ size and strength. These were hands that were useful, functional hands. Hands that work. Hands that had grown strong from use, hands that had were calloused from the use of tools. The contrast with the hands of an office worker or professional was dramatic.

But there was more to it than the fact that these hands were repositories of strength and utility. Assembly line workers and miners have strong, tough, calloused hands. On the surface, their hands should feel the same as those of a craft maker. They did not. The craft person’s hands looked like those of other manual workers, but in a very subtle, intangible way, they felt different.

I believe that this is because of connection of these hands to the brain – one that is rare in modern North American society.

As industry and mechanically-driven production developed, one result was the separation of planning from doing. Or, as some sociologists put it, there is the separation of conception from execution.

Some people invent or design. They plan out the production process and issue very detailed instructions on how these should be carried out. Other people become monitors, accounting for the results of the labor. For these groups, the brain works, but the hand does not. For the planners, designers and accountants, the hand has become irrelevant in the same way that the human appendix has become irrelevant to the digestive process. As a result, these hands lack vitality and strength. When you shake these hands, you are not touching anything that is integral to the person they are attached to.

While one group is working only with their minds, another group is working solely with their hands. They, and their hands, follow instructions. They do what they are told. They perform tasks that have been specified by others, in ways dictated by others. These hands, while at work, are severed from the brain of the person they are attached to. As a result, the hands lack wisdom and vitality. When you shake these hands, you feel strength, but not personality.

The craft makers’ hands are different. While at work, they are in direct, nervous connection with the conceiving brain. Mind and hand work as one in an act of unique creation. The hand is a trained one, but it is result of self-discipline and skill development rather than the imposition of the thoughts of others. It is the hand of a maker. The next time you shake the hand of a craft artist or artisan, play close attention. You can feel the combination and strength and wisdom in this hand.

Archeologists have noted that homo sapiens emerged as human when the interplay between a larger brain and an opposable thumb caused this new species to become a “tool making animal.” Creation defines our humanity. As the centuries have passed, the division of function and labor has caused the full expression of our humanity to become both fragmented and collectivized, with few individuals possessing the full range of intellectual and physical skills needed transform an idea into an object.

Except for craft makers and their hands.