A Tangible Legacy, A Reflection

Anything that has been made by hand will age better than something that has been manufactured.

                                          Tiina Laakkonen

I have been considering the issue of “half-life,” not as it applies to the decay of radioactive isotopes; rather I have been considering the concept as it relates to the collection of pieces created by an artist or artisan. Let's define the half-life of such a collection as the number of years it takes for half of the creator's works to be irrevocably burned, buried, tossed or lost. Think of Picasso's works: in any given year, all will likely remain intact, even if stolen. If anything, collectors are busy trying to find a previously unknown piece. The half-life might even increase, but, nonetheless, it's likely measured in centuries. The earliest known wooden furniture found in Egyptian and Turkish tombs enjoy half-lives measured in millennia. Put a roof over it, better yet a tomb, wood will last indefinitely.

Tiina's point is well-taken. Handmade works will outlast manufactured ones, not so much because they are intrinsically more durable, though often that is the case, but because people will hang on to them much longer, typically passing them down to the next generation. The half-life of any creator's collection does, indeed, increase proportionately to the fame of the creator or circumstance, but even works by humble, unknown artists and craftspeople might enjoy a half-life of decades, even a century or more. If you are such a maker, our works will most certainly outlast us. We leave a tangible legacy.

In truth, while working in my shop, the thought of leaving a tangible legacy never crossed my mind, even though a part of me, literally, emotionally and symbolically, remained with each piece. Makers do, indeed, impart part of themselves into their creations, and the aura around them is somehow different than a manufactured object. This is hard to pin down, though most people feel it. It is the subject of another blog entry. Now in my later years it is an amusing reflection to consider in what year exactly half of my collection, those couple thousand large and small wooden works, will remain. Pretty silly, I admit, but intriguing. How much better than scattering one's ashes is scattering one's creations. Soon they dot the whole country providing their owners, if not joy and satisfaction, then at least utility and appreciation.

Thus, if you are a maker, a creator, of whatever it might be, take comfort in your tangible legacy because you will be affording bits of happiness, cheer and pleasure to people you don't even know, many years into the future. Perhaps that can be of some consolation to you, insofar as society tacitly considers your activity inferior to that of the professional.

From an early age I myself was not destined to use my hands. All my education and training were intended to produce an individual of the mind, mostly like an academician, a professor. Unfortunately, a fair amount of my thought process during college was spent on dismantling the rationale of spending the next decade of my life paying the necessary dues to move up the academic ladder. Though even with that doctorate you are not done. What follows are many more years of publishing, compromising, avoiding offense. Eventually, one might obtain a professorship or even better, a chair. Alas, I never did attain that chair but instead made them.

Yet if this career path were not to be derailed by my own thinking, a comment from one of America's foremost literary scholars did the trick. Columbia University Professor Emeritus Lionel Trilling, in our personal chat at the end of the senior year colloquium, remarked to me, “Kurt, don't go into academics; it's a nasty business.” At times I've felt guilty about taking his advice, but any regret is soon quashed by a lifetime of genuine independence. We did, it turns out, share a common goal of authenticity.

In truth, the deepest, yet fleeting, part of this woodworker's legacy is the relationships built with my customers, many of whom became friends, but the most durable part of the legacy is the wooden works. Alas, I did not end up leaving any academic papers, textbooks or tomes, but instead I leave solid things, like a handcrafted wooden desk, a part of someone's everyday life, replete with elbow grease, coffee rings, stored memories, child's markings, nicks and stubbed toes. The patina guarantees its survival, not a bad place to hang out.

 

Handmade...What's It to You? A Reflection

For me the world is weird because it is stupendous, awesome, mysterious,

unfathomable...     Don Juan in Journey to Ixtlan

My hands make things. I could no more help this as a child than I can today as an elder. The objects made are meaningful both to me and their recipients, but “handmade,” what is it to you? Try this little experiment at home: go into each room and look about you. How quickly can you identify the handmade objects? The art works hanging on the walls or sculptures on a shelf are, of course, obvious candidates, but it's pretty easy, isn't it, to pick out all the objects that are handmade? Why is this so?

A primary reason is that we can often associate the handmade object with a particular person or a moment in our personal history. The coffee mug in our hand was purchased from Jason at his local pottery studio, or the rocking horse in the corner was made by grandpa for your child. That very child made the ceramic ashtray on your side table. A successful bartering moment abroad left you with the basket gracing your wall. In the window hangs a hand-blown glass piece by your friend George. If you are acquainted with the maker, their image and personality are inextricably interwoven with the object, but even if you buy from a perfect stranger on Etsy, a connection is felt. Thus, personal memory, whether an association with the maker or the purchase event, is an all-important factor in pointing out and valuing handmade objects. Do note, however, that such factors are not intrinsic qualities of the object itself. Let's call these “objects with stories.”

Another characteristic of handmade objects about your home has more of an ethical element because they represent mindful spending and a concern for your community. For instance, you know this purchase has supported a local craftsperson and indirectly the local economy. You know that this purchase utilizes sustainable and ecological materials, practices that help the environment. You know that with this purchase you have, in a small way, celebrated the maker's creativity, their community and the preservation of their craft or tradition. You can pat yourself on the back as a responsible consumer with concern for your community and physical world. This may not be a conscious element in your enjoyment of such things, but it is in the background. So, let's call these handmade things “objects with ethics.” Again, do note that these are not intrinsic qualities of the object itself, but ones that you and society assign to it.

Let's refine the experiment now by eliminating connections, stories and ethics and invite a stranger into your home to go about the rooms with the goal of finding the handmade objects.

What criteria would they use? Well, they would begin with an enormous data bank of what mass-manufactured goods look like from countless hours spent shopping in stores and online. Thus certain objects would not look familiar, would not register in the data bank, or they might find imperfections, lack of symmetry, crudeness or obvious signs of handcrafting. The object might just be clearly unique, a true one-of-a-kind. Alternatively, the object might be an example of a certain cultural tradition or ethnic heritage, such as a Native American basket, recognized as typically handcrafted though not entirely immune from factory duplication. The stranger might actually do a half-decent job of finding the handmade in this manner. Let's call these objects “special,” though finally we have a quality that is intrinsic. 

 

Let's modify the experiment now and pick up one of your favorite handmade pieces. Spend some time with the object. Hold it, handle it, give it some time in your hands, perhaps close your eyes. Is there anything else you sense? Can you pick up on any subtle quality, one for which we do not have a proper term in English?

Here I call upon my years of studying physics with an especial interest in the philosophical writings of the greatest 20^th century physicists. Most of these scientists were surprisingly humble and realized that there is much more to the universe, to mind and matter, than we know or can quantify. They knew our understanding of our world is rudimentary and imperfect. The Nobel Prize winner and great scientist Erwin Shrödinger believed that the mind could influence the external world and vice versa. For instance, a chapter heading in one of his essays is: “Reasons for Abandoning the Dualism of Thought and Existence, or Mind and Matter.” And so, let me posit the idea, which cannot be disproven, that the craftsperson has imparted something of their mind or call it love or call it spirit or call it being or call it power to this seemingly inanimate object.

In the Mideast perhaps we do find a word that touches on this phenomenon, the word baraka, which refers to a blessing or grace flowing through God into a worthy creation, be it a place, a person or a physical object. You may be familiar with this word through the name of a recent President. Nonetheless, it is not my intent to engage in a metaphysical discourse, which stops right here. I merely, and very briefly, would like to suggest that handmade objects possess intangible attributes which, perhaps more than the other factors mentioned, make us unknowingly value them.

Like myself, my father loved to work with his hands and make things. He always had one project or another going on in our basement workshop. I kept very few things of his, but I began, with the writing of this reflection, to look about for what I had saved. Almost everything was handmade! The photos in this post are all his handicrafts, a wire take-apart puzzle, a “bear” knife with my initials on the rivets, and a spinning wooden ice cream spoon to rotate in your cup of pencils as one heads out to work and as one returns. Let's hope your work lets you leave the spoon always turned to a smile.

Etsy Shop

 

Wooden Teaspoons