024 - Craft is the Language of the Hands

Craft is, I think you might say, the language of the intelligence of the hands. The intelligence of making. From learning how to make cord, rope, to thread, to carding wool, to knitting, to weaving, to dyeing fabric, to cobbling shoes, tailoring clothes, gardening, to pruning, to milling, to brewing, to fermenting, to working with clay, to painting, to writing–what all have in common is the intelligence of the hands transforming our environment in ways that serve our living. If you begin to think about natural materials– wood, stone, and clay for starters– we can notice that there are entire disciplines of craft that have arisen around them, to transform the raw or elemental materials into forms that we can use. The crafts of carpentry, masonry, and ceramics are all responses, by way of the hands, to these respective materials. And the way that a culture views itself, and views the world, ends up expressed implicitly through the craft.

One of my favorite venues for exploring this distinction is between traditional Japanese carpentry and European carpentry. Both are, clearly, disciplines of craft that emerged to translate wood, through the use of the hands, into dwellings, and the implements with which to furnish them. In order to do so, both traditions developed a common vocabulary of tools. Tools to cut wood: various saws. Tools to shape wood: various chisels. Tools to measure wood, tools to mark straight lines on curved surfaces, etc.