Hand Craftsmanship in the Digital Age – Details, episodes & analysis

Abe Chaber is a master gunsmith of best grade shotguns, having apprenticed under Carl Kruger. His work is beyond superlative, and recognized worldwide as among the very best.

The challenges of gunsmithing, using only hand tools and traditional materials to maintain 18th and 19th-century authenticity in his repairs and reproductions, cannot be underestimated. Abe works with different steels, iron, copper, gold and silver, wood and horn, leather and many other materials each with their own properties, using only files, saws, chisels and hammers.

What has kept Abe at his bench for over 50 years? How does he "just do it"? And what two words from his teacher encapsulate everything he works for?

It's a long interview, over 2 hours. Listening in installments is permitted.

Ian Kirby's storied career as a teacher, designer, and hand craftsman with great skills of workmanship is the foundation of this interview. We talk of many things, from

lessons such as to never make a piece of furniture without a purpose; how drawing from nature, not from other artists or craftsmen, is key to understanding good design; how students have changed since the 1970’s; how nothing in nature is truly ugly, and nature is our visual capital; the American v. the English way of learning woodworking; the problems of the designer not being able to afford his own work; that a pantry is essential in a good kitchen; and how through our work we set a standard for living.

Visit Ian's website iankirbydesign.com to learn more.

If it hurts, you're doing it wrong. 

Well, good advice for many things, but not about learning guitar (my fingers still ache). And if not painful, then difficult when doing it right? In this short episode, Tim and Mike take up the issue of the difficulty of learning a trade.

 To me, seeing it through and silencing the inner critical voice  was as important to developing skill as cutting lines. I'm not saying I  went critical to joyful, rather I went from critical and agency killing  to one of wonder and imagination--"What will it look like when I'm  finished?"

Award winning designer and teacher based out of Cambridge, Massachusetts, Adam's interests encompass design, craft/small to medium scale fabrication, as well as industrial production of culinary knives and tools as well as modern homewares and furniture. In our interview, we touch on the perils of sound editing, both in this podcast, and in the improv comedy world; the joy in the learning process; Japanese knives; on learning something new late in life; on being attracted to work, and what makes work attractive and why a (not very grimy) metal shop is a far better work environment than a day job; adapting fluid and dynamic teaching strategies to the ways people learn; the advantage of overconfidence when learning something, and many other topics; social hierarchy, kindness, and revenge, and the life lessons of Gary Larson. You can see some of his work at www.mksknife.com

Today we talk with Mike Patterson, a deeply accomplished residential contractor for over 25 years. We touch on the differences between building in your head and building with your hands, problem solving in general, the trades as opposed to art, the joys of getting lost in work, the joy of learning something new, and moments of finding life itself in a project. You'll also encounter Dunning Kruger, and the confidence of predicting results as an expert, on listening to the universe about what you're good at, and the two worlds of blue and white collar, and what the little hands in our brains make of it all.

Tim Sams sent an email with an additional idea or two that was well worth talking about, concerning the mindset we bring to our work.

A short discussion of the title of the podcast, on an important point that didn't get addressed in the first episode. Nervously, I try to say what I'm looking for in the interviews, when, in fact, there is so much more. At least this bit is blessedly short. And there is, again, no nudity.

Tim Sams -- a multi-talented, multi-career fellow who knows the white collar world as a magazine publisher, a marketing director, and an editor at Fine Woodworking magazine, and the blue collar world as a carpenter. We discuss his insights from the many hats he has worn.

Tim Hochstetter is a maker extraordinaire, having spent his life working with a wide range of media, from blown glass, to metals and resins. Our conversation covers his thoughts on the economic difficulties of working as a solo artist, and the kinds of work he would never do. And other things, but I forget what else. This podcast contains no nudity.  

Welcome to Hand Craftsmanship in the Digital Age!

I am Strother Purdy (my woodworking is here: www.belovedoldtree.com and my short essays on every imaginable topic are here: mondaugenslaw.blogs.com). I will be your host in a series of interviews with people who thoughtfully work with their hands, and some who don't. The first episode introduces just a little bit why. 

What if there was a particular kind of work that could be satisfying in every way? Does it exist, and if so, what goes into it to produce a deep sense of thriving in life? 

I'm on a quest to understand if thoughtfully making things by hand, and giving them to people I know offers up a special kind of enduring happiness in life. If I'm right, the joys of thoughtful work should be discoverable in the interviews of people who do, and its absence in those who don't. Do you love your work? What about it gives you joy? What do you hate? 

Along the way, I hope to have interesting conversations with interesting people about what they do, why they do it, what they get out of it. And that should be enjoyable in itself. And if I'm wrong, it's back to a beer and Netflix in the evenings. Yes, I have a strange sense of humor. None of these podcasts contain nudity.