Deft Rerun: Deliberate

Photo courtesy Flickr

Multi-tasking and the instant pace of contemporary reaction have obscured a quality that is the foundation of craft skill: the deliberate, considered exercise of a knowing hand. Speed has nothing to do with this quality, although it can operate faster than the eye can see.

Recently, I read the liner notes on Taj Mahal’s “Kulanjan”, and they mention the traditional hunting music of Mali, a rare reservoir of ancient culture. The notes also mention that the music is played much faster these days than it was originally.

As a pre-schooler, I used to hang out in my grandfather’s basement shop. He worked standing, at one with whatever project was at hand, moving from task to task with the conscious footwork of a veteran outdoorsman and a man who could walk to work. His musicianship turned the exercise into a grounded, silent dance like those found in Dalmatia. In the early years of the twentieth century, he lived off the land for months at a time in the area that became Olympic National Park, carrying nothing more than a rifle, ammunition, salt, flour, and matches.

As a young adult, another shop of hand tools claimed my attention: the one at the rear of a beach cabin set in hundreds of acres of a tree farm in second growth. There was no electricity on the property. The shop had been designed by a physician, and it was as orderly and convenient as one would wish a surgery to be. The bench was placed under a generous north window. The designer’s daughter told me that her father always carried a pocket knife. It was something, she said, that gentlemen always did.

My granddad pulled out his knife, always sharp, when it was time to build a fire. He shaved curls of tinder off a piece of cedar to get the blaze going, never polluting the smoke with newsprint and never wavering in his concentration. Watching him start a fire was the beginning of my art education.

It grieves me that homeland security considerations have turned the pocket knife into a problem rather than a solution. Should you need a cutting tool on the road, pack a length of adhesive tape in your kit, break a glass bottle, and tape all but the business end for safety. Glass breaks into a monomolecular edge. It’s brittle, but nothing is sharper.

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