Craftwork as Problem Solving: Ethnographic Studies of Design and Making 9780815346548, 0815346549, 9781472442925, 147244292X

Table of contents :
Contents
List of Figures
Notes on Contributors
Foreword • Rosy Greenlees
Introduction: Craftwork as Problem Solving • Trevor H.J. Marchand
Part I: Practical Problem Solving in Craft
1 The Prototype: Problem Work in the Relationship between Designer, Artist, and Gaffer in Glassblowing • Erin O’Connor and Suzanne Peck
2 Producing Suffolk Punch Horses: Craftsmanship with Sentient Media • Kim Crowd
3 Making ‘Sense’ in the Bike Mechanic’s Workshop • Tom Martin
4 Crafting Solutions on the Cutting Edge of Digital Videography • Peter Durgerian
5 Mastering Mimicry: Strategies of Transference in Print-Based Art • Jenn Law
6 From ‘In Our Houses’ to ‘The Tool at Hand’: Breaching Normal Procedural Conditions in Studio Furniture Making • David Gates
7 Weaving Solutions to Woven Problems • Stephanie Bunn
Part II: Social, Economic, and Philosophical Dimensions in the Problems of Craftwork
8 Social Strategies and Material Fixes in Agotime Weaving • Niamh Jane Clifford Coll
9 Feeling a Way Through: Affective Problem Solving in Dressmaking • Rebecca Prentice
10 Thinking through Materials: Embodied Problem Solving and the Values of Work in Taiwanese Ceramics • Geoffrey Gowlland
11 The Problem of the Unknown Craftsman • Malcolm Martin
12 The Place of Craft in Building Conservation: The Craftsperson as Problem-Solver and Builder • Giovanni Diodati
13 ‘Textile Thinking’: A Flexible, Connective Strategy for Concept Generation and Problem Solving in Interdisciplinary Contexts • Rachel Philpott and Faith Kane
Afterword • Malcolm Ferris
Index

Citation preview

Craftwork as Problem Solving

Anthropological Studies of Creativity and Perception Series Editor: Tim Ingold, University of Aberdeen, UK

The books in this series explore the relations, in human social and cultural life, between perception, creativity and skill. Their common aim is to move beyond established approaches in anthropology and material culture studies that treat the inhabited world as a repository of complete objects, already present and available for analysis. Instead these works focus on the creative processes that continually bring these objects into being, along with the persons in whose lives they are entangled. All creative activities entail movement or gesture, and the books in this series are particularly concerned to understand the relations between these creative movements and the inscriptions they yield. Likewise in considering the histories of artefacts, these studies foreground the skills of their makers-cum-users, and the transformations that ensue, rather than tracking their incorporation as finished objects within networks of interpersonal relations. The books in this series will be interdisciplinary in orientation, their concern being always with the practice of interdisciplinarity: on ways of doing anthropology with other disciplines, rather than doing an anthropology of these subjects. Through this anthropology with, they aim to achieve an understanding that is at once holistic and processual, dedicated not so much to the achievement of a final synthesis as to opening up lines of inquiry. Other titles in the series: Reflections on Imagination Human Capacity and Ethnographic Method Edited by Mark Harris and Nigel Rapport Making and Growing Anthropological Studies of Organisms and Artefacts Edited by Elizabeth Hallam and Tim Ingold Design and Anthropology Edited by Wendy Gunn and Jared Donovan Imagining Landscapes Past, Present and Future Edited by Monica Janowski and Tim Ingold

Craftwork as Problem Solving Ethnographic Studies of Design and Making

Edited by

Trevor H.J. Marchand

School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK

© Trevor H.J. Marchand and the contributors 2016 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Trevor H.J. Marchand has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editor of this work. Published by Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company Wey Court East 110 Cherry Street Union Road Suite 3-1 Farnham Burlington, VT 05401-3818 Surrey, GU9 7PT USA England www.ashgate.com British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows: Craftwork as problem solving : ethnographic studies of design and making / [edited] by Trevor H.J. Marchand. pages cm.—(Anthropological studies of creativity and perception) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4724-4292-5 (hardback)—ISBN 978-1-4724-4293-2 (ebook)—ISBN 9781-4724-4294-9 (epub) 1. Product design. 2. Industrial design. 3. Design. 4. Artisans. 5. Creative ability. 6. Problem solving. I. Marchand, Trevor H. J. TS171.4.C725 2015 658.5’752—dc23 2015022817 ISBN: 9781472442925 (hbk) ISBN: 9781472442932 (ebk – PDF) ISBN: 9781472442949 (ebk – ePUB)

Printed in the United Kingdom by Henry Ling Limited, at the Dorset Press, Dorchester, DT1 1HD

Contents List of Figures Notes on Contributors

vii xi

Foreword Rosy Greenlees

xvii



Introduction: Craftwork as Problem Solving Trevor H.J. Marchand

1

Part I  Practical Problem Solving in Craft 1 2

The Prototype: Problem Work in the Relationship between Designer, Artist, and Gaffer in Glassblowing Erin O’Connor and Suzanne Peck

33



Producing Suffolk Punch Horses: Craftsmanship with Sentient Media51 Kim Crowder

3

Making ‘Sense’ in the Bike Mechanic’s Workshop Tom Martin

71

4

Crafting Solutions on the Cutting Edge of Digital Videography Peter Durgerian

87

5

Mastering Mimicry: Strategies of Transference in Print-Based Art Jenn Law

95

6

From ‘In Our Houses’ to ‘The Tool at Hand’: Breaching Normal Procedural Conditions in Studio Furniture Making David Gates

7

Weaving Solutions to Woven Problems Stephanie Bunn

115 133

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Part II  Social, Economic, and Philosophical Dimensions in the Problems of Craftwork 8

Social Strategies and Material Fixes in Agotime Weaving Niamh Jane Clifford Collard

9

Feeling a Way Through: Affective Problem Solving in Dressmaking169 Rebecca Prentice

10

153



Thinking through Materials: Embodied Problem Solving and the Values of Work in Taiwanese Ceramics Geoffrey Gowlland

11

The Problem of the Unknown Craftsman Malcolm Martin

12

The Place of Craft in Building Conservation: The Craftsperson as Problem-Solver and Builder Giovanni Diodati

215

‘Textile Thinking’: A Flexible, Connective Strategy for Concept Generation and Problem Solving in Interdisciplinary Contexts Rachel Philpott and Faith Kane

235

13

Afterword Malcolm Ferris

183 197

257

Index261

List of Figures 1.1 1.2 1.3

Allen’s sketch of the original design (left) and of the object re-purposed as a hurricane lamp (right). Two-tiered glass ‘cupping’ cup: drawing, making, and in use. Allen’s sketch of ‘sudsing’.

2.1 2.2 2.3

The First Prize Team of Suffolk Horses, exhibited at the Royal Show, Ipswich, 1934. The property of Mr Stuart Paul, Kirton Lodge, Ipswich, Suffolk. By permission of Francis Cupiss Ltd., Printers, The Wilderness, Diss. Colony Wren and Richard Gibbs in rehearsal/performance. Video still, filmed by Kim Crowder. By courtesy of the Suffolk Punch Trust. In-hand showing at Woodbridge Horse Show, 2014. Photo by Kim Crowder. Image processing by FXP Photography.

3.1 3.2 3.3

135° rotation of the wheel per 180° rotation of the sprocket; first gear, a 3:4 ratio. Illustration by Leksa Nall. Pin, shown as an arrow, moves the cross-shaped clutch. Illustration by Leksa Nall. The gear ring and planet cage rotate at different speeds. Illustration by Leksa Nall.

4.1

‘You’re in for a big surprise!’ Scene from The Thief, Helbling Languages, Austria, 2009.

5.1 Matt Donovan and Hallie Siegel (with original poetry by Gregory Betts), Haikube, ebony, edition of 3, 2005. Size: 3″ (l) × 3″ (w) × 3″ (h). Photo by Matt Donovan and Hallie Siegel. 5.2 Penelope Stewart, Terminal, photographic screen print on organza, Central Terminal Buffalo, New York, 2006. Size: 500ft (l) × 9ft (h). Photo by Penelope Stewart. 5.3 Jenn Law, Unwritten (detail), hand-cut found book (Maurice Blanchot, The Book to Come), glue, stainless steel pins, 2012. Size: 50.5″ × 63″. Photo by Thomas Blanchard. 6.1 The work ecology: body, tools, and material. Photo by David Gates.

38 44 46

53 57 60 75 76 77 90

100 102 108 120

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6.2 6.3

Handtools: some of these are used every day; others lie waiting for their moment. Photo by David Gates. Work for the Tool at Hand show: ‘Saw, Slice, Split, Scrape, Shave’, 2011. One piece of oak, plaster of Paris, thread. Photo by David Gates.

7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4

Close-up of creel weaving on North Uist. Courtesy of the School for Scottish Studies. Traveller basket-maker building up the form. Courtesy of the School for Scottish Studies. Weaving a flakkie on Orkney. Courtesy of the School for Scottish Studies. Arbroath line-scull by Peter Lindsay. Courtesy of the Scottish Life Archive.

8.1 Gabriel laying out a kente narrow-strip cloth in the workshop. Kpetoe, August 2013. Photograph by Niamh Jane Clifford Collard. 8.2 Pouring libations and sharing drinks in the weaving workshop. Kpetoe, November 2013. Photograph by Niamh Jane Clifford Collard. 10.1

Chan at the wheel modifying the vase according to Hsu’s instructions. Still photograph from smartphone recording. Photo by Geoffrey Gowlland.

11.1 11.2 11.3

Grooved Disc. Oak, 60 cm, 2012. Private Collection. Photo by Malcolm Martin and Gaynor Dowling. Big Bend. Cherry-veneered ply, 90 cm, July 2013. Museum of Fine Art, Philadelphia. Photo by Malcolm Martin and Gaynor Dowling. Can. Maple-veneer, 30 cm, March 2014. Photo by Malcolm Martin and Gaynor Dowling.

12.1 Beaconsfield Yacht Club, Beaconsfield, Quebec. Pre-restoration condition illustrating metal storm windows and iron hooks in masonry on either side of the window openings. Photo courtesy of FGMDa Architects. 12.2 Milton Park Neighbourhood, Montreal, Quebec. Face-mounted nineteenth-century wooden storm window. Photo by Giovanni Diodati. 12.3 Beaconsfield Yacht Club, Beaconsfield, Quebec. Post-restoration condition with new storm sashes. Photo courtesy of FGMDa Architects.

123 129 137 138 141 146

157 164

184 201 205 207

228 229 230

List of Figures

13.1 13.2 13.3 13.4

Hyperbolic barrier reef by Margaret and Christine Wertheim, South Bank Centre, London, 2008. Photo by Rachel Philpott. Self-folding printed and foiled polyester Lycra by Rachel Philpott. Photo by Rachel Philpott. Methods used within the TTSM networking event. TTSM event participants integrating textile processes and materials with electronic circuitry in a practical workshop session. Photo by Rachel Philpott.

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241 245 248 250

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Notes on Contributors Kim Crowder is a social anthropologist, visual practitioner, writer, and researcher. She has taught on anthropology programmes at Goldsmiths College, and critical studies at Norwich University of the Arts. Her longstanding interests in craft and craftsmanship are wide-ranging, supported by a BA in Ceramics (Bath) and an MA in Textile Culture (Norwich). Her AHRC-funded PhD in visual anthropology (Goldsmiths, 2012), titled Making Meat: people, property and pigs in East Anglia, documented relationships between stockmen, pigs, and technologies, and explored the craft dimensions of stockmanship skills within intensive livestock husbandry. Crowder’s lifelong involvement with horses informs her current research project based at the oldest Suffolk Punch stud in existence where she is working as Writer in Residence. Stephanie Bunn is Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. She is also a practicing willow worker. Bunn has conducted extensive research into felt textile practices among high mountain Kyrgyz pastoralists in Central Asia. Most recently, she has been participating in The Woven Communities Project, a collaborative ethno-historical study of Scottish vernacular basketry working with contemporary Scottish basket-makers. Practice forms an important element of Bunn’s research and she has learned many of the skills entailed in her areas of study. In collaboration with the British Museum, she co-curated Striking Tents, the museum’s first-ever exhibition on Central Asian textiles. Her publications include Nomadic Felts of the World (2010), and www. wovencommunities.org/. Niamh Jane Clifford Collard first studied fine art at Byam Shaw at Central St Martins School of Arts and Design and then art history and anthropology at SOAS. She is currently working towards a PhD in anthropology at SOAS. Her research is concerned with learning, work, and heritage politics among narrow strip weavers in south-eastern Ghana. Giovanni Diodati is a conservation architect and educator specialising in materials conservation and traditional building techniques. He is a graduate of McGill University’s School of Architecture (BArch 1990) and has been a senior associate in Fournier Gersovitz Moss Drolet et associés architectes since 1999. In his 20-year career, Diodati has led teams of multidisciplinary specialists and been in charge of the materials conservation on an impressive number of awardwinning projects ranging from modest vernacular structures to the buildings of the

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Canadian Parliament. He continues to be an active member and chair of several professional, advocacy, and building trade committees that raise awareness about the quality and value of built heritage and that advocate thoughtful, compatible, and durable interventions. Peter Durgerian, born in Albany, New York, is a videographer based in Brighton, England. As an undergraduate at Harvard University, he studied ethnobotany and ethnographic film in addition to his main pursuits – playing basketball and blues harmonica. He now punctuates long periods in front of computer screens with sessions of wooden boat building, carpentry, allotment gardening, and saxophone playing. Malcolm Ferris is Director of Research at Plymouth College of Art where he curates the biennial Making Futures international research conference, now in its fourth (2015) UK edition. Malcolm first trained as a designer and practiced successfully before returning to take an Hon’s degree in History (York) followed by postgraduate study (RCA). His career since has combined HE art and design teaching with curatorial production and publishing. Current interests include contemporary Chinese art production, with curatorial projects appearing at DadaPost Berlin, and Yerba Buena Center San Francisco. In 2014 he presented an edition of Making Futures for Beijing Design Week and is currently planning a version for the 2015 Cheongju International Craft Biennale, South Korea. David Gates is a London-based designer-maker of bespoke furniture. He is the winner of the Jerwood Award for Contemporary Making (2010) and the Wesley-Barrell Prize (2011). Gates’ work embraces functional expediency while imaginatively exploring human relationships with the stuff that surrounds us. Gates’ carefully-crafted furniture sits alongside his rapidly-made, apparentlyfunctionless, intuited pieces. Though seemingly disparate, these two qualities are intimately connected in his oeuvre. Gates is currently completing a PhD at King’s College London that examines the communicative practices, narratives, and discourses of craftwork. Recent exhibitions include Taking Time: Craft and the Slow Revolution (2009–11), Intelligent Trouble at Contemporary Applied Arts (2010), Jerwood Contemporary Makers (2010–11), Starting Points at the Siobhan Davies Dance Studios (2010), and Host in San Francisco (2011). Geoffrey Gowlland holds a PhD in anthropology (Cambridge, 2007), and is currently a Research Associate at SOAS and Visiting Researcher at the Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo. As part of his doctoral research in China, Gowlland investigated the privatisation of formerly collective handicrafts factories, the transformation of crafts from ‘industries’ into ‘heritage’, and the consequences of these for knowledge transmission. Subsequent research in a centre of ceramics production in Taiwan enabled him to draw comparisons between ways of producing craft and ways of learning in two Chinese settings with differing histories. More

Notes on Contributors

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recently, Geoffrey has conducted research on the revival of arts and crafts among the indigenous Austronesian-speaking people of Taiwan. Rosy Greenlees is Executive Director of the Crafts Council, the national agency committed to ensuring that craft not only flourishes in a changing world but helps to reshape it. From the classroom to the heart of studios and thought-provoking exhibitions, the Crafts Council supports every aspect of contemporary craft in the UK. Originally a visual arts curator, Rosy was previously Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Visual and Media Art for Eastern Arts Board; Cultural Strategy Manager for the Mayor of London; and founder Director of the London Centre for Arts and Cultural Enterprise (LCACE). Rosy is President of World Crafts Council Europe, a member of the Skills Commission and UK Trade and Investment’s Creative Industries Advisory Group, and a Fellow of the RSA. Faith Kane is a Lecturer in Textile Design at The School of the Arts, Loughborough University. She holds a BA in Woven Textile Design (2001) and her PhD was titled Designing Nonwovens: Industrial and Craft Perspectives (2008). Her current research addresses interdisciplinary projects in the area of sustainable textiles and materials, to which she brings a design perspective that emphasises a ‘craft approach’. Another of her projects explores the use of laser processing and biotechnology for sustainable surface design (LEBIOTEX, 2012–15). This research is funded by the AHRC and is being undertaken in collaboration with textile chemists and optical engineers. Kane is also a lead editor of The Journal of Textile Design Research and Practice launched in 2013. Jenn Law is an artist, writer, and researcher living in Toronto. She is the Chair of Open Studio, where she works in silkscreen, intaglio and lithography. Law holds a BFA from Queen’s University, a BA in anthropology (McGill), and a PhD in anthropology (SOAS). She has worked as a lecturer, researcher, editor, and curator in Canada, the UK, and South Africa, and has published on South African, Caribbean, and Canadian art and print culture. She has received numerous fellowships, grants and awards for her research, including from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada, the British Council, and the British Academy. Trevor Marchand is Professor of Social Anthropology at SOAS and recipient of the RAI Rivers Medal (2014). He was trained as an architect (McGill), received a PhD in anthropology (SOAS), and qualified as a fine woodworker at London’s Building Crafts College (2007). Marchand has conducted fieldwork with craftspeople in Yemen, Mali, and East London. His books include Minaret Building and Apprenticeship in Yemen (2001), The Masons of Djenné (2009), Knowledge in Practice (2009, with K. Kresse), and Making Knowledge (2010). His documentary films include Future of Mud (2007, with S. Vogel), Masons of Djenné (2013), and The Intelligent Hand (2015). Marchand has curated exhibitions for the

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Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and the Smithsonian Institution. His forthcoming monograph is titled The Pursuit of Pleasurable Work. Malcolm Martin is a carver and maker in wood. He has worked collaboratively with his partner Gaynor Dowling since 1997. The couple is best known for their sculptural vessel forms. Born in Hertfordshire, he trained in Fine Art at Bath Academy of Art, and with Christopher Frayling in the Department of Cultural History at the Royal College of Art in London. After teaching for ten years in the art school system, he left in 1994 to become a full-time maker. Yanagi’s writings have been central to framing both his practice and ideas around craft over two decades, supplemented more recently by the practice of Zen. He is currently Buddhist Chaplain at two prisons in the West of England. Tom Martin began teaching bicycle repair courses in 2008 with the intent of promoting social justice through the provision of vocational skills. Popular misconceptions about the value and purposes of vocational training led Martin to suspend his career in education practice and pursue an MA in the anthropology of development (SOAS). Afterwards, he was contracted by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) to research vocational education policy. In 2014, he began a PhD in the Education Department at Oxford University, with funding from the Economic and Social Research Council. Erin O’Connor is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Marymount Manhattan College in New York City, and she holds a PhD from the New School for Social Research (2009). While conducting her ethnographic fieldwork, O’Connor became a glassblower in order to research the relations between bodily practice, creativity, labour, craft, workers, and artists, as well as the emergence of culture in the glassblowing studio. She has also conducted ethnographic analysis of creativity in interdisciplinary scientific research as a researcher at the Social Science Research Council. Her work has been published in journals and edited volumes, and her book, Craftwork: lessons from a hotshop for understanding art, knowledge, and meaning, is being prepared for publication. Suzanne Peck is a visual artist, writer, and educator. She received an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design’s glass department. Suzanne’s art practice considers touch, interconnectivity, and skin through the lens of sculpture and installation. Her work is exhibited worldwide and has been acquired by both public and private collections. Suzanne has published in Glass Quarterly, GASnews, and Craft International. She has held teaching appointments at the Rhode Island School of Design, California State University San Bernardino, Old Dominion University, Sydney College of the Arts, and the Australian National University. Suzanne lectures and gives demonstrations widely on her own work and contemporary topics in visual art and glass. She is currently working towards a PhD in visual art practices at the Australian National University.

Notes on Contributors

xv

Rachel Philpott is Partner in the research-based design practice Angles Between Curves, Lecturer in Textiles at Loughborough University, and Design London Fellow. She gained her AHRC-funded PhD in Textiles from the Royal College of Art. Her research centres on the development of high-performance textiles. Philpott develops and combines textile and non-textile production processes to create adaptable, self-supporting 3D textile structures with shape-memory and customisable material properties. She is also engaged in collaborative, interdisciplinary research with chemists and engineers, creating innovative ‘smart’ textiles. These textiles have transferable application in diverse disciplines including sportswear, medicine, architecture, interior and product design. Rebecca Prentice is Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Sussex, Brighton. She holds a BA in anthropology from Cornell University (1998), and an MA (2000) and a DPhil (2007) in anthropology from the University of Sussex. In 2010 she was an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow at Goldsmiths, University of London. Prentice’s research interests are located at the intersection between economic anthropology and the anthropology of the body, with particular interests in informal and illicit labour, skill, craft, gender, injury, ageing, neoliberal publics, and the global garment industry. She has conducted research in Trinidad (West Indies), the US, and the UK. Her book, Thiefing a Chance: work, risk and love in the neoliberal factory is currently under editorial review.

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Foreword This is an important moment to publish a book on Craftwork as Problem Solving. We face many challenges in the modern world, and craft will play an important part in answering them – as it has done for centuries. However, we need to remind ourselves why that is. This book gives us a deep and broad insight into the answer. Craft is grounded in our physical and material world. It is about the fundamentals of our life. Craft gives us identity through the things we make and the objects with which we surround ourselves. The process – the act of making – is what counts in this context. The sublime confluence of hand, mind, body, and eye working together to create an object that is beautiful, practical, functional, and challenging is, in effect, to solve a problem. Thinking and learning through making are at the core of the act of craft. Craft is a contested and slippery term. It is both a noun and a verb. This collection of chapters is focused primarily on the verb: on craft as an approach, an active attitude, and the ways that one goes about things. The range of examples offered is broad and eclectic, ranging from the breeding and training of Suffolk carthorses to computer-based video editing, and from Trinidadian garment workers to experimental cabinet making. With a list of contributors that includes anthropologists, craftspeople, architects, art historians, and building conservationists, the book reflects how craft is embedded in so many disciplines, practices, and enterprises in our contemporary world. The joy of craft is its ability to challenge perceptions. As Trevor Marchand points out in his introduction, the differences between the problem solving undertaken by those engaged in mental labour and that engaged in by those doing hands-on work are, in fact, much less tidy than what is popularly assumed. The embodied nature of craft – the sense that it ‘feels right’ or that it is a ‘work of the heart’ – is no less rigorous, sophisticated, or indeed rational, than the approach of a scientist. It underlies what is often a highly-structured, but more complex way in which crafts people tackle problem solving. Similarly, the notion that problem solving is a linear process, dealt with at the point of design, is at odds with the iterative nature of craft. The slow burn of craft – making mistakes, starting again, and carrying out the same task multiple times in order to achieve the desired result – has great benefit because it teaches values and life skills in contemporary society. Craft is at odds with a world in which the purely digital and the conceptual have come to dominate and instant gratification has become the norm. That opposition is not a plea to return to a homespun notion of what craft was. As the

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book chapters illustrate, technology is, and has always been, a part of craft. Rather, it is an indication that craft will continue to be crucial to our future. Not only are we witnessing a renewed appreciation of the time-honoured tradition of taking natural materials such as wood, glass, clay, or fibre, and working them to perfection to produce useful and amazing things; but today’s makers are also crafting with new materials (for example, hair or plastic), exploring their potentials, and testing and repurposing them. In doing so, they are providing catalysts for further innovation and technological progress. Makers will be the heroes of the twenty-first century. This is the trajectory that craft is taking, and this collection of essays shows us that problem solving will continue to be a key attribute in the future role of our craftspeople. Rosy Greenlees Executive Director of the Crafts Council, UK

Introduction

Craftwork as Problem Solving Trevor H.J. Marchand

In September 2013, I convened a two-day workshop at the Making Futures conference in Plymouth, England. This was the third in an ongoing series of stimulating biennial conferences on the subject of craft organised by the Plymouth College of Art, attracting makers and researchers from around the world. My workshop was titled Craftwork as Problem Solving, and the learning it generated forms the basis of the present book. In short, the aims of this collection are twofold: to document problem solving as it arises and evolves both in the processes of craftwork and in being and becoming a contemporary craftsperson; and to bring deeper theoretical understanding to the diversity and complexity of tactics and strategies that craftspeople employ in overcoming the challenges confronted in daily work. These aims ultimately form part of my longer-term objectives as an anthropologist to better grasp how craftspeople come to know what they know, and to promote greater public appreciation for the intelligence of skilled handwork. Of the 12 Plymouth workshop presenters, six have contributed chapters, and a further seven authors were invited to participate in the publishing project. As a result, this book brings together the thinking of a cross-disciplinary group, consisting of designer-makers, artists, an architect, a filmmaker, and several anthropologists of craft. Notably, all of the contributors have had, or continue to have, an active hand in making, and thus reflections on personal experience inform many of the ideas explored. Though some of the disciplines represented are ‘classic’ craft occupations, such as glassblowing, potting, basket and fabric weaving, woodworking, furnituremaking, and architectural restoration, others, like printmaking and film editing, straddle a fine line between craft and art; while others still, such as bike mechanics or garment making, might be more readily classified as trades, and horse training might be regarded as a profession.1 All of the contributors, however, conceive of their respective disciplines as a craft, or as having a strong craft ethos. My project brief invited participants to examine the ways that problems are encountered, searched for, conceived of, and resolved in craft. Authors were 1 The inclusion of horse training (or any kind of animal training) in the list of crafts may be contentious to some readers. Trainers, however, like those studied by Crowder (this volume), consider their work to be so. The skilled formation of sentient beings demands practice, as well as many of the qualities and characteristics listed in the previous section. Notably, Sennett includes discussion of parenting as a craft (2008: 101–2).

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encouraged to do so either using ethnographic methods or by carefully scrutinising their own engagement in the processes of design and making. Intriguingly, more than half initially replied that they would have little to say about problem solving. Solving problems was perceived by them as either a mundane task routinely executed in the flow of work and therefore unworthy of special attention; or conversely as a distinct and occasional activity that was taken up outside regular craft practices, and thus requiring a specialised field of study, such as psychology or cognitive science. However, once they began dissecting their data or bringing greater awareness to their own practices, the role of problem solving was positively re-evaluated and recognised to be thoroughly integral to craftwork. As I hope to make obvious in this introductory chapter, problem solving activities are involved at every stage of production. In the practical work of design and making, problem solving takes place when calculating quantities, weights, and dimensions; engineering structures; configuring geometries, proportion, and scale; choosing or producing colours; selecting and evaluating materials (including live animals); choosing, setting-up, and possibly modifying tools for the task; and making jigs. While physically engaged in designing and making, the human body has its own challenges to overcome. At a motor level, the craftsperson must resolve how to take-up good postures, form correct grasps, coordinate bi-manual practices, and perform fluid and economic movements. They must also resolve how to continue working when confronted with limitations or failure of their body caused by injury, illness, or ageing (Marchand, 2014b). Problem solving is also part and parcel of producing within set budgets and timescales; interpreting client needs and aspirations and translating those interpretations into materials and objects; accommodating, or critically engaging with, changing tastes, styles, and market forces; and projecting how the crafted object (or trained animal) will be accommodated within, or be suited to, its new destination (Marchand, 2015). Solutions are needed, too, when grappling with green agendas, issues of environmental sustainability, changing technologies, or the introduction of new materials. At social and economic levels, problems arise in terms of gaining access to apprenticeships or to basic or advanced forms of training; getting access to tools, supplies, and suitable workspace; and establishing a community of fellow practitioners, or fitting into an existing one. In sum, craftwork provides an ideal setting for witnessing the emergence of a vast diversity of challenges and, more importantly, for observing our human creative potential for overcoming them. Problem solving, I argue, is at the heart of learning and knowing. Therefore the ‘arts of problem solving’ merit dedicated scholarly attention and ethnographically-based research in order to bring about better understanding of situated cognition and practice. That, in brief, is the aim of this book. My introductory chapter first explores the category of craft as it has come to be defined, in large part in contrast to fine art as well as in its positive relation to a nebulous set of qualities and characteristics. After settling on the idea that craft is

Introduction

3

a polythetic category with the inherent capacity and flexibility to shed and absorb new ‘defining’ criteria, the discussion moves next to problem solving, identified as a core activity in craftwork. Making mistakes is acknowledged as a productive starting point for learning. The definition of ‘problem’ and the nature of problem solving are then more fully investigated within a framework of situated practice and cognition, and illustrated with craft examples. The chapter closes with an outline of the remaining book. Craft: A Polythetic Category The definition of the English word ‘craft’ and what belongs to that category is not absolutely fixed.2 As curator Paul Greenhalgh has observed, ‘craft has always been a supremely messy word’ (2002: 1). In the most general sense, a craft refers to a professional kind of work or trade or a pastime activity, any of which centrally involves specialised skills. Such skills are popularly associated with the work of the hand and conceived as being carried out on particular (often natural) materials with a kit of dedicated tools. As a transitive verb, ‘to craft something’ implies making in a skilful manner: a well-crafted chair, inlaid box, or embroidered wallhanging, for example. The terms craft, crafting, and crafted are also commonly employed to describe or praise ideas well-conceived, activities well-executed, or things well-made: the craft of writing, crafting opinions, a well-crafted beer. But such products – material or immaterial – are not properly ‘crafts’ according to conventional understanding of the word. Marketing campaigns for myriad commodities, from luxury to everyday goods, have usurped the concept of craft in order to ‘weave’ histories and narratives around mass-produced items, to suggest hands-on attention to detail, and to lend products an air of bespoke exclusivity. While such usages of craft, crafting, and crafted further blur the definitional boundaries of ‘craft’ as a category, they arguably cultivate popular aspiration for possessing and consuming things made with skill and attention and they rouse longing for an alternative, idealised way of living and working – one that is ethical, guided by high standards of quality, and characterised by direct, unmediated connections between mind, body, materials, and the environment. Craft can also be used in adjectival and adverbial forms: crafty and craftily, respectively. These terms imply that the subject or their actions are tinged by cunning and deceit, as for example in the witch’s craft. Although craft’s links to the occult are not the concern of this volume, the association nevertheless implies that, in some contexts, skilled work is regarded as a kind of secret knowledge. This is the case, for example, among blacksmiths, weavers, or mud-brick masons in parts of West Africa (see McNaughton, 1993; Dilley, 2009; Marchand, 2009 respectively), 2 The contemporary English term ‘craft’ derives from the Old English cræft meaning power or physical strength, coming from the German word kraft with similar meaning.

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Craftwork as Problem Solving

and among some elite European potters and ceramicists who jealously guard the chemical formulas for their glazes, weavers their dyes, or smiths the composition of their metals. But, arguably, a large part of the reason that secrecy, mystery,3 and ambiguity continue to cling to craftwork is that the associated skills and knowhow of many crafts can only be fully ‘grasped’ in the doing and with long practice, and therefore elude the understanding of the average non-artisan layperson. Since the Renaissance, craft in Western Europe was divided from art, and defined in contrasting and lowly relation to it. This legacy certainly has its roots in the ancient Greek partition between intellectual and manual labour. For the Greeks, intellectual work was associated with the esteemed disciplines of mathematics, geometry, and logic (Sohn-Rethell, 1978). Techne, on the other hand, referred to art, craft, and craftsmanship, all of which were consigned to the province of manual labour. The mathematical formulation of perspective in drawing and painting during the early fifteenth century, however, licensed elite artists to leverage the ancient Greek distinction in order to separate themselves as authors of visual representations and symbolic statements from the makers of things. The Renaissance artist, draughtsman, and engineer (e.g. Leonardo da Vinci as the quintessential ‘Renaissance Man’) created intellectual works on paper that could be assigned to the craftsman for manual execution. As anthropologist Kathy M’Closkey noted, Drawing became the hallmark of “artistic literacy”, but it also provided the means to dictate to others what would be produced. The concept of the artist as a unique, outstanding individual developed in contrast to the view that the anonymous craftworker, using only technical ability, executed the specified designs of either a patron or an artist (1996: 115).

The meaning of craft, and its status, has fluctuated over the centuries in relation to the ‘fine arts’, and in relation to changing social politics, economics, and public attitudes toward education and vocational training. During the second half of the nineteenth century, William Morris, inspired by passages from John Ruskin’s The Nature of Gothic, liberated craftwork from its restrictive Victorian associations with the working classes and made craft and craftwork fashionable and, notably, a vehicle for social change (1996, 2004). According to Arts and Crafts theory, craft objects were assumed capable of satisfying ‘the same expectations brought to a painting or a sculpture’. But alas, notes contemporary metalsmith Bruce Metcalf, ‘such open-mindedness was short-lived’ (2002: 16). Remarking on the persistence of craft’s ‘not quite art’ status, material culture researcher Kate McIntyre provocatively labelled craft ‘the second sex’: ‘marginalised, trivialised, feminised, it is undermined by connotations of domesticity’ (in Jackson, 2004). In large measure, craft continues to be conceived as a workmanship of physical 3 The mysteries (or misteries), in archaic usage in mediaeval England, referred to the handicraft trades.

Introduction

5

labour in concert with ‘earthy’ materials, producing primarily decorative wares for middleclass homes. It is therefore made to stand in opposition to the intellectual endeavour of ‘the artist’ who strives to ‘overcome the material’s resistance’ in order to transform it into a transcendental visual sign (Risatti, 2007: 137). If craft has been associated through much of history with the body, the female, and the domestic sphere, then structuralist reasoning would imply that it has also been conceptually positioned more closely to nature than culture. Ostensibly, the main remit of craft is to supply basic, concrete artefacts for survival or for making life and our surroundings more comfortable, and not to generate abstract symbols to think with or found institutions for empowerment. Without the dictates of an architect’s blueprint, masons erect only ‘vernacular dwelling’; carpenters specialise in making life’s necessities, from cradle to coffin; blacksmiths forge agricultural implements and basic tools; leatherworkers produce the tack for work animals; potters and glassblowers make vessels for holding, eating and drinking; basketmakers make receptacles for containing and carrying; weavers produce the cloth that clothes us, etcetera. These crude (mis)conceptions about the limits, purpose, and the ‘nature’ of craft have also been tactically construed to make craftwork, and handwork more generally, the engine of grassroots countercultural movements. The underlying socialist ethos of the Arts and Crafts movement, for example, was a critique of Western Europe’s hegemonic capitalist culture that arose, and was sustained by, industrialisation, mass production, and the mechanisation of human labour. In effect, however, the industrial age and its dominant mode of production made possible the emergence of modern craft as both practice and social ideology. A half century later, the crafts revival of the late 1960s and 1970s was fuelled by anti-establishment sentiment, a middleclass quest for rural self-sufficiency that was independent of ‘the system’, and an almost paranoid fear of encroaching technology that supposedly threatened human autonomy, creativity, and purpose (Harrod, 1999: 242). Bruce Metcalf has observed that craft today remains a social movement of resistance and opposition to mainstream culture. It stands against the anonymity of mass production; against ugliness; against big-money capitalism; against corporate labour; and against disembodiment in all its forms (2002: 16). Guerrilla knitting (also known as yarn bombing or graffiti knitting) epitomises this objective by reclaiming abject public spaces and making ‘place’ by covering surfaces or wrapping objects in brightly-patterned knitwear. Stemming from an intellectual line that runs through Ruskin, Morris, and American pragmatist and educator John Dewey, Richard Sennett’s deliberations on craft (2008) are equally infused with philosophical and socio-political intent. Making material things well – with skill, commitment, and judgement – provides an experientially-grounded model for the making of good human relationships and for the making of a future grounded in good citizenship (ibid.: 289–91). ‘Craftsmanship’, Sennett begins his book, ‘names an enduring, basic human impulse, the desire to do a job well for its own sake’ (ibid.: 9).

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Craftwork as Problem Solving

Glenn Adamson’s Thinking Through Craft does not share that agenda for social transformation. But, like Sennett, the art historian conceives of craft as ‘a process’, and proposes that it ‘only exists in motion’. According to Adamson, craft is ‘a way of doing things, not a classification of objects, institutions, or people’. It is not a fixed category, but rather craft is understood to be an ‘active, relational concept’, embodied most powerfully in skill (2007: 3–4). By contrast, his contemporary, Howard Risatti, has defined craft as being inclusive of a wider, perhaps more traditional constellation of features that comprises mastery of specific techniques and materials, as well as the form and the ‘practical physical functionality’ of the objects created (2007: 16–18). The nature of the objects produced is indispensable to the identity of craft, according to Risatti, and there is need to recognise the quality of ‘practical physical function’ as the ‘normative ground upon which craft originated’ (ibid.: 20; see also Metcalf, 2002: 21). He argues that even so-called ‘critical objects of craft’ are about function in light of their purposely not functioning or subverting functionality altogether (e.g. chairs that cannot be comfortably sat upon, jugs not made for pouring, oversized jewellery that cannot be worn). They produce critical dialogue within the field of craft, not outside it, because ultimately ‘they share in the primary conditions of traditional craft as an artistic enterprise of formalization and materialization around function’ (2007: 284–6). Whether craft objects are functional or not, all craft objects are arguably superfluous in today’s world, and many can be classed as luxury goods. There are innumerable differences in the experience of being a craftsperson that emerge with differences in gender, economic and social-class position, or ethnicity. But a shared feature that transcends the differences and unites contemporary craft experience, whether in Europe, Asia, Africa, or elsewhere, is that contemporary craftspeople are operating in a surplus economy where mass production has rendered their production redundant and inessential – or threatens to do so. Both the subjectivities of craftspeople and the material objects they make are produced in the interstices between global capitalism, changing technologies, and an incessant search for ‘authenticity’. By way of example, earthen architecture traditions across the West African Sahel are being supplanted by homogenous, rectilinear concrete breezeblock and corrugated tin-roof constructions. The annual maintenance required for mudbrick structures is time consuming and costly; inhabitants complain of unsanitary conditions and lack of amenities; and the old ways of building are judged to be anachronistic and antagonistic to aspirations for modernity. In the Malian town of Djenné, historians, conservationists, and influential stakeholders in the heritage industry responded to the perceived threat to mud-brick architecture by establishing a new training school for the ‘formation’ of masons. The objectives of the school (opened in 2009) were to improve literacy and numeracy rates among masons in order that they might engage more fluidly with clients, suppliers, and their building team members, and operate more effectively in a changing culture and economy where paperwork, formal bids, legal contracts, and accurately drawn plans have become increasingly the norm. In tandem with the classroom training,

Introduction

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the founders also envisioned an ‘on-site school’ where masons would learn to manufacture and use the old-style cylindrical djenné-ferey brick; to produce more durable, weather-resistant mud plasters, and to make buildings that accommodate modern conveniences and respond to contemporary lifestyles without sacrificing traditional aesthetics, materials, and construction methods (Marchand, 2014a: 164). In effect, control over the reproduction of Djenné’s architectural tradition has been progressively wrested from the hands of the craftsmen (and their clients) by elite players. The circumstances in Djenné beckon comparison with the Rethemniot artisans studied by anthropologist Michael Herzfeld who ‘no longer control the criteria for the taste of “tradition” that they supposedly embody, produce and represent’. Rather, the personal experiences of these Greek craftsmen are ‘embedded in a set of hierarchically ordered, concentric and interlocking disabilities … [that] extend far beyond the ramifications of class, and many of them originate in the political relations among nation states’ (2004: 207). In Djenné, the mud-brick architecture that has contributed very considerably to the distinctive character of the town has been recast as ‘world heritage’. This process began with the French colonial exhibitions that included ‘Sudanese-style’ pavilions, and was continued under the aegis of post-colonial Malian governments leading ultimately to Djenné’s inclusion on UNESCO’s roster of World Heritage Sites in 1988. As a result, the craft practices and expertise of Djenné’s masons have been harnessed to national and international concerns to reproduce a static version of tradition: one that is appealing to global tourism and that attracts foreign aid and development initiatives. By contrast, the British fine woodworkers whom I trained with and interviewed retained far greater agency over their self-representation. The UK’s persistent self-promotion as a world leader of cutting-edge art and design has enabled some British furniture makers to cultivate identities as ‘designer-makers’ and to strategise positions closer to the centre of a global order that imputes hierarchies of value in the world of craft. Artist and curator Ingrid Bachman has noted that Western collectors tend to ‘fetishize the product of excessive and often skilled labour from an individual in the developed world, but disregard similar labour originating from the developing world’ (2002: 46). The maker in the developing world, according to Bachman, is ‘visible only through its label – made in China, made in the Philippines’ (ibid.). Her observation is, for the most part, correct. However, the lubrication of global cash flows and an expanding transnational market of collectors over the past three decades have made possible the emergence of individual artists as well as craftspeople from Africa, Asia, and South America, whose names are gaining currency equal to that of their Western counterparts. Names, like objects, are marketable, collectable, and promise return on investment. This last point takes us back to the uneasy relation between craft and art. The vulnerability of the distinction between them intensifies when the valuing of craft shifts from functionality as the chief criterion (e.g. the Scottish fisherman’s creels studied by Stephanie Bunn, this volume) to criteria of authorship, authenticity, and speculative investment (e.g. the wooden vessels made by Malcolm Martin,

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Craftwork as Problem Solving

this volume). Furthermore, a current paradigm in British craft promotes ideas of post-disciplinarity, post-function, and post-materials in craftwork, and revolves around the international patronage of museums, galleries, and collectors. This broadens the gap with the ‘traditions’ – imagined or real – which have for so long underpinned craft: namely emphasis on the handmade, mastery of a particular set of tools and palette of materials, and the longed-for intimacy that binds maker to their materials, locality, and the clients they serve. What is hopefully clear by this point is that craft is a polysemous, ambiguous, and often-contested term. In the discussion so far, craft has been variously described as skilled handwork; as a kind of secret knowledge; as being inextricably entangled with mastery of materials, tools, and techniques; as a residual category of art; as social resistance against modernity and its processes of alienation; as an exemplar for, and vehicle toward, good and ethical conduct; as process, and in motion; as directly related to the functional objects that it yields; and, throughout the contents of this book, as problem solving. In the introduction to her scholarly tome on the crafts in Britain, Tanya Harrod states plainly that she does not aim to define them, and that ‘the process of defining is part of the history of the twentiethcentury crafts movement and continues to be so’ (1999: 9). In proffering definitions or taking up positions in the debates, both academics and practitioners of craft underscore certain features as core, relegate others to the peripheries, or exclude them altogether. But in fact, each feature forms part of the total, ever-shifting discourse on craft. Therefore, rather than attempting to constrict craft within yet another working definition, I propose instead that craft be acknowledged as a polythetic category. A polythetic category is one in which any of its members possess some, but not necessarily all, the properties attributed to that category. Although no single property is essential for membership, popular belief maintains that the category is stable, and is so across time and space. The concept of polythetic category has been borrowed by anthropologists to describe, for example, ‘ethnicity’ (see Fardon, 1990; Wilson, 1993). Claims to ethnicity may be grounded in a combination of any of the following: shared religion, language or dialect, myths of origins, ties to an ancestral homeland, descent, social organisation, cultural beliefs, ritual practices, etiquette, skin colour, physical features, ways of dress or adornment, and artistic traditions and craft practices. Within an ethnic community, there may be internal disagreement over which attributes, practices, and beliefs are or are not included; and qualifications may change over time in response to changes in the wider social, political, religious, or economic system(s) in which the identity operates. Not surprisingly, the flexible nature of the category presents a conundrum for the social scientist wishing to make an empirical comparative analysis of ethnicity between different groups, or across time (see Needham, 1975). For that reason, the category is more productively studied as it is played out as a vehicle of identity construction in the context of everyday social and political life. The category of craft is not dissimilar. Greenhalgh has accurately noted that the crafts

Introduction

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have no intrinsic cohesion; they have no a priori relationship that makes them a permanently peculiar or special gathering; there could be fewer or more of them; they are together now … because the complex forces that brought them together, despite shifts in circumstances, hold them in proximity. This proximity is not stable and is certainly in a process of change. Nevertheless they are a consortium still. (2002: 1)

In accepting that the category is open-ended, multi-stranded, and polythetic in nature, we can also accept that a search for a fixed set of defining features, universally shared, is futile. Based on my own apprentice-style studies as an anthropologist among craftspeople, and the studies presented by the contributing authors to this book, I conclude this discussion with an alphabetic inventory of things, properties, and characteristics regularly attributed to the meaning of craft, craftwork, and craftspeople. Apprenticeship – historically regulated by guilds, liveries, or other forms of professional association, but superseded in a growing number of places worldwide by college or state-led training programmes; Attitude – qualified by commitment, patience, fastidiousness, and perseverance for perfection; Autonomy – expressed as command over one’s production, from start to finish; Bespoke – meaning the tailor-made production of things; (The) Body – in motion, often with emphasis on highly-controlled gestures, articulated grasps, and dexterity of hands and fingers; Design and Making – as iterative, often overlapping, mutually-informing processes; Economic Precarity – as a result of vulnerability to fluctuating (or diminishing) market demand for handmade objects; Expertise – in a discipline and its related practices; Focus – as a skilled ability to direct awareness and bring concentration to the task; Functionality – of handcrafted items that have a practical use value; Identity – of people who actively label themselves (and others) ‘craftsmen’ or ‘craftswomen’, and claim that what they do is craftwork, and what they produce is craft; Innovation – as the outcome of deliberate or improvised experimentation with tools, techniques, and materials; Locality – that stems from the association of particular places with certain kinds of materials, distinct aesthetic traditions, and vernacular ways of making; Materials (often natural) – that have become strongly correlated with specific craft disciplines; Problem Solving – in response to challenges arising at all stages of craftwork;

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Craftwork as Problem Solving

Social Politics – that accompany the pursuit of alternative ways of working and living, typically in opposition or resistance to alienating technologies, neoliberalism, globalisation, and consumer capitalism; Risk – as something inherent to work done by hand (see Pye, 1995); (The) Senses – including refined senses of vision, audition, olfaction, touch, taste, kinaesthesia, or proprioception as required for the task; Skill – in the form of skilled attention, discernment, and movement that are acquired through extended training and practice; Standards – for quality design and production; Tools – designed for specific activities, and some of which become the hallmark of certain craft disciplines; Tradition – that connects practitioners, practices, and things produced to a past (real or imagined), and thereby constructs a sense of continuity. Claims to tradition also place craft in tension with modernity’s dominant modes of production. In sum, the attributes that members of a craft community select in defining themselves and what they do and make will draw upon all or any combination of the above, emphasising some things, properties, and characteristics, and disregarding others. Yet further attributes may be included and the polythetic nature of craft licenses this. The list is by no means exhaustive, and its contents are liable to future expansion (or contraction) in response to changing technologies for making (see for example Peter Durgerian and Jenn Law, this volume), introductions of new materials, and changing political landscapes, economies, and regimes of consumer taste at both local and global levels. All such changes throw up fresh challenges to overcome, new kinds of mistakes to be made and repaired, and novel sorts of problems to solve. Craft meaning, identity, and knowledge are in a state of constant evolution. It is to a discussion of mistakes, challenges, and problem solving in craft that I turn next. Mistakes: The Starting Point for Learning ‘I can’t teach anybody unless I’ve got plan A that I’m really happy with; plan B if need be. And, plan C … if it all gets to the stage that it’s unsalvageable’, began Cheryl’s induction for the new fine-woodwork trainees. ‘But I know the difference’, she continued, with a reassuring smile. ‘And so I need to be able to teach you what to look out for, and when; when the worst of the problems are likely to occur, and why. If I can do those things, then I can help you to avoid making the mistakes, while understanding why they’ve occurred’. Cheryl took up carpentry when she was in her late twenties, training first on a short course in Lambeth and followed by a three-year apprenticeship in maintenance carpentry at the Southwark Women’s Workshop. ‘At a certain point in time, in the

Introduction

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1980s, there were small pockets of women working in the trade as apprentices on all the left-wing councils’ in London, Cheryl told me in an earlier interview. Her first teaching experience in carpentry was at the Lewisham Women’s Workspace. She joined the staff at the Building Crafts College in Stratford, East London, in 2003. For eight years, she instructed young joinery apprentices who were sent to the College on block release from the construction industry, and in 2011, she was appointed first-year convenor of the two-year programme in fine woodwork. From her long teaching experience, Cheryl recognised that trainees are ‘going to panic if they make a mistake – especially the ones that really care’. Her method was ‘to show them that there are general ways of getting around it. There are going to be consequences; and they’ll have to make decisions. But, that’s when they’re learning’. Standing, now, before 16 attentive men and women of mixed ages, Cheryl continued her introductory talk: You’re not going to go through a flawless year of making no mistakes. You’re not going to learn anything if you do. So, as devastating as it is sometimes to make a mistake, there are ways to fix it. If it ever gets to the stage where, maybe I haven’t kept too much of an eye out for you, and you’ve got quite far into the project and discover a mistake that you’d made much earlier, I will show you a fast way to get back to where you were, at the point where you made the mistake. And you will have learned huge amounts by then. It also gives you a second chance to do things and to put other stuff right, and to make it much better than it was in the first try. So, you know, don’t get too upset by mistakes. This is college; this is where you can make mistakes. It costs nothing.

Making mistakes is par for the course when embarking on any new endeavour. Learning does not usually arise while actually making the mistakes, but rather, as Cheryl implied, the making of mistakes offers critical starting points for learning and improving. Learning arises in spotting that a mistake has been made, identifying and understanding it as a problem for which a strategy can be devised or a tactic executed to remove, resolve or work around it, and, hopefully, to move on with the knowledge that the experience has afforded. These procedures do not necessarily unfold in that neat linear manner, or as discrete events. The physical activity of putting something right, for instance, might simultaneously incite a reconceptualisation of the nature of the mistake; or, discouragingly, it might even lead to identifying further mistakes, or an altogether different mistake from that initially isolated as the problem source. In some instances, arrival at a correct understanding of the nature of the mistake or problem might occur only after it is resolved (Kirsh, 2008: 268). My point is that learning and discovery are not confined to abstract thinking about the problem, one step removed from the physical activities of implementing a solution. Instead, learning in craftwork (or in any other endeavour) demands situated perceptual experience and physical activity, as well as emotional engagement. Each of us can recall the feelings of frustration, excited anticipation,

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Craftwork as Problem Solving

calm exploration, and jubilant satisfaction (or possibly abandonment) that we experienced when confronted by a challenging problem and while working our way through it. The way that we feel colours our engagement in the task; and, likewise, the effectiveness of our trialled actions, the context in which we undertake them, and the nature of the task itself instantiate emotional response. Perceiving, doing, and feeling are part and parcel of the same cognitive matrix for problem solving that also includes producing inner or interactive dialogue and narrative around findings, procedures, experimentation, and results; numerical forms of interpreting, predicting, and calculating; and imagining. Notably, the act of imagining in craftwork is not restricted to conceptualising intended objects or planned activities in the ‘mind’s eye’ (i.e. visualising), but instead extends to imagining possibilities with all the perceptual senses that can be summoned in imagination, and as appropriate to the properties and qualities of the thing being designed and made. A craftsperson, for example, may imagine within the domain of motor cognition, or at a haptic level: imagining how an object will relate to the body; how it will feel or be held, carried, used, or interacted with; and how the thing might possibly be moved through, sat upon, or worn. Each of the above ways of knowing supplies stimulus and context to the others, constituting an abundant, overlapping exchange of information in the search for problems and their solutions (c.f. Marchand, 2010). The chapters of this volume engage with the multiple and interconnected ways of knowing expressed through craftwork. Notably, the authors enrich the matrix of knowledge with the social and cultural dimensions of situated problem solving. Seeking, identifying, and overcoming mistakes, problems, and challenges are activities deeply informed by the cultural contexts in which craftspeople operate, and by the social networks in which they act. The majority of research and writing on human problem solving has been carried out in the fields of psychology and the cognitive sciences. The emphasis in much of that work has been on understanding, defining, and explaining the operations that occur in the so-called ‘problem space’, manifested as an internal mental representation where possible solution paths are constructed, evaluated, and selected prior to action (c.f. Newell and Simon, 1972). This volume counters the classical emphasis on internal ‘mind’ operations and it challenges the separation drawn between the mental arithmetic and the physical doing, by making the sensing, feeling, acting, and socialised body the locus of its enquiry. The craftspeople in all of the case studies presented are thinking with tools (Marchand, 2012), and actively engaged with materials, other actors, and the surrounding environment in their individual pursuits to settle problems, enhance skills, broaden knowledge, and construct social identities and professional status. The explorations and discoveries made throughout this book contribute significantly not only to our awareness of problem solving in craft or skilled handwork, but to an understanding of human problem solving more generally. It is popularly conceived that the kind of problem solving undertaken by mathematicians, philosophers, and others engaged primarily in ‘mental’ labour is

Introduction

13

substantially different from that of those whose work is more evidently hands-on. The former encounter problems and conjure solutions in the abstract realms of the imagination and the ‘mind’s eye’, using logic, formulas, equations, theory, and hypothetical arguments; while the latter operate in the practical and the tangible, employing experimentation and trialling and testing solutions in empirically observable ways. However, as the chapters reveal, the stark demarcation between the two kinds of enterprise is in fact much less tidy. Calculation, theorising, setting goals, imagining outcomes, and working out hypothetical pathways toward a solution are very much a part of both design and making in craftwork. But, equally, mathematicians, physicists, and philosophers engage bodily with the world in solving the problems that they encounter or set for themselves. Discussions and exchanges with colleagues serve to frame problems and to test and ‘craft’ ideas. They use pen and paper, chalk and blackboard, or keyboard and computer screen to objectify their thoughts in the medium of language or numbers, and to progress, refine, and shape them (Suchman and Trigg, 1993; Greeno et al, 1998). Academics might theorise space and time, the nature of things at vastly disparate scales (from universe to quark), or what it is ‘to be’; but, ultimately, such intellectual explorations set out from, and return to, their author’s sensory experiences in the world. In returning to Cheryl’s observation that discovering a mistake or identifying a challenge offers a starting point for learning, it then follows that the process of learning through exploration, experimentation, and reflection brings about new knowledge or a new way of knowing (or getting to know) something. New knowledge might pertain to the situations, circumstances, and contexts that give rise to certain kinds of problems; to the affordances and resources that the context makes available, or that it lacks; to one’s methods for exploring and experimenting in a more efficient or effective manner; to one’s routine for ‘thoughtfully’ engaging with a given kind of problem; to one’s becoming aware, or honing existing awareness, of salient qualities, quantities, or things in the environment; or to one’s technical procedures or physical practices that are implemented to avoid or make good a problem – or to any combination of the aforementioned. An individual’s knowledge gained during problem solving therefore includes new understanding as well as newly-configured activity. In other words, learning happens not only at the ‘conceptual’ level, but our perceptual systems, too, ‘learn’ to attune differently to the environment and our nervous system and the muscles it coordinates ‘learn’ to carry out procedures in novel ways. Thus situated problem solving encompasses the full learning potential of a perceiving, discerning, and engaged individual. If problems are prime catalysts to the growth of individual and shared kinds of knowledge (and consequently to our evolution as a species), then what we mean by a ‘problem’ merits further consideration.

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Craftwork as Problem Solving

Problems and Problem Solving What is a ‘problem’? Is there a set of defining traits that are universally shared by all problems? Is a problem a thing, or a state of things (material or social), that exists by virtue of itself? Or, are problems context dependent? Are they identified and defined relationally to goals and ideals, to expectations of form or function, to causes and effects, or to other exemplars? Are problems passively discovered or actively sought; or, in some cases, does their existence emerge through the coordinated interactions and negotiations between social actors? The aim of this section is to lay the groundwork for thinking about the diversity of problems and the varied approaches to solving them that are presented in this book. Cognitive scientist David Kirsh has noted that problems are not a distinct category, and there is no natural kind called ‘problem’ (2008: 264–5). Problems, like their solutions, are tied to concrete settings. They vary in scope and nature from one field of practice to the next, and often from activity to activity within a single field. Problems are also tied to persons. They are big or small, complex or straightforward, stressful or exciting depending on the owner’s relationship to their problem. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word ‘problem’ has several closely related meanings. The first two define a problem as ‘a doubtful or difficult matter requiring a solution’ and ‘something hard to understand or accomplish or deal with’. Problems may therefore be construed as challenges that call for response – challenges of the kind commonly encountered in craftwork. In craftwork, challenge arises at the point when a mistake or deficiency is identified and the craftsperson entertains the intention to resolve or improve it. Challenge also regularly arises when a craftsperson takes the initiative to expand their skill set by introducing techniques, practices, tools, or materials to their repertoire. And, for those who have mastered the elementary principles and practices of their trade, further challenge comes with setting personal or collaborative goals to innovate within, or expand upon, the existing inventory of designs or methods. With specific reference to mathematics and physics, or presumably to any science, the OED defines a problem as ‘an inquiry starting from given conditions to investigate or demonstrate a fact, result or law’. This definition, however, also bears direct relation to craftwork. As Pamela Smith has established, craftwork and artisan production in the early Renaissance formed the basis of modern European scientific inquiry (2006). In contemporary craft, too, the creative processes of designing and making things involves a scientific attitude. Chairmakers, for example, must consider the tension, compression, torque, torsion, and sheer that loads will exert on the legs, seat, arms, and backs of the chairs they design; potters experiment with the chemistry of glazes to establish correlations between kiln temperature, timing, and resulting colours, effects, and the resilience of surfaces; glassblowers experiment with heat, materials, and methods to produce new vessels with novel affordances; watchmakers and mechanics must comprehend the physics of movement and the performance and durability of materials from

Introduction

15

which components are manufactured; smiths need to understand the properties of metals; specialist breeders and trainers test the psychology, traits, potentials, and limitations of their animals and themselves; the work of weavers embodies mathematical, geometrical, and proportional understanding and experimentation (as observed by ethnomathematician Paulus Gerdes, 2010); and craftspeople specialised in the field of building conservation investigate the existing conditions and compositions of materials in a systematic way before making interventions that function, are sustainable, and are sensitive to the historic context. These are only a few examples of the ways that craftspeople engage ‘scientifically’ in their everyday work and problem solving. Growth and innovation in any of these creative fields begins with a grasp of the circumstances and the formulation of a corresponding problem that will drive the search for results – results that not only satisfy basic criteria, but also improve quality or push boundaries in terms of method, materials, aesthetics, form, or function. To summarise, problems, like their solutions, are emergent and context dependent. In craft, problems emerge in tandem with identifying mistakes or registering deficiencies, and they arise while learning technique, and alongside experimentation, improvisation, and innovation. These activities are part and parcel of craftwork, and so too are the problems and challenges that accompany them. Problems, therefore, are not exceptional events. They crop up persistently, and at different scales of magnitude, with different effects and consequences; and they demand different resources and economies of effort to rectify, solve, or satisfy them. Additionally, ‘discovering’ problems, like solving them, may involve a joint effort. Although many practitioners are sole traders or independent makers, mistakes or deficiencies in their work are sometimes detected and pointed out by mentors and peers within the craft community; or, less desirably, by clients. Flaws may become glaringly apparent to the maker while in the company of a third party who is appraising his or her work. The scrutinising ‘eye’ of another can have the effect of forcing makers to take a step back and to thereby apprehend their creations with a heightened sense of critical awareness. In the context of the workshop or studio, instructors and masters have a pedagogical duty to draw trainees’ attention to extant, latent, or prospective problems, and to progressively get trainees to conduct such searches and assessments on their own accord. An instructor might offer (or insist upon) their own tried-andtested solutions; but the learning curve is steepest when trainees are given some latitude to explore technical and tooling processes and to discover solutions that work and ‘feel right’ for them. However, unless the scope for exploration has defined boundaries, a student’s zeal for learning can easily collapse into feelings of discouragement and frustration. Experienced instructors therefore limit the scale of challenge to a level that lies at the periphery of a student’s problem-solving ability – or, to use Vygotsky’s terminology, in their ‘zone of proximal development’ (1978). This enables students to reach beyond what they can already do independently while keeping safely within the bounds of what they can potentially achieve with some measure of ‘scaffolding’ in the form of assistance, guidance, or hints from

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the instructor (or from a more-advanced fellow trainee). At the early stages of learning, the freedom to explore and experiment while being safely held in the mentoring process nurtures the growth of a ‘personal style’ in making, as well as in the ways that mistakes are sought, problems identified, and solutions discovered. Seminal to that growth is acquiring a ‘critical eye’. In the context of craftwork, having a critical eye is not – as the idiom seemingly implies – restricted to acute visual judgement. It includes more generally all of the perceptual senses used for assessing the quality of both one’s own workmanship and one’s practice, and spotting the deficiencies. A refined olfactory sense is crucial, for example, for the perfumer, the brewer, or the tanner; discriminating acoustic judgement is indispensable for the instrument maker, sound mixer, or maker of fine crystal stemware; and a discerning sense of touch is essential for the woodworker, the carver, the potter, and numerous other craftspeople whose outputs are valued for their surfaces, textures, thicknesses, or weights. In order to critically engage with one’s own physical performance as a maker, one needs to hone an astute sense of one’s bodily location and positioning in space (i.e. proprioception), of one’s actions, movement, and gestures (i.e. kinaesthesia), of rhythm and timing, and of applied force and pressure. Emphases on developing particular senses, or a coordinated grouping of senses, vary depending on the craft or in relation to the task. But in every case, developing a critical eye means gradually elevating perceptual awareness through practice and learning to direct sustained attention to the kinds of information that needs to be registered, attended to, and processed in order to do something well. It involves active and regular seeking of irregularities, mistakes, deficiencies, and inefficiencies with the aim of learning, improving, and mastering – and, for some craftspeople, striving for perfection. Before problems are actively resolved, they are actively sought by attuned practitioners. Once sought and found, resolving a problem normally involves ‘exploring its scope and constraints, getting a sense of options, and developing a metric for evaluating progress toward a solution’ (Kirsh, 2008: 270). In craftwork, a given problem can rarely, if ever, be correlated with a single possible solution. There are typically many ways to solve a problem or overcome a challenge, each one involving different investments of skill, resources, and time. Options might be individually appraised in relation to available means and existing constraints; the requirements and expectations of the client; and the level of experience of the maker. By way of example, a furnituremaker confronted with the task of producing a curved component for a new chair design might contemplate the possibilities of either shaping it from a thick block of solid or laminated timber using the bandsaw, spindle moulder, lathe, or compass plane (or a combination thereof); steambending thin planks around the contours of a jig; or glue-laminating even-thinner strips of veneer and pressing them into shape with the use of a purpose-made jig (see Marchand, forthcoming). In adopting a way forward, the furnituremaker will take into consideration, as a minimum, the properties of the species of timber being used, the forces that will be exerted on the curved component, the desired

Introduction

17

aesthetic of the finished chair, whether the piece is a ‘one-off’ or the prototype for future batch production, the availability of equipment, and his/her own confidence and technical adeptness in testing that solution. Executing the chosen solution will involve experimentation with tooling techniques, designing and constructing jigs, testing the pot life of the casein glue mixture, and conducting dry runs in assembling the chair components in order to get the processes and timing just right. Problems, challenges, and solutions will be encountered and sought at every step of the way. In practice, craftspeople draw upon diverse resources to hand for navigating their way through obstacles. An obvious starting point is to consult standard practice and the established rules and regulations for guidance (see Diodati, this volume). These are typically found in published codes of practice, textbooks, and trade journals, and on the Internet. Joining discussions, asking questions, watching demonstrations by more (or differently) adept practitioners, or joining forces with fellow makers on a project are vital social resources for learning and discovering new ways of doing. Increasingly, these real physical interactions are being supplemented by virtual forums and blogs and by websites such as YouTube that host a growing number of short videos on ‘how to’. But, as the chapters by Erin O’Connor and Suzanne Peck, David Gates, Malcolm Martin, and Jenn Law demonstrate, makers sometimes need to suspend their assumptions and regular practice in order to move beyond an impasse. In Gates’s discussion of an experimental cabinetmaking project, he discusses in detail how he consciously extended his suspension of standards in making to include reinterpretations of his tool resources. Tools have a history of use and each kind has been designed and manufactured in a way that suggests how to grasp and use it. Such physical features can be described as affordances (Gibson, 1977). But recognition of, and response to, a tool’s affordances are dependent on the context as constituted by both physical surroundings and activity. For example, if a decorator needs to pry the lid off a can of paint and a flathead screwdriver is lying in wait, then chances are that she will disregard the screwdriver’s history of conventional use, reinterpret its affordances, and adeptly grasp and employ it to harness the leverage she needs. Gates’ long experience with handheld carpentry tools allowed him to not only use old tools in new ways, but to modify existing tools in order to approach and solve the woodworking problems that he had set for himself. As mentioned above, dialogue taps into the existing resources of others, and the dynamic exchange of words and gestures contains the potential for incrementally generating new know-how that is shared by both parties (see Marchand, 2010 and forthcoming). Dialogue is also effective for formulating (sometimes competing) narratives about a particular problem that in turn give it shape and boundaries, and perhaps suggest a chronological sequencing of how the problem came about and what the consequences might be if it isn’t corrected. Together, these qualities that are discovered in the dialogue and imposed by the narrative help to objectify a problem and thereby render it more approachable and, hopefully, more

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Craftwork as Problem Solving

manageable. For the maker engaged in design and making on their own, dialogue regularly occurs with the self, manifested as both internalised and externalised utterances and gestures. Like dialogue with an interlocutor, self-generated dialogue serves to code and classify perceived qualities and characteristics of the problem state, bring narrative order to those perceptions and to accompanying thoughts and emerging ideas, and allow exploration and testing of hypothetical solution paths (see Tom Martin, this volume; and Marchand, forthcoming). As demonstrated by Erin O’Connor and Suzanne Peck’s study of glassblowers and Rebecca Prentice’s chapter on seamstresses (both this volume), making sketches and measured drawings, too, are kinds of dialogic practice used in collaborative or solo problem solving. The act of drawing might express a preformed idea, but more commonly it does the work of thinking; and, like spoken and gestural dialogue, new knowledge is incrementally built with each successive mark on the surface, each erasure, and every re-drawing. The palimpsest of lines, hatchings, shadings, and colour provide a tangible resource that can be subsequently consulted, excavated, and amended as the work evolves and new difficulties arise. Malcolm Martin (this volume) describes how keeping a work log also produces a precious resource for revisiting challenges and rethinking solutions, and for documenting technical and personal progress over time. The physical environment of the workshop or studio space constitutes another important resource for solving problems with economy and efficiency. Ideally, the heights of work surfaces should be calibrated for comfort and good posture; spatial relations and distances between machines and workstations should facilitate flow and process; and task lighting should be optimised. Craftspeople might compile lists on notice boards, post sticky tabs, make piles (see Niamh Clifford Collard, this volume), bring order to the contents of tool cabinets or drawers, hang clocks or timers in visible locations, and arrange mnemonic markers that assist them to quickly locate tools, materials, or textbooks when needed. They might also store or display good exemplars of finished work against which they can evaluate results and solutions. As Jean Lave observed in her study of supermarkets (1988), the overall arrangement of a task environment is in itself an affordance that enables its users to orientate their activities and solve problems. Becoming an expert craftsperson is synonymous with being aware of the resources available and knowing how to orchestrate them and competently exploit them when problems arise. Experts ‘interactively probe the world to help define and frame their problems’ (Kirsh, 2008: 290). They are finely attuned to constraints and affordances through regular practice in their working context (Barwise and Perry, 1983) and through regular interaction within their community of practice (Lave and Wenger, 1991). As experience accrues, the scope and nature of problems change. Elementary incidents and circumstances that pose challenges for the novice are, by comparison, deftly overcome by the experienced hand. Therefore, in order to progress learning, make a higher calibre of wares, and innovate within their field of practice, experts need to set for themselves novel challenges that drive new solutions. The majority of the chapters in this book tell that story.

Introduction

19

Outline of the Volume Collectively, the chapters of this volume address a wide spectrum of disciplines, and each offers unique insights into the kinds of problems, challenges, and mistakes that makers contend with, and the diverse ways that they go about resolving and learning from them. In doing so, the authors identify forms of social organisation, cultural values, philosophies, and environmental factors that give rise to particular ways of working and problem solving in the unique contexts of their studies. Several contributors also consider the lingering (or, in some cases, newlyemerging) social stigma associated with craftwork and the ways that handiwork more generally is perceived and evaluated by makers and by the societies in which they work. For the sake of organisation, the book is divided into two parts. The seven chapters in Part I are more resolutely focused on practical-type problems related to technique, repair, improvisation, and innovation in craftwork. While also addressing practice-based issues, the six chapters in Part II delve into challenges of a social, economic, or philosophical nature. In reality, the themes of Parts I and II cannot be neatly disentangled. After all, devising solutions to practical issues results in new knowledge; and the accumulation of knowledge often brings about change in professional status that, in turn, is accompanied by a new set of social, economic, and political challenges. Likewise, effectively managing social problems can facilitate the solving of practice-based ones. This is demonstrated perhaps most directly by Niamh Clifford Collard’s study among Ghanaian weavers, which begins Part II of the volume. In Chapter 1, authors Erin O’Connor and Suzanne Peck draw upon fieldwork and their experiences as glassblowers to examine the relationship between designer/artist and craftsperson. The roots of this relationship in contemporary glassblowing date to the mid-twentieth-century glass houses of Murano where the charge of the master glassblower shifted from the production of traditional forms to developing prototypes under the direction of a designer. Today, prototyping in glass for designers or artists is referred to as ‘gaffing’. Success in that activity depends upon the glassblower’s ability to interpret, understand, and realize the work that has been conceptualised by the designer/artist; and the primary means of achieving this is through creating the prototype. By closely analysing the trial-and-error dynamic that characterises the development of the prototype, O’Connor and Peck explore the kinds of challenges encountered throughout the production process. In doing so, they demonstrate how problems are revealed, strategies are conceived, and consensus between glassblower and designer/artist is reached through dialogue, the use of visual aids, understanding of the material, and the practical processes of making. In exposing how the dynamic of problem-discovery and solution-in-practice plays out between the gaffer, their team of glassblowers, and the designer/artist, the study joins efforts to better understand knowledge as emergent from human and social engagement with the sentient and material world.

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Kim Crowder’s chapter furthers the effort to understand the emergent nature of knowledge by focusing on human–animal relations. Suffolk’s county breed of carthorse, the Suffolk Punch, has long been associated with a proud tradition of skilled labour. Superseded by tractors during the 1950s, however, the breed is now functionally obsolete and currently listed as ‘critically endangered’. Although remedial breeding programmes exist, the problems of the breed, Crowder argues, cannot be solved by such initiatives alone. Instead, the Punch needs the impetus and economic support of a reliable market for draught horses. To this end, professional horse-people and volunteers at the Hollesley Bay Colony Stud where Crowder carried out fieldwork are engaged in a project of ‘re-forming’ the breed in order to secure its future use in forestry, driving, and small-scale farming. This enterprise involves not only the breeding, education, and training of equines, but also the transmission, reproduction, and reconstitution of traditional horsemanship and craft skills. Taking an anthropological perspective, Crowder’s chapter enquires into the problems that emerge in the learning, teaching, and practice of skilled physical labour when the medium is not an inanimate material but a sentient and intelligent large animal. Given that unbroken ‘green’ horses learn from accomplished handlers and, conversely, that highly skilled or expert horses contribute to the teaching of novice handlers, the chapter concerns itself with the unique working relationships and associated problematics that arise when human and horse figure interchangeably as tools and raw materials, makers and made, producers and products, and experts and novices. In exploring the overlapping human-horse processes of acquiring skills such as how to harness/be harnessed, or how to drive/be driven, the chapter vividly documents the problem-solving strategies that come into play in the formation of a relationship that horse-people consistently characterise as a ‘working partnership’. Like the preceding chapters, the third explores knowledge as emergent from interaction and problem solving in practice. Tom Martin’s study describes a form of self-directed problem solving that he employed with trainees in a bicycle mechanics workshop. He maintains that this mode of teaching-learning within a controlled environment profitably enabled trainees to experience firsthand multiple mechanical processes as they transpired rather than grappling with awkward descriptions and explanations in language. The ethnography centres upon the servicing of a complex bicycle component, namely the Sturmey Archer AW-3 internally-geared hub. As the course instructor, Martin’s objective was for students to learn how the mechanics of the internal components of the hub resulted in its spinning through hands-on engagement with, and analysis of, the moving parts. Learning a specific analytical method, he argues, promotes both technical know-how and craft technique. According to Martin, processes of problem solving and the dynamics of knowing in the mechanic’s workshop are one and the same. Knowing in this context means the ability to apply an analytical method that results in familiarity with component systems, their possible outputs, and barriers to their operation.

Introduction

21

The mark of a ‘true mechanic’ is the aptitude for applying this method quickly and reliably across different component sets. While there is some ‘knowing that’ at play (e.g. about the history and nature of a flawed design that was manufactured in the past), the majority of knowing produced in the workshop is plainly of the ‘knowing how’ type. In Chapter 4, videographer Peter Durgerian reasons that computer-based digital video editing is both an art and a craft. Like other visual and expressive arts, digital video editing involves selection of colour, visual composition, and overlaying and juxtaposing images and audio. There is also a temporal element to video editing whereby editors create rhythm, pacing, and transitions in order to ‘sculpt’ the viewers’ perceptions of the passage of time within and between scenes. Claims that digital video editing is a craft are grounded in the sense that something unique is being produced using a combination of physical action, creative thought, and techniques gained through formal training, experiential learning, and experimentation. The process involves manipulation and transformation of raw materials – albeit ones that have already been ‘crafted’ to a certain degree by other processes and stages in the filmmaking process – into a finished product. Drawing on more than 30 years’ experience as a videographer, Durgerian’s chapter explores an array of problems encountered in the process of choosing and ordering images and sounds into unique sequences – a process that he claims can be both purposeful and playful, but also vexing and fraught with difficulties. The quality of the raw footage and audio recording that an editor is given to work with can present a variety of problems, but so too can his/her own oversights, mistakes, and misunderstandings that occur during post-production. Such blunders often arise through miscommunication or lack of coordination with other individuals involved in the film project, as he shows. With reference to specific case studies, Durgerian examines how certain solutions that he devised – either purposely or accidentally – for one-off or recurring problems sometimes evolved to become integral to his normal working practice. He also explores how, subsequently, such solutions-turned-standard-practice can be experimentally subverted to create new techniques. As both a printmaker and an anthropologist, Jenn Law examines the concept of ‘mastery’ in relation to contemporary printmaking practices, focusing on the ways that knowledge is collectively and dynamically produced and embodied through material processes. To be skilled at printmaking requires meticulous preparation and organisation, a thorough understanding of the equipment and materials, and an embodied knowledge of technical process that can only be mastered over time through practical experience. Printmaking also offers important lessons about time and timing, momentum and rhythm, and the value of building layers and working with repeatable modules or components. By its very nature, printmaking lends itself to experimentation with new methods, materials and technologies, involving the marriage of traditional methods with new media. Law notes that the relevance of print-based work in the contemporary art world has grown over the past decade due to renewed interest in handcrafted artisanal

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work. Yet despite this shift toward skilled production, the role and education of the master printmaker has dramatically changed, with a marked decline in apprenticestyle training programmes. As new ways of learning and making take hold, Law proposes that an expanded notion of mastery is warranted – one that is decidedly more promiscuous, defined by the abilities to navigate across disciplines and to transfer the lessons acquired from one process into the learning of another. Print-based practice, she argues, should be interpreted as a set of unique aesthetic, conceptual, and technical problem-solving strategies that can be transferred and applied across diverse media. In considering the ways that artists employ printbased strategies across media, the chapter reflects on print’s chameleon-like ability to simultaneously mimic and inform the characteristics of other disciplines, while remaining faithful to a distinctly graphic outcome. The experimental dimension of problem solving explored by Durgerian and Law is developed by David Gates in Chapter 6. As a designer-maker of furniture in wood, Gates observes that a range of standard strategies for minimising risk have evolved during the history of his craft, each deploying an array of bespoke tools and apparatuses. The practices of sketching, modelling, producing measured drawings, and making prototypes has allowed furnituremakers to encounter problems and test solutions at a safe distance from the final piece. This classic method, however, is necessarily time consuming and ‘feedback loops’ of learning and development can be slow. In this chapter, Gates describes a studio research project purposely aimed at disrupting his habitual modes of working. The disruptions opened spaces for him to interrogate his skilled practices and to identify the very assumptions upon which they had been founded. ‘What can I learn about the ways I make furniture by making it in a different way?’ was the driving question for Gates’ experiment. He substantively altered his working environment by introducing strict limitations on four key components in his regular work: namely, time restrictions for making each piece; drastically reducing the number of tools; using timber offcuts only; and prohibiting the use of drawing and formal measuring devices. This made improvisation necessary for navigating the problems, challenges, and limitations that he encountered while making. By documenting his processes, Gates was able to compare his improvised strategies with his orthodox methods of working. He reports that the resulting pieces were of an intermediate or hybrid nature. Evidence of his experimental strategies and processes lay closer to their surfaces, thereby making a reading of his problem-solving efforts more legible. In the final chapter of Part I, Stephanie Bunn draws on her collaborative research that explores the social and ethno-history of Scottish vernacular basketry. Bunn alleges that basketry was a genuine ‘fabric of society’, providing a weave of connections between communities and between domestic and working activities, including fishing, farming, crofting, home-building, and industry. In Scotland, the nearly-complete replacement of basketry by industrially-produced alternatives for carrying things is recent.

Introduction

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Bunn’s study illustrates how problem solving is ongoing in basketwork, and not merely a response to exceptional events. Problem solving is an activity integral to the rhythm, the weave, the aesthetic, and the tension of basketwork. Most fundamentally, the basket-maker is creating a three-dimensional structure while simultaneously building this structure into the frame with which they are weaving. The basket thus acts as both final form and the tool to achieve that form, a factor cited to explain why there are no basket-making machines. Furthermore, due to natural variations in shapes and sizes of the plant materials employed in basketwork, the maker is continuously adjusting the tension and selecting materials to change the shape fractionally if one of the stakes is uneven and threatens to alter the final form. In the case of Scottish vernacular basketry, makers in some regions and isles also had to respond to challenges posed by the scarcity of raw materials; new developments in the fisheries, hospital care, war technology, and industrial demands; and by the need to make a living by mending baskets. In the final section of her chapter, Bunn discusses basketry solutions that arose without problems, often in the face of great hardship, and pointing to necessities not articulated. Such inexplicable solutions included regional variations when there were no ostensible differences in local circumstance; lone, committed makers seeking new and improved developments in design; and, like Sennett’s idealised craftsman, unknown makers who simply worked to produce the best they could. Part II begins with a chapter by Niamh Clifford Collard whose anthropological fieldwork centred upon weavers in the rural Ghanaian town of Kpetoe. These men live and work in a context that the author characterises as economically precarious. Accordingly, her chapter examines the degree to which craftspeople’s tactics and strategies for managing work and for problem solving are socially embedded. The ethnography highlights the ways that skilful mastery of weaving techniques and materials is coupled with the careful cultivation of friendships, customer relations, and relationships with wives, children, and elders. These social networks, Clifford Collard argues, are essential for making a living from weaving work in an uncertain and changeable market economy. Whilst the ability to produce cloth to a high standard is fundamental, the technical skills required to do so are taken for granted among weavers. Rather, the more challenging skill to master is the ability to grapple flexibly with the many problems and challenges that arise within the social relations that make economic survival possible. The weavers’ embeddedness in social, moral, and generational matrices allowed them to make use of connections to overcome challenging situations. However, conflicts often arose between the Kpetoe weavers, and between weavers and individuals within their support networks, over struggles for limited resources, generational differences, suspicion, mistrust, perceptions of iniquity, and greed. Clifford Collard’s ethnographic material illustrates that problem solving among weavers regularly operated within defined limits: sociality, it was discovered, could be a stricture as much as it was an enabler. The chapter argues that any account of problem solving that focuses exclusively on the technical dimensions in the weavers’ craft would disguise this, and thereby occlude an understanding

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that craftspeople operate within the social worlds available to them and manage as best they can with what is possible. Like Clifford Collard, Rebecca Prentice focuses on the social dimensions of craftwork and problem solving in her chapter on garment workers in Trinidad. The Trinidadian garment sector was nearly decimated in the 1990s after an IMF-backed programme of liberalisation opened national trade barriers to ready-made clothing from abroad. What survives is a small, diverse, and tenacious local industry made up of small and medium-sized factories, illegal sweatshops, seamstresses’ and tailors’ workshops, and hundreds of women who stitch clothing from their homes. Notably, many women work both as factory wage labourers and for private clients after working hours. Despite widespread belief that industrial factories are sites of deskilling, Trinidadian garment workers who sew on commission use the factory as a learning environment for acquiring technique as well as new design ideas. Grounded in ethnographic research, Prentice argues that technical challenges cannot be separated from the embodied, social, and political-economic factors of the trade. With reference to social theories of affect, she explores the relevance of ‘feeling’ as a mode of diagnosis, problem solving, and action with which garment workers negotiate the various ‘dressmaking dilemmas’ they encounter in the factory and at home. By studying intimate experiences of the body, work, and sociality, the author links the garment makers to an exterior world and, importantly, illuminates the extent to which the women’s sense of what is possible is shaped by dominant structures, but without representing those structural conditions as totalising systems. Prentice’s emphasis on affect shows that the success and survival of the seamstresses is contingent upon ‘feeling a way through’ both material and social relations. In Chapter 10, Geoffrey Gowlland, like other contributing authors, refutes the notion that solving problems in craft occurs uniquely at the moment of design. With reference to his fieldwork with Taiwanese ceramicists, he examines the dichotomies that this assumption introduces between the work of the designer and that of the artisan, and therefore between the work of the mind and that of the hands. The chapter also challenges a commonly-held view that problem solving entails a linear process of stepping back from the work, reflecting on the issues, formulating possible solutions, and applying them through handwork. His research clearly demonstrates that processes of problem solving need not be distinguished, or separated, from the act of making. Gowlland illustrates how different kinds of craftwork demand different kinds of training and different methods of engagement, response, and problem-solving tactics. In the ceramics industry of Yingge, the various stages in making a pot are undertaken by distinct artisans. The chapter concentrates on one artisan at the wheel and another engaged in glazing the wares. The case studies show that the differences in the kinds of demands and ways of working associated with these two activities influence the relationship between the respective artisans and generate local discourses and judgements of value about work ethics and craft identities. In Yingge, the glazer’s processes of problem solving are classified as

Introduction

25

mental work, supposedly relying on knowledge acquired through formal education or intellectual research. The clay artisan, by contrast, is understood to be involved in a more direct kind of problem solving that responds to the moment-by-moment changes in the clay. In local discourse, this kind of craftwork exemplifies ‘work of the heart’. In the next chapter, Malcolm Martin asks, ‘What enables or inhibits makers in finding creative solutions to the challenges they encounter in craftwork?’ Changing identity and sense of self, he determines, are fluidly manifested through workshop practice and problem solving. His highly-personal exploration takes its inspiration from an essay by the Japanese critic Sōetsu Yanagi that was written in 1954 and later published in English as ‘The Buddhist Idea of Beauty’. Yanagi was a wellknown advocate of what he coined ‘mingei’, meaning the crafts of the people. His admiration for Mingei was based not on stylistic or cultural grounds, but on the directness and creative freedom expressed by these crafts. Meditation and other practices in Zen Buddhism clear the way for spontaneous and appropriate action in any situation, including confrontation with challenges and problems. Yanagi examined the ways in which the makers of Mingei objects were able to shed preconceptions and habits in order to achieve truly creative responses to restrictions imposed by materials, technology, and individual ability. As a professional craftsman, Malcolm Martin set out to learn from the approach of the Mingei makers. In the summer of 2013, he and his creative partner, Gaynor Dowling, spent two months in residence at The Center for Art in Wood in Philadelphia. The experience afforded them the opportunity to critically examine and challenge their practices at every level. The results, reports Martin, were entirely unexpected and the couple produced work previously unimagined. Importantly, the experience also made plain that their identities as makers are in a state of continuous formation, and that one’s sense of self could be beneficially ‘softened’ if one embraces new contexts and conditions and frees oneself to explore material, technological, and personal challenges in responsive, unpremeditated ways. Giovanni Diodati is a conservation architect and educator with long experience. With the use of case studies, Diodati’s chapter examines the roles of craftspeople in collaborative problem-solving processes for conserving Canadian architectural heritage, ranging from modest vernacular structures to the neo-gothic edifices of the Canadian Parliament. The chapter outlines major paradigm shifts in construction practice that took place between the late nineteenth century and the present, resulting in the mantra ‘create, maintain, restore’ being supplanted by ‘fabricate, consume, discard’. As a consequence, the tradition of the autonomous craftsman largely disappeared, replaced by contracting and subcontracting companies. Diodati notes that the ongoing trend toward individual specialisations has given rise to pressing questions: Who determines the scope of work? Who is ultimately responsible for the result? And, how are concepts such as ‘trade standard’ and ‘rules of the trade’ defined? Where the craftsman once possessed the knowledge and experience to fully exercise his trade, no individual

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actor in the new contracting structure has the necessary resources or authority to practice in that way. The chain of decision making is long, and the financial costs of construction and restoration are prohibitively high. Diodati concedes that it would be naï ve to think that reviving the ‘traditional craftsman’ would solve our current challenges in heritage conservation. He nevertheless acknowledges that craftspeople’s contributions throughout the conservation process are essential for overcoming the fragmentation of roles and responsibility, and for making a project a success. A well-trained and seasoned craftsperson is both builder and problem solver, equipped with intimate knowledge of his/her materials, methods, and tools of the trade. Recognition of this among contemporary conservationists, contends Diodati, will promote greater inclusion of craftspeople within multidisciplinary teams. As a result, teams will be better equipped to interpret the past, assess cultural value, diagnose the pathologies, and develop solutions. Projects can also be better planned with informed understanding that the majority of work will be carried out by semi-skilled workers while only the most critical tasks will be executed by trained craftspeople. In the final chapter, Rachel Philpott and Faith Kane demonstrate how ‘textile thinking’ can be used as an effective strategy for generating novel concepts, problem solving, and creatively overcoming challenges in interdisciplinary, collaborative practice. They suggest that the unique intelligence of ‘textile thinking’ and the material culture it informs is often overlooked due to the tacit nature of the knowledge involved, believed to be ‘stored’ in the hands of a practitioner or embodied in the resulting textile artefacts. But, a textile maker’s sensitivity and ability to balance the constantly changing tension between interconnected fibres is essential for the successful production of textile artefacts and, the authors argue, cultivates a particular approach to conceptualisation. Such thinking has the potential to originate new materials and material systems in addition to enhancing both functionality and perceptions of existing ones. Philpott and Kane’s chapter is based on the results of their interdisciplinary and international networking project, Textile Thinking for Sustainable Materials (TTSM). The project investigated the generative and problem-solving potential of a mode of thinking that prioritises continuous, connected approaches where relationships between elements are more important than any individual part. A two-day TTSM event brought together textile designers, product designers, materials scientists, chemists, and engineers to establish creative dialogues that explore the development of new sustainable materials for design-led functions, alternative use of materials technologies towards design, and new applications of existing sustainable materials within design contexts. The event delved into the ways in which ‘textile thinking’ and textile crafting activities might act as catalysts to connect the distinct knowledge bases of seemingly unrelated disciplines and ultimately inform the development of advanced scientific and technological procedures and products both within textiles and in other disciplines, with particular relevance to sustainable agendas.

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In sum, the focus of this collection makes a unique contribution to research on craft. To the best of my knowledge, no other book is dedicated to exploring situated cognition and the dynamics of problem solving in skilled handwork and making. Problem solving, it is demonstrated, plays a seminal role in learning and personal development, and in eventually achieving a master’s status in one’s trade. As the volume editor, I am optimistic that the contents will spearhead a vibrant and interdisciplinary subfield of ethnographically-grounded research in human skill and creativity. It is also deeply hoped that the chapters will generate greater dialogue between social researchers, professional makers, and educationalists that, in turn, will transform the widespread undervaluation of manual work into recognition and appreciation for the creative intelligence and ingenuity involved in craft. Acknowledgements I express my gratitude to the British Academy for supporting my field-based study of the connection between brain, hand, and tool which centrally included investigations into problem solving at the carpenter’s workbench. The research was carried out at the Building Crafts College in East London in 2012–13. Special thanks to fine-woodwork instructor Cheryl Mattey and the cohort of first-year trainees for their kind cooperation. Thanks to John Heywood for his editorial comments on an earlier draft of this introduction. Bibliography Adamson, G. 2007. Thinking Through Craft. Oxford: Berg. Bachmann, I. 2002. ‘New Craft Paradigms’, in J. Johnson (ed.) Exploring Contemporary Craft: history, theory and critical writing. Toronto: Coach House Books with the Craft Studio at Harbourfront Centre, pp. 45–50. Barwise, J. and J. Perry 1983. Situations and Attitudes. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Dilley, R. 2009. ‘Specialist Knowledge Practice of Craftsmen and Clerics in Senegal’, in Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, 79(1):53–70. Fardon, R. 1990. ‘African Ethnogenesis: Limits to the Comparability of Ethnic Phenomena’, in L. Holy (ed.) Comparative Anthropology. London: Blackwell. Gerdes, P. 2010. Otthava: Making Baskets and Doing Geometry in the Makhuwa Culture in the Northeast of Mozambique. Lulu.com publishers. Gibson, J.J. 1977. ‘The Theory of Affordances’, in R.E. Shaw and J. Bransford (eds) Perceiving, Acting, and Knowing. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 67–82. Greenhalgh, P. 2002. ‘Introduction: craft in a changing world’, in P. Greenhalgh (ed.) The Persistence of Craft: the applied arts today. London: A & C Black, pp. 1–17.

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Greeno, J. and Middle School Mathematics through Applications Project Group, 1998. ‘The Situativity of Knowing, Learning, and Research’, in American Psychologist, 53(1):5–26. Harrod, T. 1999. The Crafts in Britain in the 20th Century. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. Herzfeld, M. 2004. The Body Impolitic: artisans and artifice in the global hierarchy of value. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Jackson, L. 2004. ‘Craft Wars’, in Icon Magazine, 016, October 2004 http://www. iconeye.com/404/item/2691-craft-wars-%7C-icon-016-%7C-october-2004. Kirsh, D. 2008. ‘Problem Solving and Situated Cognition’, in P. Robbins and M. Aydede (eds) The Cambridge Handbook of Situated Cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 264–306. Lave, J. 1988. Cognition in Practice: mind, mathematics and culture in everyday life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lave, J. and E. Wenger 1991. Situated Learning: legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Marchand, T.H.J. 2009. The Masons of Djenné. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. ——— 2010. ‘Embodied Cognition and Communication: studies with British fine woodworkers’, in Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 16(s1): 100–120. ——— 2012. ‘Knowledge in Hand: explorations of brain, hand and tool’, in R. Fardon, O. Harris, T. Marchand, M. Nuttall, C. Shore, V. Strang and C. Wilson (eds), Handbook of Social Anthropology. London: Sage, pp. 260–69. ——— 2014a. ‘For the Love of Masonry: Djenné craftsmen in turbulent times’, in Journal of African Cultural Studies, 26(2):155–72. ——— 2014b. ‘Skill and Aging: perspectives from three generations of English woodworkers’, in E. Hallam and T. Ingold (eds) Making and Growing: anthropological studies of organisms and artefacts. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, pp. 183–202. ——— 2015. ‘Managing Pleasurable Pursuits: utopic horizons and the arts of ignoring and “not knowing” among fine woodworkers’, in R. Dilley and T. Kirsch (eds) Regimes of Ignorance: anthropological perspectives on the production and reproduction of non-knowledge. Oxford: Berghahn. ——— forthcoming. ‘Problem Solving at the Workbench’, in T. Marchand The Pursuit of Pleasurable Work. M’Closky, K. 1996. ‘Art or Craft: the paradox of the Pangnirtung weave shop’, in C. Miller and P. Chuchryk (eds) Women of the First Nations: power, wisdom, and strength. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, pp. 113–26. McNaughton, P. 1993. The Mande Blacksmiths: knowledge, power and art in West Africa. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. Metcalf, B. 2002. ‘Contemporary Craft: a brief overview’, in J. Johnson (ed.) Exploring Contemporary Craft: history, theory and critical writing. Toronto: Coach House Books with the Craft Studio at Harbourfront Centre, pp. 13–23.

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Morris, W. 1996 [1888]. ‘The Revival of Handicraft’, in C. Poulson (ed.) William Morris on Art and Design. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. ——— 2004 [1890]. ‘News from Nowhere’, in W. Morris (author) News from Nowhere and Other Writings. London: Penguin, pp. 41–228. Needham, R. 1975. ‘Polythetic Classification: Convergence and Consequences’, in Man, New Series, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 10(3):349–69. Newell, A. and H. Simon 1972. Human Problem Solving. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Pye, D. 1995 (1968). The Nature and Art of Workmanship. London: The Herbert Press. Risatti, H. 2007. A Theory of Craft: function and aesthetic expression. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. Sennett, R. 2008. The Craftsman. London: Allen Lane. Smith, P. 2006. The Body of the Artisan: art and experience in the scientific revolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Sohn-Rethell, A. 1978. Intellectual and Manual Labour: critique of epistemology. London: Macmillan. Suchman, L. and R. Trigg 1993. ‘Artificial Intelligence as Craftwork’, in S. Chaiklin and J. Lave (eds) Understanding practice: perspectives on activity and context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 144–78. Vygotsky, L.S. 1978. ‘Interaction Between Learning and Development’, in L.S. Vygotsky Mind and Society: the development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 79–91. Wilson, R. 1993. ‘Anchored Communities: Identity and History of the MayaQ’eqchi’’, in Man, New Series, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 28(1):121–38.

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Part I Practical Problem Solving in Craft

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Chapter 1

The Prototype: Problem Work in the Relationship between Designer, Artist, and Gaffer in Glassblowing Erin O’Connor and Suzanne Peck1

Introduction to the ‘Hotshop’ Sarkis had been commissioned by Jasmine to produce glass prototypes of her designs for a home-accessory line. While Sarkis ‘gaffed’ (i.e. shaped the glass, while directing his assistant), Jasmine sat perched behind his workbench, watching and offering suggestions – but she was on his turf now. And, like most people who visit the ‘hotshop’ (i.e. glass-blowing studio) for their first time, Jasmine was captivated by the heat and luminosity of the furnace, the glory hole, and the undulating molten glass fires; by the intermingling scents of sweat and smoke, and by the rhythmic and skilful choreography of the craft. She observed intently as Sarkis moved back and forth between the glory hole to reheat the glass and his workbench to tool the ‘Pit Bull piggy bank’ – Jasmine’s design interpretation of the classic coin bank. Sarkis first blew a cylinder. His assistant then brought more hot glass from the furnace which Sarkis dolloped onto the vessel and began sculpting into the mouth, nostrils, eyes, and ears of a Pit Bull dog. Jasmine interjected that she wanted the dog’s snout to be longer and its jaws opened as though it were barking. Sarkis said that he would need to try that the next time, since a longer snout would involve elongating the cylinder prior to sculpting. He finished up the spiked collar on the pit bull he was making. After several days of prototyping, neither Jasmine nor Sarkis was satisfied with the object. Sarkis was a highly proficient glassblower, but he admitted that evoking the Pit Bull’s ‘bark’ was a challenge, and even the wellrendered features of the dog were difficult to discern in clear glass. The prototype failed and the design was dropped. 1 Both authors were glassblowers at New York Glass in the mid-2000s. Erin O’Connor conducted fieldwork there over a four-year period in the capacity of student, teaching assistant, production assistant, and studio technician. The fieldwork formed the basis of her PhD dissertation, Hotshop: An Ethnography of Embodied Knowledge in Glassblowing (2009). Suzanne Peck enrolled in classes at New York Glass, where she also worked as a teaching assistant and production assistant. She is now a professional glassblower.

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Studio Glass and Prototyping Sarkis belonged to a community of glassblowers who prototype in the so-called ‘studio glass’ tradition. Studio glass today tends to defy its original tenet of rejecting technique in favour of expression, and instead uses traditional technique and teamwork to explore the material and pursue expression.2 The contemporary world of studio glass is populated by not only artists, but also production gaffers (i.e. glassblowers, who head the production team), designers, and hobbyists, and it is organised around academic and non-academic training, curricula, conferences, popular media, art and craft markets, galleries, and museums. It is not unusual for studio glassblowers to take on multiple roles in order to earn a living. Thus, while many are artists and designers who prototype and produce their own work, they may also accept contracts as gaffers to do that work for others. In some cases, gaffing is carried out in a traditional factory setting in which a designer passes designs onto the gaffer for execution. In other cases, the entire process is a collaborative one between designer and gaffer, each who has varying degrees of input. There are also instances of contemporary fine artists contracting glassblowers to prototype their artwork, which is typically a ‘oneoff’ object, rather than something to be reproduced in batch or mass production. Across these ways of working, glassblowers are presented with different kinds of problems that need solving through their craft knowledge and practice. Drawing upon ethnographic research and interviews with studio glassblowers, this chapter explores the practice of prototyping across different contexts of production in order to better understand how tacit forms of knowledge are used to interpret, negotiate, and execute designs.3 Prototypes are produced as a precursor for a production line or limited-run of goods, or sometimes for one-off objects. Prototyping is a complex process involving interaction between the maker’s tacit knowledge, his imagination, and the material world. The objective is to resolve design problems through a practical, hands-on process of trial and error. While prototyping in glass, the gaffer’s problem-solving activities involve both inductive and deductive methods. When presented with the opportunity to contribute input to a design, the gaffer draws inductively from her existing working knowledge of the material and her body-in-practice to shape the prototype. This is the ‘bricolage work of improvisation’. When asked to execute rather than create (or co-create) a design, a gaffer may rely exclusively on measurements and drawings, and employ a deductive working style. Inductive and deductive methods are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Both approaches to problem solving employ ‘embodied bricolage’, but an inductive approach holds greater opportunity for discovering new problems. 2 See Oldknow (1996). The studio glass movement was originally informed by an interest in the materiality and process of glass rather than its practical applications. 3 Michael Polanyi defines ‘tacit knowledge’ as that for which we have a ‘subsidiary awareness’ (1962: 60). See also Polanyi 1966: 3–25.

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Technique in Production Prototyping Finn was a graphic design major in college in the mid-1990s. He took glassblowing as an elective, and got hooked. After finishing college, Finn worked on contract for professional studio-glass artists. Once he was married with children, however, he decided that he needed a more secure income, but was uncertain about how to earn a living in the art world. He therefore took a job at the Sedgewick glass factory in a New England town making traditional English-style stemware and other tableware designs. At Sedgewick, the division of labour for prototyping followed traditional factory conventions: designs were made ‘upstairs’ and then sent ‘down’ to the factory floor for production. On the floor, labour was organised into teams. Though smaller in scale, the organisational structure of the factory shared similarities with the division of labour in the early-American proto-industrial ‘shop system’ that served to increase specialisation and lay the groundwork for the automation of the American glass industry in the late nineteenth century (Scoville, 1948: 22; Labino, 1968: 117). Finn’s job at Sedgewick was to assist in a team of two or three men that worked alongside ten other teams. Finn told us that the first things he learned as a team member were ‘taking measurements from drawings and [how to] use callipers’. Callipers function like a three-dimensional ruler – imagine hinged tweezers that open around an object – and they are one of the many tools used to achieve consistency in prototyping. The glassblower measures the drawn object by using different callipers. One calliper may be set to height, a second to the width of the vessel’s ‘mouth’, and another to the width of the vessel’s central body. In glassblowing, vessels are ‘blown out’ using a hollow pipe onto which an orb of molten glass has been gathered from a furnace. As the orb is blown, it expands to create a vessel. By using breath, heat, and handtools, the vessel can be widened or constricted in a bilaterally symmetrical fashion along its central axis. Callipers guide the work of shaping and assist in achieving precision in reproduction. In the case of the Sedgewick glass factory, gaffers used callipers for matching the glass prototype to the exact specifications of the designer. Although the stemware was simpler to make than the designs of the studio artists whom Finn assisted, he was nevertheless challenged by the precision demanded by the factory work: ‘I realized that there was a discipline involved if you wanted to [master] a certain technique. The cups had to be a certain way. When you have to make something to specific parameters, you become skilled at it’. The challenge demanded that Finn make his skill technically precise and that he efficiently coordinate his movements with those of his team members. Finn’s activities were structured by predetermined goals that were set prior to production. According to David Pye’s classification, Finn’s work could be categorised as a ‘workmanship of certainty’ (1968: 4). For Pye, certainty characterises workmanship when there is no element of risk; that is, when the outcome is certain.

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Not all glassblowing factories produce prototypes in a top-down, hierarchical manner. According to glassblowing lore, Carlo Scarpa (1906–78), who was a designer at the esteemed Venini glass house on the island of Murano, ‘descended’ to the factory floor to watch, learn, and collaborate with the glass maestros in order to produce new designs.4 In the case of Scarpa at Venini, the practices of both the designer and the makers were informed by their engagement with, and a deep understanding of, the material. By contrast, the stark division between designer and maker at Sedgewick precluded a design-making symbiosis. Finn’s material knowledge therefore was not used to inform the design of the things he made. Instead, he directed it toward executing predetermined forms that were not necessarily attuned to the material from which they were made. Learning to fulfil a pre-set goal improved Finn’s technique. The kind of prototyping he was hired to do establishes distinct parameters for both physical action (namely, precise coordination with the team) and material translation (namely, an exact rendering of the proposed design) insofar as it calibrates bodily practice toward efficiency. But, he explained, it also made it more difficult to realize his own ideas when blowing glass: on the factory floor, ‘You’re solving a problem rather than creating your own’. According to Michael Polanyi’s thinking, Finn’s method of prototyping was tied to his difficulty in generating a problem. In prototyping by execution, Finn was required to work backwards from the design to the glass. Finn utilised a ‘procedure’ that is ‘reversible in the sense that it could be traced back stepwise to its beginning and repeated at will any number of times’ (Polanyi 1962: 123). For Polanyi, this method is not a ‘means of achieving discovery’. Discoveries are made by overcoming a gap in logic – a leap that is necessarily ‘irreversible’ (Polanyi 1962: 123). As a material, the ever-changing state of molten glass presents endless possibilities for ‘discovery’. But at the Sedgewick factory, the method of prototyping from a pre-determined design supported not the discovery of new problems, but rather the instrumental division of labour in the shop system. If Finn would have intervened by proposing or exploring how the objects he was prototyping might be alternatively rendered, then the shop system would have broken down. In this context, the unexpected is not pursued as a potential discovery, but rather it is perceived as a mistake, and is corrected.

4 After working at the M.V.M. Cappellin glassworks on Murano from 1926 to 1932, Scarpa took a job at Venini, where he worked until 1947. Although Scarpa eventually left glass to practice architecture, his legacy in glass continues, as attested by the exhibition Venini Glass by Carlo Scarpa: The Venini Company 1932–1947 that was hosted in 2013–14 at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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Body and Imagination in Prototype Production Allen was first drawn to the craft by a master glassblower who came to his college as a visiting artist more than a decade ago: ‘That was the only time in my life I can say that I’ve been totally blown away. I’d never seen anything like that. I got so excited. I signed up for a class the following semester’. Allen was dedicated to mastering the craft skills, which included extensive training in traditional Venetian techniques. By the time he graduated from college, Allen was deemed by his seniors to be among the most technically promising of his generation. Allen gaffed for Clayton, co-owner and head designer of Alcove, one of New York’s leading boutique-design houses. Starting as an assistant, he rose through the hierarchy of the hotshop team. After more than a decade of blowing glass, he became the head of product development, which, he explained, ‘is really the head of prototyping’. In contrast to Finn’s experience at Sedgewick where design decisions were made separately from production, at Alcove, Allen would meet with Clayton before physically prototyping in the hotshop in order to discuss the feasibility, scale, colour, and thickness of a design, as well as the overall idea that the object was meant to convey, and how glass might best work as a conduit for that idea. The design idea was thus collaboratively achieved. On the day of prototyping a new design, Allen would ask Clayton to be present in the hotshop: I request that. I will not make prototypes without the designer there. I just won’t do it. It’s a prerequisite if somebody hires me. It’s nearly impossible for the first time to take somebody’s drawing and get what they want without them being there. [The hotshop is] not dangerous … I want you right here; you’re not going to get burnt; nothing is going to happen to you. But you need to be comfortable with me and I need to be comfortable with you, so you can open up and give me what’s in your head, so I can best translate that in this material. I want an open dialogue.

A designer may be able to imagine a glass object with computer software, or while at their drafting table, but imagining the process ‘hot’ – in other words, in terms of the formative properties of the molten material – is an entirely different matter. In the context of the hotshop, Allen could familiarise the designer with the craft, his skill set, and the formative properties of glass: ‘What we do is extremely difficult. It’s time sensitive. It takes a lot of physical strength and effort to do’. A former task that Allen found especially stimulating was the re-purposing of a design for the production of hurricane lamps. Clayton believed that prototyping the new iteration would simply involve inverting the design. Allen described the new concept as contemporary, modern and angular. Nevertheless, he began prototyping the piece in a way that felt comfortable to him: So, I completely went 180 degrees opposite of [Clayton’s aesthetic] and made something that I thought would look good and that I was comfortable making …

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Figure 1.1

Allen’s sketch of the original design (left) and of the object repurposed as a hurricane lamp (right).

I made it pretty sensual. Instead of a square, really hard-angled stem, I made a ball, a nice sphere and a really delicate connection between the foot and the stem … I think it had to do a lot with my comfort level. For my first time making this, I just needed to be in my zone. It’s like shaping something out of a lump of clay: you have to whittle it away and get the details.

Allen’s first iteration might have seemed wrong. He knowingly veered ‘180 degrees in the opposite direction’ from what he and Clayton had discussed. The resulting hurricane lamp was informed by his training in the Venetian tradition, which Allen, like John Ruskin more than a century earlier, favoured for its rounded profile (2009: 168, 395). But by first prototyping a rounded Venetian hurricane lamp, Allen initiated a search for the modern, angular hurricane lamp that was grounded in his existing practical knowledge. As Allen worked on the first prototype, Clayton confirmed that its scale and size were fine, but he noted that its overall shape was not right. He pushed Allen to achieve the angular form, but he did so with knowledge about the limitations and possibilities of both the medium and Allen’s capabilities. Allen had anticipated this rejection, but he knew that Clayton would be able to read his Venetian iteration as a step toward the modern hurricane lamp. This dynamic, in which designer and gaffer engage the formative rather than the formal properties of glass, approaches an inductive way of prototyping, as described earlier. A drawing may catalyse the prototyping project, but the actual work of prototyping begins with the

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gaffer’s body – from his or her disposition toward the drawing, rather than from the drawing itself. While Allen articulated the central problem of prototyping as ‘going from paper to 3-D object in glass, from start to finish’, in practice, part of the problem lies in the interpretation of body to object. With an awareness of this, Allen specified that technique alone cannot ‘get the idea out of the head of the designer’. Unlike a machine, or routinised handwork, a gaffer who is collaborating with a designer must amalgamate disparate components of his working knowledge of the medium while prototyping. At the level of the body, solving the problems thrown up by the prototype is not a straightforward process of deduction. Allen commented: I’ve made hundreds-of-thousands of shapes in my career – just shapes. There isn’t much that I haven’t seen or tried to make. So [when] a person says, “I need this”, I’ve got to go through my back catalogue of things that I’ve made in the past and relate it. I go through my file cabinet and say, “Ok, this part of this object is like this; this part of this object is like that;” and then take those two parts, put them together, and remember how to make that object. Once I remember how to make that object, I then refine it down further and further to be more efficient, or to make the object look better while being more efficient. So when that happens, then I’m happy.

Allen’s ‘file cabinet’ was a conceptual resource, less so of static images than of practical relations and actions to objects. As he went through it, he abstracted from ‘this and that’ in order to forge a new disposition. This method exemplified inductive as opposed to deductive problem solving; an interpretation, since Allen was constructing a memory from prior experience in light of a new demand. Though the new hurricane lamp was meant to be contemporary with angular and clean lines, Allen, by drawing on his embodied knowledge and ‘hot’ imagination, iterated it as an assemblage of Venetian components. Subsequently, this assemblage could be ‘whittled away’ in order to arrive at the desired object. While prototyping aims to create new objects, it only does so via the past. In bricolage fashion, the maker adopts and adapts various dispositions for production – bodily ways of comprehending the world – in order to approximate the proposed design (Bourdieu 1990: 54). That is, he makes the object by ‘trying out’ elements of past projects to achieve the new goal. In his ethnography of a Saab auto mechanic named Willy, Douglas Harper notes that Willy’s ingenuity and creativity are expressed through ‘bricolage work’, in which the tinkerer draws from odds and ends to develop a solution to a problem (1987: 74). Similarly, political philosopher Matthew Crawford attributes the piecemeal approach to problem solving in motorcycle repair to the deep satisfaction of mechanical work. He contrasts this with repair work that requires the worker to carry out procedures issued by a diagnostic machine (Crawford, 2009: 171–5). Like Crawford’s problem-solving motorcycle mechanic, Allen, too, depended on his intuitive

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working knowledge as a gaffer. His practice was that of ‘approximation’ (Pye 1968: 13–14), thereby putting the intended glass vessel at risk. In the studio glass context, the ‘workmanship of risk’ is not carried out by an individual maverick, but rather it is orchestrated and regulated by tight teamwork. The team typically consists of the gaffer and his/her assistants. A commonplace understanding of ‘assistant’ is a person who executes directives. Glassblowing, however, demands collaboration. In Allen’s case, his assistants share his dispositions and he expects them to recall what may be useful, such as hand techniques, styles of heating, or how the labour was divided across team members, by using similar bricolage fashion. Allen told us: I’m in constant communication with my assistants, as far as technical. I need to get whatever is in the designer’s brain out into the physical, so I need [the assistant’s] help to get the physical out of me. They remind me, “Hey, remember how you made that … whatever … avolio. Maybe that’ll work?” And I’ll be like, “Yeah, right, let’s try that”. They help me translate what I can do for that person.

As Allen and his assistants worked toward approximating an object that was imagined by the designer, the assistants evaluated their own embodied memory against Allen’s practice. In this sense, the assistants simultaneously stood apart from, and were part of, the making body. Some of the success achieved by Allen, Clayton, and the team in problem solving while prototyping might be attributed to their shared ability to think ‘hot’ and to practically engage in the work in an inductive manner despite having started with a drawing. While Allen’s body was the fulcrum on which the material approximation of the design balanced, the interpretation from design to material was negotiated from multiple imagined and embodied dispositions. If one member of the team was not attuned to corporeal and material properties, the prototyping process would break down. This was the case in one of Allen’s earliest collaborations with a foreign designer named Milan. I didn’t really understand what he wanted. I thought it was because of the language barrier. [Milan] was talking about a table. And I was like, “Ok, a table … like a table top?” And he said “No”. “Okay, table legs?” And he said, “Yeah, kinda!” So, I was thinking, “Okay, table legs”. So I was like, “Here”, (Allen gestures a pushing motion) and gave him some paper and a pen. “Draw what you want”. So he literally said, “You [pause] Blow [pause] Table”. And [he] draws the blowpipe and literally, a fucking table coming out of the [pipe]. He was like “Yeah, you blow the table!” I was like, “That’s not possible, that’s not really … (laughing)”. So he went onto other things. “You blow a bicycle?” …

Allen realised that the designer lacked any understanding of what the material could do, or what the process entailed, so he invited Milan into the hotshop. That was where Milan finally ‘got it’. The ability of the gaffer’s body to approximate the

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imagined object is dependent upon not only his or her embodied knowledge, but also that of the designer and the extent to which they can imagine ‘hot’. Allen had learned from such early experiences to seek out and cultivate hot collaborations, such as the one he enjoyed with Clayton at Alcove. Experience and Material in Prototyping Diana, a glassblower and artist, was first introduced to ‘cuppings’ when Evelyn (Diana’s partner and also a glassblower) took a job bagging coffee beans at True Source coffee roasters. Evelyn took the job to help pay their household bills. She speculated that she had been hired, in part, because of her ‘glassiness’: the True Source owners enjoyed employing an ‘in-house glassblower’. Although the vast majority of Evelyn’s time was spent on the factory floor, the owners hoped they might commission a glass project from her. The company regularly invited employees to ‘coffee cuppings’ in which a number of different roasts were brewed using a variety of methods, and these were sampled in two-tiered ceramic cupping cups. As the drinker sipped, a ridge inside the cup separated the liquid from the dregs that were left behind in the smaller, bottom tier that was the size of a silver dollar. As the coffee was filtered into the wider upper tier of the cup, its aroma swirled and could be savoured. Diana often accompanied Evelyn to the ‘cupping’ events, and, together with the other guests, they unpacked the ‘notes’ in the coffee aromas. Nondi, a True Source owner and former gymnast with an entrepreneurial spirit, wanted to market the coffee cupping experience. He therefore decided to open an Italian-style coffee bar next door to his existing full-service café, where customers could either ‘shoot coffee on the go’ in true Roman style, or linger at the bar and ‘cup’ their beverage. The opportunity to commission a project from Evelyn – teamed with Diana – had arrived. Nondi wanted the two women to create unique handmade cups that would distinguish the coffee cupping experience at True Source from other cafés. He invited them to the café to discuss the possibility of making two-tiered glass cups, as opposed to the more conventional ceramic type. The start of their meeting began with the three handling the existing ceramic cups. Nondi explained that, while the ceramic cup was functional, he ‘wanted an equal amount of craft [to go into both] the vessel and the liquid – into the container and in the contained’. He envisioned a ‘bespoke glass “cupping” cup’. Unlike the relatively seamless research-and-design meetings between Allen and Clayton, the question of feasibility was an immediate concern for Diana, specifically regarding the stability of the material. ‘I pictured bleeding, burnt yuppies at 8 a.m. and dishwashers full of broken glass’, she recounted to us. ‘We wondered whether we could make it thicker? Could we make it taller? Or of a different shape? There was drawing on the back of menus. I even remember trying to dissuade Nondi, and offering to make carafes or candlesticks instead’. Regarding the form of the cups, Diana explained, ‘there was pretty much no swaying him away from that original

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shape’. Nondi was tenacious of his idea. Having never seen anyone blow glass, he was characteristically over-enthusiastic. ‘He wanted one hundred cups by the end of the week!’ Diana exclaimed, laughing. The first step for Evelyn and Diana was to explain to Nondi the process of prototyping. He needed to understand that it would take time to create a first iteration of the cup, then to tweak the form, and, finally, when a form had been agreed, for Evelyn and Diana to hone the choreography of their activities for an efficient batch production. With these factors in mind, they agreed a quantity and price. ‘We settled on forty cups at twenty dollars per [cup]’, Diana told us. ‘Nondi was footing the bill for the studio rental time too. And Evelyn was still getting her hourly while we were blowing. It was really a fantastic deal for us’. This commission was unusual in the sense that a design is typically determined in relation to pricing, but Nondi had enough capital to fund his vision and so the question of pricing was secondary to achieving the right aesthetic for the ‘cupping’ experience. With the order and pricing agreed, and a model two-tiered ceramic cup in hand, Diana and Evelyn booked hotshop time at a local public access facility. Working from an existing ceramic object meant that Diana and Evelyn’s charge was a material-to-material translation, from 3-D to 3-D. Moreover, they had been ‘trained’ in the ‘cupping’ experience, so they knew the function that their prototype had to satisfy. The first step was to take measurements from the ceramic cup with callipers, as Finn had done at Sedgewick. In the beginning, Diana and Evelyn tried to replicate the ceramic cup exactly. They found that the glass blew out rounder than needed and that glass blown to the thickness of the ceramic model looked chunky and clumsy. In short, the conventional design was better suited to ceramic than to glass. The ceramic cup had two subtle curving tiers, like an hourglass with a larger top than bottom. Though the constriction that separated the two tiers from each other (what would be the ‘waist’ of an hourglass) appeared sharply cut and narrow when viewed from the exterior of the vessel, when viewed from the cup’s interior it appeared more rounded. The thickness of the ceramic walls allowed for exterior and interior execution of the constriction to differ. There was also the problem of translucence and luminosity. Whereas the thickness of the ceramic cup was concealed by the opacity of the material, it was plainly visible in glass and even produced a magnifying effect. Evelyn and Diana’s initial glass iterations looked either clumsy or cartoonish. Nondi had envisaged the machined exactitude of the ceramic cups, but perfectly translated into glass. The problem, Diana explained, was one of translation: ‘[The] translation from material to material wasn’t one to one. These ceramic cups were machined … The glass itself has desires and limitations in regard to form. The maker has desires and limitations in regards to capability. The fact that it is the hand making it and not the machine requires a bit of elasticity in how it is to be done’. In order to honour what they perceived to be ‘aesthetic dignity’ and to complete the order, Diana and Evelyn realised that the glass iteration would need to diverge from the ceramic cup.

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Enhancing the cup from a clumsy to an elegant form would require thinning its walls. But, thinning the walls meant that their technique would need to become more precise. It also posed a challenge to achieving a rounded upper tier. To overcome the challenges posed by the need to thin the object, they used a sophietta. A sophietta is a funnel-like puffing tool that fits into small openings that glassblowers use to ‘puff out’, and thereby round the walls of the cup’s upper tier before ‘opening up’ the mouth of the cup. This technical adaptation ensured that the top tier could be both thin and round. Additionally, they tightened the ‘waist’ of the cup, which allowed for less tooling and created a ‘cleaner’ clear vessel. These ‘tweaks’ to the design and making happened over numerous successive iterations of the cup. Evelyn would gaff a cup in its entirety and then tap the pipe to release the cup onto a wooden service (to avoid immediate thermal shock), so that she and Diana could inspect it and discuss what did and did not work. Diana would then take over gaffing, changing a few of the steps in the process. They did this ‘maybe three or four times’, they told us, until achieving an agreed form and choreography of skilled actions. Richard Sennett characterises this process as the ‘experimental rhythm of problem solving and finding’ (2008: 26). Though Diana and Evelyn took the measurements directly off the ceramic cup, they had to ‘dial it into something that the glass wanted to do’. Arriving at the glass iteration involved using both their working knowledge of the material and their coffee cupping experiences. Instead of ‘working off’ the ceramic cup in a deductive manner, the two women – in the spirit of the workmanship of risk – moved between material and object, and they used their imagination to ‘conceptualize the object during the process of making’ (Risatti, 2007: 172). With their tacit knowledge, they ‘intimated’ (in Polanyi’s sense) the two-tiered glass cup. Because this prototyping project was not a ‘one-to-one’ translation between materials, Diana and Evelyn had to search for both the form in the material and the material in the form. Although they lacked steady production experience, their years of blowing glass generated a storehouse of material and working knowledge that prepared them to both see and pursue the problem of material-to-material translation – a moment that Polanyi argues is marked by a ‘heuristic tension’ in which interpretation becomes a possibility (1966: 89). Whereas Finn had worked backwards from the calliper measurements to produce an object that was identical to a pre-determined design, Diana and Evelyn ‘measured’ the material in relation to the form and to the experience intended for the coffee sipper, and thereby adjusted the formal measurements. By making a material-to-material interpretation of the ceramic cup with glass, and by being attentive to the experience that the cup would supply to café patrons, Evelyn and Diana gave form to Nondi’s vision. In terms of ‘cupping’ experience, ‘You would put your face over the cup and you would get this hit of whatever that bean was supposed to be doing. So whether it was smoky and almost acidic, or whether it had those rounder, sweet chocolate notes – it happened!’ they exclaimed triumphantly. The object also clearly signalled the qualities of ‘handmade’ and ‘bespoke’. Diana recounted, ‘Evelyn and I would sort of snobbily joke that these

Figure 1.2

Two-tiered glass ‘cupping’ cup: drawing, making, and in use.

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aren’t great forms for glass. There’s a lot of tooling that has to go onto such a small object. You can see all the jack-lines and parchoffi (i.e. a large wooden chopsticklike tool used for shaping) marks’. The end result was not an exact replica of the original ceramic cup, as Finn’s translation of the model would have been, but instead an interpretation in glass that was deemed appropriate to the makers’ sense of the formal and technical possibilities, as well as to the client’s intended use. The selection of the prototype that was put into production was due to its form, but also to the success of that form in satisfying the client’s need. When commissioning a gaffer, a client depends on that gaffer’s working knowledge of the material to interpret not only the proposed object, but also the intended experience in looking at, handling, or using it. Concept in Prototyping The practice of interpretation is made even more apparent in the case of Allen prototyping for Isabel, a successful contemporary artist with no prior experience of working with glass. Their collaboration took place at a glass school on America’s West Coast that supports two artists in residence for two-week periods during the summer term. Two gaffers are hired each session, and it is their exclusive charge to help and collaborate with the invited artist. Allen was one of the contracted gaffers. When he met Isabel, she explained that she wanted him to make ‘soap suds’. Allen recounted, ‘She had reference material and had an idea in her head of an art piece that she wanted to make. She wanted to replicate … when multiple bubbles are kind-of sudded together – soap suds. Big soap suds’. When charged with making ‘suds’, Allen’s tacit knowledge equipped him to infer ‘bubbles’ since their shapes are analogous. Initially, Allen thought that the project would be easy because a bubble is the most ‘natural’ shape to blow in glass. So, quite simply, he and the second gaffer on staff each blew out a bubble and then mashed them together: ‘So we were, like, “Great!” And she was, like, “Awesome! Now we need six more on it”. We were, like, “Oh fuck”. So that means that we would have to put six bubbles together simultaneously and have six different air pressures coming together – which really wasn’t an option’. In order for molten glass bubbles to touch one another and create one membrane, they need to come into contact at exactly the same temperature. This allows each gaffer to blow into the pipe to centre and keep the membrane ‘from wandering’ without ‘blowing out’ either side of the membrane. Allen explained, ‘Because when you push the two of them together and you blow from one side, the membrane is going to blow in. So, we needed to sculpt it through pressure to make that membrane just one, centred’. There were not enough gaffers or glory holes in the studio to coordinate the ‘sudsing’. What at first seemed a simple form, and one natural to the material, proved to be untenable in practice. To realise the conglomeration of suds, Allen and the second gaffer had to ‘fake it’ in the end; or, in other words, improvise. Allen told us, ‘So, we started with the

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two. That would be the main body. And then we would add a third in a specific area … try to blow that up to sort of fake where that was. And then add a couple more in a couple of other spots, and just try to heat those in a way to try to meld everything together in the right way’. In face of the unknown, but equipped with

Figure 1.3

Allen’s sketch of ‘sudsing’.

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the experience to deal with the challenge, Allen made ‘proleptic adjustments to the demands of the field’ and offered a solution to the problem posed by the suds through practice-based improvisation (Bourdieu, 1990: 66). Isabel, however, was not satisfied with the improvised result. She expressed the problem in formal terms: she wanted the suds to be complete like bubbles, meaning that the suds should have no holes. In response, Allen provided a material explanation: a hot glass bubble needs an opening in order to avoid creating a vacuum. At this juncture, their collaborative efforts were stumped. To Allen’s surprise, Isabel took the cooled suds and enlarged the holes by using a saw to cut off the aperture made by Allen (i.e. imagine cutting off the neck of a glass bottle so that the wider glass bottom is exposed). It was this action that gave rise to Allen’s epiphany. He became aware that the stalemate was caused not by an inadequate solution, but rather by an inadequate problem: ‘What this did was expose the inner membrane that had been created through attaching the bubbles. We were able to say “Okay, it’s not really about the shape of the bubbles themselves. It’s really about what’s happening on the inside – the connectivity of everything”. She was, like, “Yeah”. Once we got that out of her, we could really concentrate on doing that. It took us six days of working with her to discern that [i.e. the points of contact between the bubbles]’. In Crawford’s words, Allen was ‘attentive in the way of conversation, rather than assertive in the way of a demonstration’ (2009: 82). He was able to step back from his formal and structural preoccupations, and, through attentiveness to Isabel’s practical communication, discern ‘connectivity’. In his discussion with us about prototyping for Clayton, Allen suggested that technique is secondary to the sleuth work of ‘whittling away’. In the context of prototyping for Isabel, the work of whittling away took on new meaning. By attending to the dynamic of the form (i.e. to what was actually happening, instead of the idea of suds and bubbles from previous experience), Allen discovered the new problem of ‘connectivity’. As in the case of the hurricane lamp, whittling away at the form led to new iterations of the form. But, unlike the hurricane lamp, it also led to the appearance of a new non-formal focus: namely, the idea of connectivity. Creating something new demands that the maker not only amalgamates various kinds of knowledge from their skill set (exemplified by Allen’s bricolage work in making the hurricane lamp), but that they also work from attention. The latter involves a ‘tending towards’ through which the maker is drawn out of him or herself and toward what is happening, including the experiences and intentions of others, and changes in the surrounding material world. This active search for a problem which, as Sennett argues, calls on the maker to make an intuitive leap between unlike domains, differs from perceiving a problem by way of ‘inference’, meaning that one responds to a problem without seeing the problem anew.5 For 5 Sennett wrote, ‘The capacity to open up a problem draws on intuitive leaps, specifically on its powers to draw unlike domains close to one another and to preserve tacit knowledge in the leap between them’ (2008: 279).

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scientist David Bohm and philosopher Simone Weil, attention is the vehicle of discovery (Bohm, 1996: 5; Weil, 1999: 116). Allen attended to Isabel’s focus on the inner membranes, while whittling away at the form, thereby making possible his leap to the concept of ‘connectivity’. Through the activity of prototyping, objects become manifest; but so, too, do concepts. Conclusion: Prototyping as a Way of Thinking While prototyping is commonly understood to be about objects, the analysis in this chapter has shifted the focus away from the physical prototype to the prototyping process. Anchored in the gaffer’s tacit knowledge of the craft, the organisation of labour, and the product end-goal (whether a one-off prototype like Allen and Isabel’s suds, a limited production like Evelyn and Diana’s ‘cupping’ cups, or a full-fledged product line like Finn’s stemware for Sedgewick), prototyping is equally about the creation and deployment of dispositions and relations (i.e. embodied bricolage) as it is about producing an object. As we have shown, the designer–gaffer relationship may calibrate these dispositions and relations in order to achieve exact specifications. In this case, the glassblower must take a deductive approach to problem solving: that is, she must work from the design backwards to her body. In other kinds of working relationships, the gaffer is asked to think outward from her body and her existing working knowledge toward (and about) a design. In this scenario, the glassblower is able to work inductively and thereby integrate material and experiential sensibilities into the design process. As such, discovery and the generation of new problems can be part of the problem solving processes in prototyping. This may result not only in the achievement of a prototype object, but also in a new concept or way of thinking. The body generates schema of perception; and when the prototype is the outcome of an inductive process of making and solving problems, it has the potential to generate new ways of doing, as well as thinking (Sheets-Johnstone, 2011: 114–52). Bibliography Bohm, D. 1996. On Creativity. London: Routledge. Bourdieu, P. 1990. The Logic of Practice. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Crawford, M.B. 2009. Shop Class as Soulcraft: an inquiry into the value of work. New York: Penguin Press. Harper, D.A. 1987. Working Knowledge: skill and community in a small shop. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Labino, D. 1968. Visual Art in Glass. Dubuque, Iowa: WM. C. Brown Company Publishers. Oldknow, T. 1996. Pilchuck: a glass school. Seattle: University of Washington Press.

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Polanyi, M. 1962. Personal Knowledge: towards a post-critical philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ——— 1966. The Tacit Dimension. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Pye, D. 1968. The Nature and Art of Workmanship. London: Cambridge University Press. Risatti, H. 2007. A Theory of Craft: function and aesthetic expression. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Ruskin, J. 2009. Stones of Venice. [ebook] The Project Gutenburg. Available at: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30755/30755-h/30755-h.htm [Accessed 13 June 2014]. Scoville, W.C. 1948. Revolution in Glassmaking: entrepreneurship and technological change in the American industry, 1880–1920. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Sennett, R. 2008. The Craftsman. New Haven: Yale University Press. Sheets-Johnstone, M. 2011 (2nd edition). The Primacy of Movement. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Weil, S. 1999. Gravity and Grace. London: Routledge.

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Chapter 2

Producing Suffolk Punch Horses: Craftsmanship with Sentient Media Kim Crowder

Introduction: Horsemanship – A Problem-Ridden Pursuit Suffolk’s county breed of carthorse, known alternatively as the Suffolk Punch or the Suffolk Horse,1 has long been associated with a proud tradition of skilled agricultural labour in which the ethic of craftsmanship was, and still is, deeply enshrined. The expression ‘No horses; no farming’ reflects how pre-mechanised agriculture was totally horse-reliant. But, it does not disclose the extent to which problem-solving ability figures as an essential attribute of horsemanship. In response to Tim Ingold’s observation that, in many anthropologies of work, ‘the materials … have gone missing’ (2011: 20), this chapter mobilises Richard Sennett’s notions of ‘developing skill at the live edge’ and ‘working with resistance in borderline conditions’ (2008: 229). The human–equine borderline is a contact-zone, a productive site from which to retrieve knowledge of heavy horses dually-framed as ‘missing material’ and ‘sentient media’. I adapt the latter term from Rhoda Wilkie’s notion of livestock as ‘sentient commodities’ (2005). Within contexts of ‘inter-species labour’, as proposed by Donna Haraway (2008), my term recognises the pro-active, interactional, sensing, feeling, and knowing capacities of animals who do not wholly conform to Michel Foucault’s template for producing ‘docility’ (1991). In documenting the expertise of horse-people involved with Suffolks, I show the nature of human–horse relationships which are generated when the craft of horsemanship is understood as a problematic and demanding variety of interspecies labour or co-working. As Ingold observed, ‘The human handling of animals is quite different from the handling of tools … it can be compared to the craftsman’s handling of raw materials’ (2000: 307) Following Glenn Adamson, I define craft open-endedly so as to ‘draw connections across a much wider range of activities than the so-called “crafts” themselves … seeing craft not as a movement or field, but rather as a set of concerns that is implicated across many types of cultural production’ (2010: 2–3).

1 Suffolk Punch, Suffolk Horse, or simply Punch, or Suffolk, are interchangeable terms.

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Working from the idea that the training or education of a horse is constituted as a reciprocal relationship between a human ‘maker’ and a ‘made’ animal, the chapter undertakes ethnographic exploration of the ways in which idioms such as skill, medium, and product become uncertain or ambiguous when applied in contexts involving human–equine interactions. The chapter takes the permeability of these categories as a point of departure from which to investigate prevalent notions of problem solving within a unique segment of contemporary East Anglian horse culture. Although recent academic attention has turned to the ‘making’ of horses (c.f. Dashper, 2012; Maurstad et al, 2013), it has not taken account of the craft basis of horsemanship. My chapter asks how skilled practice is understood to contribute to solving the problem of educating, or forming, horses. And, equally, how is the ‘green’, unshaped horse made complicit in its own (re-)production as a marketable commodity? George Ewart Evans’s pioneering ‘spoken histories’, which salvaged evidence of fast-vanishing Suffolk working horse culture, remain unparalleled for the insights they provide into a previously closed working world where hard-won craft knowledge (perpetuated through a combination of oral and practice-based traditions) was jealously protected by horsemen (1960, 1966, 1969, 1979). To date, study of heavy-horse craftsmanship, as it survives following radical agricultural reform in the 1940s and 1950s, is missing from the anthropological record. My study aims to redress this absence. I proceed from the premise that despite – and precisely because of – their long history of domestication, all horses are essentially ‘problematic’. When my interviewees told me that horses are not designed to be ridden or driven, they pinpointed a fundamental incompatibility; a mismatch between antithetical horse instinct and human intention. Informant Cheryl Grover repudiated the saying ‘Bad horses are never born, but made’ as ‘absolute nonsense’. By this, she meant that certain horses are always beyond human control, and all horses, no matter how well-trained, are sometimes liable to evade control. The axiom and the horse-woman’s response to it highlight the challenges intrinsic to working a medium that possesses an unpredictable mind of its own. Suffolks are no more difficult than other horses, but their sheer size and strength contribute to making problems more daunting if they resist, refuse, or take flight. Such reactions cannot be countered by human strength alone. Rather than cataloguing remedial fixes, the ethnographic overview below reveals how horsemanship is quintessentially a problem-solving pursuit. A Precarious Local Product William Camden’s Britannia, published in 1695, notes that breeding of the Suffolk Horse dates back to 1506 (in Biddell, 1907 [non-paginated]). According to a local Suffolk axiom, the best Punches were ‘bred in the Sands’, a narrow strip of coastal heathland extending northwards from Bawdsey to Lowestoft. All Punches are

Producing Suffolk Punch Horses

Figure 2.1

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The First Prize Team of Suffolk Horses, exhibited at the Royal Show, Ipswich, 1934. The property of Mr Stuart Paul, Kirton Lodge, Ipswich, Suffolk.

Acknowledgement: By permission of Francis Cupiss Ltd., Printers, The Wilderness, Diss.

‘chesnuts’,2 ranging in colour from dark mahoganies to pale gold; shades that emulate the distinctive hues of Suffolk’s arable fields, its outcrops of Red Crag,3 and the pieces of amber that wash onto its beaches. The breed’s characteristic conformation is stocky and barrel-bodied. In combination, great muscularity and short legs endow Punches with a low centre of gravity and immense traction power. Adults stand approximately 17.2 hands (six feet) high at the shoulder, and they can weigh more than one ton. Arthur Young, political economist and champion of agricultural reform in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, promoted the breed, describing Suffolks as ‘the most useful … [to] be found in England’ (1969: 137). During so-called Victorian ‘High Farming’ (1840–1900),4 the Suffolk galvanised and embodied a highly-specialised regional horse culture in which occupational identity and competitive craftsmanship were intensively cultivated. Evans noted that the horseman’s ‘standard of craftsmanship [was] set immeasurably high both by the tradition of his craft and by the immediate needs of cultivation’ (1960: 30).

2 Note that the letter ‘t’ in chesnut is traditionally omitted when referring to Suffolk horse colour. 3 This is a Pleistocene geological deposit. 4 See Perry (1981).

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The 1955 Stud Book of the Suffolk Horse Society (SHS) reported that ‘In view of the large increase in mechanical power now used on the land … there is a disquieting reduction in the number of Registrations’ (1955 [non-paginated]). Tractors quickly rendered Suffolks functionally obsolete. In 1967, the Stud Book registered just nine foals: extinction was imminent. With 400 breeding adults worldwide, Suffolks are currently listed as ‘critically endangered’ by the Rare Breed Survival Trust.5 The breed’s decline has been accompanied by an inevitable reduction in numbers of working horse-people and collateral erosion of specific forms of occupational knowledge related to heavy horses. Field Site, Research Methods, and Participants Ethnographic fieldwork, conducted in 2013 and 2014, began at the Suffolk Punch Trust (SPT), which comprises the Hollesley Bay Colony Stud, a museum, and a visitor centre. Punches have been bred continuously on this site since 1759. From 1886 to 1906, the site was occupied by the Colonial College that trained young men in all aspects of agricultural craftsmanship in preparation for farming in the colonies (see Derby, 2012, and www.workhouses.org.uk/labourcolonies). During the twentieth century, the Prison Commissioners owned the site, and inmates worked with Punches on the prison farm. The Prison Service ceased farming in 2000, and the SPT was subsequently established to secure purchase of the stud, horses, and land.6 During fieldwork, I did not participate in the practical work of training and breeding at the SPT, but instead presented myself to staff as an interested observer keen to understand and describe the working world that horses and handlers cohabited. I attended numerous daily horse-training demonstrations (some of which were public, others private), fitting unobtrusively into the public audiences. I was also granted permission to use visual research techniques (e.g. photography and video), the analysis of which generated informed questions for the interviews I conducted with informants. Research was also undertaken at the private premises of Suffolk horse owners and breeders, and at shows and public events. The rarity of Suffolks, paralleled by the scarcity of Suffolk horse-people themselves, precluded opportunity to work with large sample sets of participants. The chapter engages with the issues raised by owners, breeders, and trainers during my participant observation among them, and in the semi-formal interviews I conducted with them. Interviewees include Bruce Smith who was the semi-retired and former Head Groom at SPT; Richard Gibbs, a young SPT stud groom and demonstrator with extensive complementary experience as a stunt horse trainer and rider; John and Fiona Fleming who were

5 See www.rbst.org.uk/watch-list/equines/suffolk 6 See suffolkpunchtrust.org/about/heritage

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long-established Punch breeders and livestock farmers, and Cheryl Grover.7 Cheryl’s skill-set was uniquely extensive, encompassing lifelong breaking, showing, and judging Suffolks; training Suffolk owners; stallion leading, and farming with horse-power. She was also a qualified farrier and former Master of Hounds. In the chapter, I also introduce the views and practices of grooms and handlers. In such cases, I have used pseudonyms in place of their real names. Educating Yale and Wren The SPT’s visitor programme includes demonstrations of horses undergoing training for public audiences. During one of these public demonstrations, I watched as a groom, Jay, offered commentary on a lesson. ‘Yale is one year old, and he’s just started his education. We’re teaching him all the basics, getting him confident. He’s got to get used to being away from his mum, and to learn that nothing’s going to hurt him. He’s just a baby’. This so-called ‘baby’ was already colossal, and had more growing to do. Yale towered above his student handler, Connor, but kept turning his gaze to Jay, checking for reassurance. ‘Yale weighs nearly a ton at the moment’, Jay continued, ‘And he’ll be a ton and a half when he’s full grown, so he’s got to know how to behave. We have to teach him the commands, and he’s got to do as he’s told. [Suffolks] know if you’re afraid of them, and that’s when things get dangerous. We’re teaching him to move when he’s told. He’s learning really fast’. Yale listened hard, batting his blonde eyelashes in apparent assent. Running his hands over Yale, Jay talked about finding the horse’s ‘weak points’: in other words, the places where he likes to be touched. As Jay scratched the horse’s belly, Yale lowered his head, stretched his neck, half-closed his eyes, and wobbled his lower lip with sheer pleasure. Then, Jay gently poked Yale in the chest. ‘Back. Back’, he said firmly. And after a contemplative moment, Yale complied, his ton of flesh yielding to intermittent applications of fingertip pressure and an insubstantial word carried on a man’s breath. Yale was instantly rewarded with more belly-scratching and a special softening in Jay’s voice as he praised the horse: ‘Good boy. Gooodboy!’ The demonstration was an informative public event, as well as a lesson for both the horse and Connor, the student handler. Jay handed the lead rope and, with it, control of Yale to Connor. Before cleaning Yale’s feet, Jay issued quick-fire instruction to Connor, telling him exactly where to stand and what to do. Connor nodded apprehensively. Yale, on the other hand, obediently lifted his dinner-plate sized feet in turn, and when he set each back down, Jay tapped firmly on the hoof’s 7 Cheryl Grover was formerly Cheryl Clark. The work that she and her former husband, Roger, conducted with Suffolks was documented by Evans (1979) and Heiney (1988).

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surface with a metal pick, thereby imitating the sounds and sensations that Yale will experience when he first meets the farrier. Next, Yale stood patiently to be groomed, while toddlers in the audience fidgeted and cameras flashed right under the horse’s nose. Everything that the horse was asked to do was a small step in mental and physical familiarisation, all in preparation for bigger tasks in more challenging situations. Jay regularly used the word ‘de-sensitisation’, meaning that the horse’s instinctive reactivity to frightening sounds, sights, or objects is lessened through patient, regular, and often-repeated training sessions. Every Punch has to be eased into wearing the complicated attachments of the harness which will fasten the horse to a vehicle or implement, making the horse a bodily extension of it, and it a mechanical extension of the horse. The Suffolk must become accustomed to each piece in turn; gradually learn to tolerate the collective encumbrances of the straps and chains; and come to know their different confining pressures, resistances and flexion, the distribution of their various weights, and the sounds they make when the horse moves. Jay brought out an old oilcan attached to a length of rope. After allowing Yale to inspect it, he clanked the can loudly on the ground, then dragged it over the concrete, along each side of the horse and then all the way around, past Yale’s hindquarters and out of his sight. Yale followed the can backwards with his gaze, as far as he could, but he did not shift from where Connor held him. The same exercise was repeated with lengths of chain suspended from a leather back-strap. The strap was laid along Yale’s back with the chains hanging down. When he fidgeted, the chains rattled, making him fidget more. So Jay soothed him, and then used those little poking touches to re-position Yale correctly. There was no pushing or shoving, no raised voices, and no meeting of muscled force with counterforce. The massive leather collar was eased over Yale’s head, and he accepted its weight. After a few minutes, the collar and chains were removed, and Jay praised Yale extravagantly before leading him back to his stall. Next in turn was Wren, a chunkier two-year-old who was led out by Richard Gibbs, assisted by trainee-groom Shelley. Wren knew more than Yale, and Richard therefore expected more of him. After Shelley dropped the lead rope, Wren was expected to stand unrestrained on the spot while Richard flicked snaking lines of rope between his hooves and dropped heaps of chain that crashed on the concrete before the whole set of harness was put on. Wren lost concentration, however, and tried to barge the substantial barrier that separated him from the audience. Richard firmly, but quietly, backed-up Shelley’s tentative attempts to ‘square Wren up’. In these displays, horse-education, spoken script, well-rehearsed physical action, informative spoken commentary (for the audience), and audience entertainment merged seamlessly. Both of the lessons today had been successful, but tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, Yale and Wren would repeat the work, again and again, steadily taking on more knowledge until fully trained. The shaping of bodies and minds, and growing up and into working relationships, takes time. Horses that remain at

Producing Suffolk Punch Horses

Figure 2.2

Colony Wren and Richard Gibbs in rehearsal/performance. Video still, filmed by Kim Crowder.

Acknowledgement: By courtesy of the Suffolk Punch Trust.

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the SPT variously transport visitors around the site in horse-drawn vehicles, draw wedding and funeral carriages, and participate in public events and shows. Others are sold around the world for forestry and farm work. As Yale and Wren learned, so, too, did trainees Connor and Shelley, as well as the experienced grooms. Jay noted that each horse he teaches has something to teach him as well. As he once said to me, ‘the learning process is continuous and never complete’. The demonstrations discussed above alerted me to three important themes: namely, the qualitative nature of horse–human relationships built around incremental learning; the intersections that exist between obedience and resistance, and between risk and danger; and the open-ended relationships between the paired concepts of repetition and reproduction, practice and performance, and simulation and authenticity. These themes are further explored in the interview content to which I now turn. Relating Horses and Humans Recent anthropologies of craftsmanship suggest that, in skilled practice, the manufacture of things is paralleled by production of skill-specific identities (Lave, 1996; Marchand, 2008; Prentice, 2008; Yarrow and Jones, 2014). So, following from this, what kinds of people does the ‘making of horses’ produce? In describing their relationships with horses, interviewees offered the following as essential qualities. John Fleming prioritised the qualities of being quiet and confident. For him, it was imperative to never show fear, nervousness, or timidity. In his words, one must get the horse to ‘respect you’ and ‘love you’, and to ‘take your commands’. Bruce Smith endorsed John’s emphasis on building the horse’s confidence through anticipatory predictive thinking and by being ‘one jump ahead’ of the horse’s intentions. John also spoke of the importance of control, discipline, and a belief in ‘mind over matter’. ‘You’ve got to be in charge’, John said, ‘but to be in charge, you’ve got to be friends’. Cheryl Grover further stressed the importance of bonding and trust in human–horse relationships. She believed that horses ‘don’t want to be boss. They want to be told what to do’. Cheryl wanted horses to be her ‘mate’, yet they had to recognise ‘who the guv’nor is’. Being both an animal’s friend, companion or workmate, and its ‘guv’nor’ or boss, is not unique among horse-people. Identical relationships also emerged in my research with stockmen who were engaged in intensive livestock production (Baker, 2012; Crowder, 2015). But, whereas stockmen’s relationships with individual animals are abbreviated and terminated by industrial production’s speed and methods, horse-people’s partnerships with horses may last for decades. Horse-people have a vested interest in establishing relationships founded on mutual trust and respect. As Bruce put it, the horse is ‘a product you’ve trained, [and] the more you put into it, the more you’ll get out of it’. There was consensus among interviewees on the necessity of achieving balance between authoritative control of powerful, potentially dangerous ‘animals you can only beat with your mind’ and empathetic partnership with sensitive horses

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characterised as ‘human’ and ‘workmates’. Cheryl identified the virtues of patience, determination, vigilance, fitness, and dedication as core occupational qualities. Richard Gibbs emphasised the importance of being strong-minded, and even stubborn, while at the same time being kind and well-tempered. The qualities of mental resilience and being brave were mentioned repeatedly by interviewees. All were unanimous on the necessity of perfectionism, precision, attention to detail, and independent-mindedness in taking responsibility for the whole job and ‘doing it all yourself’. These concerns underscored ‘problem seeking’ as a precursor to ‘problem solving’. Mentions of perfectionism were linked with references to horsemanship’s historical tradition and to keeping up standards that were set by ‘the old boys’.8 In ranking physical and sensory aptitudes needed for the job, interviewees placed diagnostic, predictive visual vigilance at the top of the list; in other words, keeping an eye on the horse, and watching-out on the horse’s behalf. Accuracy in ‘reading’ horse body-language, behaviour, and mood corresponds with Cristina Grasseni’s notion of a professionalised and disciplined ‘skilled vision’ (2009). Voice, too, was presented as a key aid to control. John said, ‘they’ve got to take commands … and they’ve got to know the boundaries. And the best boundary is your voice’. Vocal ability to pacify, reassure, chastise, and praise were frequently mentioned. In describing his work with a four-horse team in which the leading pair are positioned a long way forward from the driver, Bruce said you need to ‘push them on with your voice. Your voice gets to them’. This suggests that voice is an extension and projection of the horseperson’s physicality, figuring as either a reinforcement of touch or a substitute for it. Fiona Fleming stressed the importance of touch, ‘starting from day one’ when working with foals. Touch, for Fiona, is the foundation of bonding. Sensitivity of touch was expressed as ‘showing a kind hand’ or ‘having good hands’. Cheryl spoke of ‘watching’ through the reins in order to feel tension and to know when something is wrong. This suggests synesthetic ability to ‘look’ with the hand and to ‘see’ through touch. In this work, strong spatial awareness was necessary for keeping the horse in the right place and ‘never putting yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time’. The occupational qualities and aptitudes described above indicate how horse-people value and cultivate certain states of mind and physical capabilities. Watching, reading, interpreting, communicating with, and touching emerge as conciliatory actions used to predispose the horse (as plastic workable ‘material’) to what Richard described as ‘shaping it to be what you want it to be, how you want it to work, [and] what you want it to do in its role’. This data shows that problem solving among horse-people is predicated on strategies of problem aversion. Precautionary problem-aversion tactics are subsumed into, and continuous with, problem solving precisely because problem resolution comes replete with effects and consequences of its own: namely, solutions hold the potential to precipitate new kinds of problems. 8 The ‘old boys’ refers to the horsemen who populate the accounts in Evans’s work (1960, 1966). Notably, the SPT display was entitled Harnessing History.

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Figure 2.3

In-hand showing at Woodbridge Horse Show, 2014. Photo by Kim Crowder.

Acknowledgement: Image processing by FXP Photography.

Breaking or Making? Across the spectrum of equine disciplines, the training of horses is known as ‘breaking’, a term that suggests human domination of the horse and the presence of violence within the human–horse relationship. The use of this term, however, is counterbalanced by the use of other, more positive ones: ‘schooling’, for instance, connotes educating the horse within a co-operative teaching-learning partnership; ‘producing’ suggests a form of additive, productive co-working, and ‘making’ can be interpreted as beneficial, constructive ‘manufacture’ of a previously ‘unformed’ animal. Use of the latter term, making, is prevalent within various equine milieus. In the showing world, the ‘made ponies’ that enable children to win prizes are highly valued. Alison Acton has documented the role played by the ‘made hunter’ that ‘looks after’ the inexperienced rider (2014); and Rebecca Cassidy has shown how young Thoroughbreds are ‘made’ by ‘producers’ for racing (2002). Each of these examples of making presents the horse as malleable material that is susceptible to human design and manipulation. Cheryl’s references to breaking were illuminating. She consistently used the phrases ‘breaking in’ or ‘breaking into’ harness, chains, or shafts, deliberately inflecting the preposition. She also spoke of horses ‘coming to the work’, implying not only human invitation or instruction, but also equine acceptance and volition in

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turning towards human contact and purpose. These terminologies suggest that she understood ‘breaking’ more as movement than a confrontational battle. The horse progresses from an initial state of being outside the realm of human contrivance towards a state of coming-in, being-with, and joining together. This concept of progression is reiterated by proponents of ‘alternative’ forms of so-called ‘Intelligent Horsemanship’, who work with the method of human–horse ‘join-up’ (Roberts, 1997). In making a horse, a methodology of approach, encounter, entry, and acceptance is emphasised. This is the very opposite to the actions involved for a horse that is made to (i.e. forced); and that will respond by running away. Bruce described horror stories about owners working ‘the wrong way round’ to cure a horse’s fear of tractors. According to Bruce, some people would tie the horse up and repeatedly drive the tractor at it. By contrast, Bruce would progressively take the horse to a parked tractor, a step or two closer each day, ‘working through it gradually’. Docility and Danger; Design and Discipline Horses offer resistance by bucking, rearing, spooking, spinning, and over-reacting to sudden sounds or unfamiliar sights. They may over-enthuse by moving in the wrong direction too fast; or refuse by moving too slowly, or declining to move at all. In discussing instances of resistance, interviewees referred to horses ‘climbing up the wall’, ‘going ballistic’, ‘going up in the air’. They claimed to welcome working with such challenges. Richard observed that ‘resistant, stubborn, and awkward’ horses are often the most intelligent and end up being the best ‘finished products’. How is such volatility managed while horses undergo shaping to conform to the ‘design’ of the equine ‘finished product?’ Teaching by showing and telling is inapplicable in this context. The human teacher cannot demonstrate by literally pulling a cart and expect the learner-horse to copy; nor can the teacher issue complex verbal instructions to a learner who has no comprehension of human language. The problem is therefore approached through confidence-building behavioural conditioning, and reinforced by discipline. John told me that discipline ‘isn’t hitting an animal. Discipline means it’ll do as you want. It’s been had things done to’. The final clause of his definition was initially confusing, but, in fact, his comments stressed a balance between the horse’s voluntary compliance and learned obedient response. Foucault’s notion of the docile body as one that may be controlled, corrected, ‘subjected, used, transformed and improved’ (1991: 136–8), and ‘manipulated by authority, rather than imbued with animal spirits’ (ibid.: 155), is axiomatically undermined when the body in question is indeed an animal. How can docility be reconciled with the ineradicable animal spirit of the horse? Neither Foucault’s emphasis on repetitive physical drill, nor Sennett’s claim that ‘all skills begin as bodily practice’ (2010: 10), adequately capture the kind of practices that improving, transformative work with horses necessitates. Discipline, understood

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as ‘meticulous control of the operations of the body’, produces ‘subjected and practised bodies’ in human institutions (prisons, barracks, and workshops), but the efficacy of such ‘formulas of domination’ can be neither guaranteed nor absolute in work with animals that spontaneously fluctuate between docility and disobedience (Foucault, 1991: 137–8). Although equine schooling proceeds via repetitive bodily practice, the meticulous control or docility it produces can only ever be partially and intermittently sustained. When asked about the dichotomy between ‘doing with’ and ‘doing to’, all interviewees claimed that horse schooling synthesises physical and vocal encouragement: in other words, co-participatory (i.e. doing with) and through imposition (i.e. doing to). Cheryl spoke both of ‘doing it with him’ and ‘teaching him’. Bruce agreed that ‘it’s a bit of both’. He went on to say, ‘It’s education, [so] you’ve got to show them how to do it’. He also noted that ‘It’s bigger than you, [so] you’re working with it. [The horse] hasn’t got the ability to work things out’. Richard explained that ‘doing to’ featured strongly at the start of training, and gradually evolved into ‘doing with’ once the horse had become ‘accepting’. Richard’s remarks indicate that the two types of coaching are not oppositional, but rather they represent stages on a continuum of teaching-learning. Although ‘doing to’ implies negative connotations of coercion, domination, and objectification of the horse, such connotations do not, in fact, coincide with the actual activities foregrounded by interviewees, including ‘assistive showing’, supportive encouragement, and praise-giving. Despite their seeing horses as ‘products’, interviewees also revealed how ‘doing with’ involves human–equine inter-subjectivity and recognition of horses as individual subjects with singular personalities. The duality of ‘doing with’ and ‘doing to’ shows how horse-people hold subjectifying and objectifying strategies in tension with one another, bearing out Ingold’s proposition that ‘both the practitioner’s knowledge of things, and what he does to them are grounded in intensive, respectful and intimate relations with the tools and materials of his trade’ (2011: 239, original emphases). Cultivating Confidence Ingold’s idea that ‘makers have to work … with materials that … are not easily predisposed to fall into the shapes required of them, let alone stay in them indefinitely’, is pertinent when horses contradictorily figure as sentient, living media and as semi-docile controllable bodies (2011: 212). While the fired ceramic vessel is incapable of spontaneously reverting to raw clay, even the best equine schooling cannot produce an irreversibly docile body. Despite undergoing the transformative process of education, the made horse is a precariously transitory fabrication. I do not wish to imply that schooling is a deception or a confidence trick, or that the educated horse is ‘made up’. But, rather, what I mean is that horsepeople work with a precept akin to the design tenet of ‘truth to materials’. Instead of disguising or masking the ‘truth’ of the horse as refractory material, they

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work to modulate animal spirit in order to render it confident and self-assured. But confidence and self-assurance in horses are tenuous, fragile states, replete with risk that the required ‘shape’ will not hold. The ‘breaking’ will be broken, or go to pieces, if the horse temporarily relapses into a ‘raw’ state in response to alarm, incomprehension of a given situation, or the handler’s error. The process of convincing the horse of its own confidence is what John meant by ‘been had things done to’. Far from being an incidental by-product, confidence is in fact the ultimate goal and product of schooling. It is the very dynamic which drives horse-people’s cultivation of the attributes previously described. Reciprocity is critical: confident handlers produce confident horses, and vice versa. The nature of confidence as an ephemeral, elusive construct serves to increase the value ascribed to it. Confidence thus emerges as a form of capital circulating amongst humans and horses. Wherever the horse goes, knowledge goes too. The horse is the medium through which the twinned capitals of confidence and problem-solving knowledge are relayed. How do these capitals circulate and accrue? In the way that confidence is highly valued and progressively accumulated, so too are the ways of knowing associated with problem solving. Richard, for example, warned against ‘being shut off to new ideas’. He said that it was important ‘to know every way of doing things’. He went to people who work with Suffolks regularly in order to see how they do it, and then he did it himself. Richard highlighted the informal tactics that he used to learn: ‘Even if someone is not offering to teach you, just watch them do it. Pick things up’. This idea was put succinctly by Cheryl: ‘Keep your eyes and ears open, and your mouth shut!’ Together, Richard and Cheryl stressed the need for self-motivated and opportunistic enquiry, similar to the informal borrowing or ‘stealing with the eye’ documented by Rebecca Prentice during her fieldwork with Trinidadian textile workers (2008: 56). Although Fiona foregrounded the value of personal experience and spoke of ‘using instinct, and knowledge of what you’ve done in the past’, like John, she also advocated pooling knowledge, thinking creatively through alternatives, and talking-over problems with others who have experienced the same challenges. ‘If you don’t talk to people, you don’t learn’, she said. John told me, ‘People ring us up with a problem and I always say, “Ring me up in two hours and I’ll tell you the answer” … You [need time to] think which is the best way to do it’. His approach exemplified the dynamic that holds action and reflection in productive tension. Similarly, Cheryl recalled that ‘the whole time you’re breaking in, you’ve got to concentrate. And you’re thinking all the time. But when I [am] at home, I [am] planning’. These accounts emphasise both immediacy of action and ‘stepping back’ as complementary strategies of knowledge production and circulation. They correspond with Sennett’s view that craftsmen conduct ‘a dialogue between concrete practices and thinking; this dialogue evolves into sustaining habits, and these habits establish a rhythm between problem solving and problem finding’ (2008: 9). Anna Portisch claimed that skilled actions are interiorised and become second nature. ‘Practices’, she

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wrote, ‘are thus only apprehended through a reflective turning-back to practices already carried out’ (2010: 64). In all craftwork, the cultivation of confidence is crucial. This sentiment was developed by David Pye in his writings on the workmanship of certainty and the workmanship of risk (2010: 341–52). The latter characterises handwork, where ‘the quality of the result is not predetermined, but depends on the judgement, dexterity and care which the maker exercises as he works … The quality of the result is continually at risk during the process of making’ (2010: 342). SPT demonstrations showed how schooling proceeds through a series of formal stages in which handlers follow the conventions of horsemanship’s tried and tested methods. Collectively, the professional attribute of cautious problem aversion, schooling’s repetitive nature, and handlers’ observance of traditional methods might suggest that the work is formulaic, rule-bound and limiting. In their study of stonemasons conducting conservation work in the UK, Thomas Yarrow and Sîan Jones noted how ‘skilled enactment of convention acts to suppress a more ‘personal’ set of motivations and thoughts enabling a relationship to [materials] that is at once generic and individual’ (2014: 265). In horsemanship’s pairing of generic and individual motivations, the craft’s traditional precepts are counterbalanced by immediacy and innovation, figuring as expressions of the personal ‘judgement’ that was identified by Pye. Pye observed that ‘much of the diversity in highly regulated work produced by the workmanship of risk [is] achieved through the manner in which it [makes] use of the inherent qualities of materials’ (2010: 346). Working with the inherent qualities of materials is relevant to my story of horse-people. Because changeability is inherent to equine ‘material’, spontaneity and improvisation are necessary to problem solving. Portisch’s suggestions that problems are solved through ‘intelligent attention’ to shifting conditions and that ‘“mastering” a craft … is a problem solving ability whereby one adjusts ones’ actions and interactions in relation to shifting conditions’ (2010: 75–6), complements Ingold’s idea that ‘the creativity of making lies in the practice itself, in an improvisatory movement that works things out as it goes along’ (2011: 178). Foucault’s account of discipline (exercised through predetermined and rigidly-standardised drill actions to produce docile bodies) has parallels with Pye’s description of the workmanship of certainty that is carried out with machines and in automated factories. By contrast, Pye’s discussion of craftwork, like those of Ingold and Portisch, makes the case for the value of spontaneous – and thereby risk-laden – action. How then do horsepeople reconcile the apparently contradictory dynamics of protective confidencebuilding with the uncertainty of impromptu response to the ‘shifting condition’ of the horse?

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Calculating Risks and Monitoring Mistakes Cheryl asserted that a challenging horse was ‘like a red rag to bull’, galvanising her determination ‘to win’. Bruce, too, agreed that ‘challenges are nice’. Both described how they derived great satisfaction from working with horses that other trainers ‘couldn’t do anything with’. Their remarks confirmed that risktaking and competitiveness are intrinsic to horsemanship. For Johan Huizinga, ‘the competitive “instinct” is not … a desire for power or a will to dominate, [but] a desire to excel … and to be honoured for that’ (1955: 50). His formulation of play encompasses a ‘sense of passion, of chance, of doing, … [and ability] to take risks, to bear uncertainty, to endure tension’ (ibid.: 51). The ‘play’ of voluntary risk undertaken by horse-people corresponds with Stephen Lyng’s concept of ‘edgeworking’ (1990). During the kinds of skilled performance that take practitioners close to the ‘edge’ (i.e. to the boundaries between life and death, order and disorder, or control and loss of it), edgeworkers (e.g. sky-divers or fire-fighters) deliberately seek out opportunities for the development and use of their skills. Lyng defined the characteristics of edgework as planning, focused perception, concentration, and purposive and flexible action, and he noted that onthe-spot strategies are required for maintaining control over high-risk situations or ‘circumstances that simply cannot be negotiated by relying on internalised institutional regimes’ (1990: 874–5). All these characteristics and requirements are applicable to horsemanship. So, how do risk-taking and the element of edgework in horsemanship square with the profession’s other dominant traits of caution, problem-aversion, and perfectionism? And, what value do horse-people attribute to risk-taking? To answer these questions, I consider horse-people’s deployment of two contrasting strategies: simulation and mistake-making. Strong emphasis was placed on incremental teaching-learning processes, and a horse’s capability was never exceeded. Together, the SPT demonstrations and the interview content underscored repetitive rehearsal as the cornerstone of horse-people’s skilled practice. The made horse is produced and re-produced via a process of rehearsal involving carefully graded steps. As with dance or music, every horse-making demonstration, or performance, is simultaneously a replay and a rehearsal; an opportunity not just for repetition, but also for renewal and developmental revision of existing forms. This involves the notion of reflexive, diligent practice. Cheryl’s numerous references to ‘simulating the real thing’ show that, during equine learning, each educative human–horse interaction is a trial-run for something more: namely for subsequent, more challenging tasks. Every act of rehearsal is directed towards psychological armouring and technical skilling of horse and handler, preparing both for ‘the real thing’. Seen in this light, rehearsal figures as a prophylactic practice aimed at insulating horse and handler from both immediate and future danger. Nevertheless, rehearsal’s prophylactic intention does not cancel the risk that mistakes might occur. Therefore, what role does mistake-making play in the construction of expertise?

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Richard explained that, during schooling, a handler learns from their mistakes and also learns to protect the horse from making mistakes. His claim that ‘there’s an element of learning from [mistakes], but you also learn not to make them’ suggested that horse-people ascribe different values to different kinds of mistakemaking. Having spoken about the fine line between gauging ‘how a horse will react and what should happen’, Richard made subtle distinctions between a mistake and ‘something that you let happen’. While the mistake may figure ambiguously as an unforeseen, unplanned event beyond the handler’s control, ‘something you let happen’ is less clear-cut. Although ‘something you let happen’ might imply that the handler was negligent or at fault, Richard was indicating that skilful handlers judge when to deliberately allow a horse to make a ‘controlled’ mistake if they believe it has the potential to contribute positively to the learning process. Seen like this, ‘something you let happen’ represents the kind of ‘edgeworking’ opportunity defined by Lyng. In contrast to his previous comments about protecting horses from negative consequences of mistake-making, Richard also spoke of a time when ‘you’ve got to take the plunge. You can only prepare so much’. The impromptu decision to allow something risky to happen offers handlers the chance to make on-the-spot decisions about their ability to handle prospectively unmanageable situations. By deliberately choosing to enter a potentially risky scenario a handler finds opportunity to deploy and extend their own existing skills while simultaneously developing those of their inexperienced horse. Taken collectively, Richard’s comments show how horsemanship involves both protective care-taking aimed at preventing mistakes, as well as taking risks and taking control in situations where mistakes are selectively allowed to occur. In relation to the risks and uncertainties inherent in her work, Fiona insisted, ‘I’m not an expert. … I would never ever want to be called an expert. No one’s an expert. [We all] can learn from every situation’. Expanding on this idea, John said, ‘You can always learn something off the biggest of idiots, [and] learning is what makes it interesting … and keeps you going’. Fiona’s denial of expert status and John’s assertion that learning is a continuous process were more than statements of self-effacing modesty. Both statements work as self-protective devices aimed at insulating against the destructive effects of outright ‘failure’ if mistakes are made or if problems resist solution, as is sometimes inevitable. Such strategies provide horse-people with the means to maintain professional self-confidence when things do not go as planned. When John said ‘if you never have a problem you’ll never know how to get out of it’, he revealed both his attitude toward problems themselves and his ability to deal with them. For him, problem solving is integral to horsemanship, providing positive impetus in his work and in the ongoing development of his skills. This confirms Sennett’s proposition that ‘the good craftsman … uses solutions to uncover new territory; problem solving and problem finding are intimately related in his or her mind’ (2008: 11).

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Conclusion: Borderlines With its focus on horse-people’s problem-solving logics, this chapter contributes to the anthropology of craftsmanship and to broader anthropological debates centring on skilled occupational practice and human–animal labour relations. My strategies of positing horses as sentient media and paying attention to the language conventions used by horse-people have allowed me to show how, in horsemanship, the imperatives of problem aversion, problem seeking, problem finding, and problem solving are inseparably linked. My data revealed how Suffolk Punch production is conducted on the problem-generating borderlines between ‘doing with’ and ‘doing to’, and, importantly, between the workmanships of certainty and risk. In documenting attitudes to expert status and to human–equine learning, the data suggests that both the completion of occupational knowledge and the making of horses are understood by horse-people to exist in a state of indefinite deferral. My research raises the issue of whether the pursuit of high craft standards (expressed as ‘perfectionism’) serves to suspend both the horse and the knowledge required for making them in a perpetual state of incompletion. In effect, both the horse and the trade knowledge remain caught between different states; neither putative model nor finished product. Taking account of Pye’s concern that the possibilities inherent in the workmanship of risk ‘will be neglected’ (2010: 343), the chapter has shown that despite the perfectionist streak in horsemanship, human–equine teaching and learning processes are, paradoxically, contingent on the necessarily-imperfect practice of mistake-making. Calculated risk-taking and managed mistake-making figure as key problem-solving strategies, with the capacity for activating diversity and creativity within a contemporary version of a traditional craft practice. Pye has encapsulated the value of such endeavour: ‘To achieve diversity in all its manifestations is the chief reason for continuing the workmanship of risk as a productive undertaking: in other words for perpetuating craftsmanship’ (2010: 352). Bibliography Acton, A. 2014. ‘Equine gatekeepers, animal narratives and foxhunting landscapes’, in Anthrozoos, 27(1):81–94. Adamson, G. 2010. The Craft Reader. Oxford: Berg. Baker, K. (unpublished). ‘Chapter 4, Be the Boar’, in Making Meat: people, property and pigs in East Anglia, PhD thesis, Goldsmiths, University of London, pp. 151–70. Barrett, H. 1967. Early to Rise: a Suffolk morning. London: Faber. Biddell, H. 1907. The History of the Suffolk Horse. Reprinted in A Short History of the ‘Punch’ Breed, Undated [c. 1938]. Stowmarket: Newby.

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Cassidy, R. 2002. The Sport of Kings: kinship, class and thoroughbred breeding in Newmarket. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Crowder, K. 2015. ‘Artisanal Affection: detachment in human-animal relations within intensive pig production in Britain’, in T. Yarrow, M. Candea, C. Trundle, and J. Cook (eds) Detachment: essays on the limits of relational thinking. Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 79–102. Dashper, K.L. 2012. The Elusiveness of ‘Feel’ in the Horse-human Relationship: communication, harmony and understanding. Cosmopolitan Animals Conference, Institute of English Studies, University of London. Derby, M. 2013. ‘Ploughshares into Swords: Colonial College Graduates in New Zealand’, in Journal of New Zealand Studies, 16:121–30. Evans, G. 1960. The Horse in the Furrow. London: Faber and Faber Limited. ——— 1966. The Pattern Under the Plough. London: Faber and Faber Limited. ——— 1969. The Farm and the Village. London: Faber and Faber Limited. ——— 1979. Horse Power and Magic. London: Faber and Faber Limited. Foucault, M. 1991 [1975], translated by A. Sheridan. ‘Docile Bodies’, in Discipline and Punish: the birth of the prison. London: Penguin, pp. 135–69. Grasseni, C. 2009. Developing Skill, Developing Vision: practices of locality at the foot of the Alps. Oxford: Berghahn Books. Haraway, D. 2008. When Species Meet. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press. Heiney, P. 1988. Pulling Punches: a traditional farming year. London: Methuen. Huizinga, J. 1955. Homo Ludens: a study of the play element in culture. Boston: Beacon Press. Ingold, T. 2000. Perceptions of the Environment: essays in livelihood, dwelling and skill. London: Routledge. ——— 2011. Being Alive: essays on movement, knowledge and description. London: Routledge. Lanham, N. 2007. ‘The Suffolk Horseman’s Suit’, presented at the Society of Folklife Studies conference, Waterfront Museum, Swansea, and privately published by author. Lave, J. 1996. ‘Teaching, as Learning, in Practice’, in Mind, Culture and Activity, 3(3):149–64. Lyng, S. 1990. ‘Edgework: a social psychological analysis of voluntary risk taking’, in The American Journal of Sociology, 95(4):851–86. Marchand, T. 2008. ‘Muscles, Morals and Mind: craft apprenticeship and the formation of person’, in British Journal of Educational Studies, 56(3):245–71. Maurstad, A., D. Davis and S. Cowles 2013. ‘Co-Being and Intra-Action in HorseHuman Relationships: a multi-species ethnography of be(com)ing human and be(com)ing horse’, in Social Anthropology, 21(3):322–35. Perry, P.J. 1981. ‘High farming in Victorian Britain: prospect and retrospect’, in Agricultural History Society, 55(2):156–66.

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Portisch, A. 2010. ‘The Craft of Skilful Learning: Kazakh women’s everyday craft practice in western Mongolia’, in Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, special issue T. Marchand (ed.) Making Knowledge, pp. S62–S79. Prentice, R. 2008. ‘Knowledge, Skill, and the Inculcation of the Anthropologist: reflections on learning to sew in the field’, in Anthropology of Work Review, 29(3):54–61. Pye, D. 2010. ‘The Nature and Art of Workmanship’, in G. Adamson (ed.) The Craft Reader. Oxford: Berg, pp. 341–53. Roberts, M. 1997. The Man Who Listens to Horses. London: Arrow Books. Sennett, R. 2008. The Craftsman. London: Allen Lane. Wilkie, R. 2005. ‘Sentient Commodities and Productive Paradoxes: the ambiguous nature of human livestock relations in Northeast Scotland’, in Journal of Rural Studies, 21:213–30. Yarrow, T. and Jones, S. 2014. ‘Stone is Stone: engagement and detachment in the craft of stone masonry’, in Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 20:256–75. Young, A. 1969 (1813). General View of the Agriculture of the County of Suffolk. Newton Abbott: David and Charles Reprints. Websites Referenced www.boyton.com/boyton_history/the_johnson_family/gentlemen_emigrants/ gentlemen_emigrants.html suffolkpunchtrust.org/about/heritage www.rbst.org.uk/watch-list/equines/suffolk www.workhouses.org.uk/labourcolonies/

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Chapter 3

Making ‘Sense’ in the Bike Mechanic’s Workshop Tom Martin

Introduction: From Teaching, Toward Learning While studying at university, I worked part-time in a bicycle shop. It was there that I discovered the pleasure of working with my hands. My mostly self-guided education as a mechanic consisted of spending late nights arguing the virtues of one component over another, and tinkering with some lost-cause of a project. I found satisfaction in discovering how the components worked together in orchestrated harmony – the secrets of which demanded patient investigation. Upon graduating from university, I realised that I had spent the past four years nurturing two different ways of knowing the world: namely, an abstract kind of analysis used in the classroom, and a mode of thinking and understanding grounded in physical perception and solving mechanical problems. My growing interest in the latter drew me increasingly to the inclusive, handson kind of learning that I saw happening in community education projects. Since bicycle mechanics was just about the only ‘practical’ skill I had to offer, I took a job as an instructor in a bicycle repair workshop. I figured that I could teach these skills to young people who were adrift in school, and thereby re-ignite their interest in education. The shortcomings of my teaching strategy, however, became increasingly apparent over the years. Despite my good intentions, I could not convince my students to love mechanics in the way that I did. In fact, I could barely teach some of them to patch an inner tube. In some cases, this was because they lost interest; but in others, there seemed to be a gap in communication between us. I would tell them how to complete a task, but they simply would not understand. After years of curriculum design I came to the conclusion that ‘teaching’ was not the correct mode of operation. ‘Learning’ was what I was after. My assumption that learning required teaching was probably grounded in my own experiences in formal schooling. In retrospect, my error should have been obvious. After all, no one had taught me to be a mechanic, exactly. I had learned through a kind of social osmosis between mechanics of varying levels of expertise, while getting on with our work. The inputs to the equation were inexperienced young people and broken bicycles; and, somehow, the outputs were functioning bicycles and newlyminted mechanics.

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That mysterious learning process, like bike mechanics in general, was all about problem solving. Cyclists only take their bike to the repair shop when they have a problem with it; so, logically, a mechanic’s daily work is made up entirely of problems. Solutions to bike problems arise out of a unique and opaque social process. The novice mechanic must master an ability to engage in this while simultaneously absorbing an enormous amount of technical data. The process involves a kind of ‘thinking aloud’, whereby fellow mechanics grapple to see what the other is seeing in their mind’s eye. Mechanical components are infamously resistant to description in plain language. On occasions in the past, I had to completely outlaw the word ‘thingy’ when its use got out of hand in the workshop. This resistance creates a proving ground in which mechanics’ ideas are tested and consensus achieved. In the best cases, as I hope to show here, description is at the root of the problem-solving process. When another mechanic misunderstands me, or someone disagrees with how I describe a mechanical process, I realise that something is wrong with either my thinking about the part or my understanding of what the part does. Without that dialogue, I would not have cause for editing my mental picture of the part or its operations. In order to illustrate this point, I set up a series of three-hour classes on the repair and maintenance of the Sturmey Archer AW-3, a component I describe in detail later. These were classes only in the loosest definition of the word. I organised students into two groups of two; patiently talked them through disassembly; and then walked away, leaving them to figure it out for themselves. The students were already novice mechanics and had some familiarity with the workshop as a cooperative social setting. Their actions and discussions were captured on video, and later in this chapter I attempt a moment-by-moment close reading of this data to determine exactly when and how problem solving happens. In my analysis, I refer frequently to the work of linguistic psychologist Lev Vygotsky, but with full understanding that craftwork is not a code or puzzle that can be cracked with the application of the right academic theories. After all, some aspects of craftwork will always remain best described by the activities themselves, performed by a skilled craftsperson. Knowing a craft is inseparable from doing it. Those who are truly curious about understanding the experience really need to try their hand at it. With that said, there seems to be a specific role for language in the craft of bike mechanics beyond merely telling new mechanics what to do (an education strategy that, I can attest from experience, is highly ineffective). Just like we mechanics poke around with tools, we also fiddle with language in the workshop. We half say things to our fellow mechanics and half to ourselves as a way of trying out ideas and deepening our understanding of parts and processes. In a sense, words are as indispensable to the mechanic’s craft as wrenches, nuts, and bolts.

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The Process of Diagnosis The field of bike mechanics presents an interesting case for the craft paradigm because the problems that the mechanic works with are not the result of his or her own processes going awry; rather, problems are the starting point from which the mechanic approaches the craft.1 Where a weaver might begin with an empty loom and add elements until the piece is complete, bike mechanics is a subtractive process. The mechanic diagnoses faults, corrects them, and is left, in a sense, with nothing: no identifiable problems. The kernel of the bike mechanic’s craft is therefore skilled diagnosis. There are two available sources from which a mechanic produces their diagnosis. First, there is the factual information that they have to learn by rote. Many mechanical faults are diagnosed and corrected without need for physical investigation. One example familiar among bike-shop staff is the ‘Mystery Click’. This has kept many a junior mechanic occupied at the work-stand for hours, fretting over a fault that has been reported by the customer, but that cannot be reproduced in the workshop. A senior mechanic, however, will immediately recognise the problem and might interrupt the customer’s complaint before it has been fully voiced: ‘Your seat-post is loose’. This problem is so common that the solution is simply memorised. The second source for producing a diagnosis of the problem is the data derived from investigation, and then applying an experimental method to mechanical systems. All readers will have had experience with this on some level. For example, if your sink tap does not turn, you will evaluate the amount of pressure needed to release it, and consider whether such an application is prudent or not. Will it result in an urgent call to the plumber as your washroom floods? Life experience tells you that there are three possible outcomes to your actions: the tap remains stuck, opens, or detaches – and you get soaked. What you may not have considered is the underlying problem that gives rise to any of these outcomes. You have just one method at your disposal, namely turning force; and, in your mind, you will correlate your application of this method to the plumbing system with the resulting outcome. Something has occurred within the plumbing system to cause the problem in the first place; but, regardless of the outcome of twisting the tap with greater force, you remain unaware of the tap’s internal functions. This represents a ‘black box correlation’. The job of the bike mechanic (and presumably the plumber who sorts out the tap) is to understand the cause of problems, rather than just knowing the actions required to resolve them. In other words, the mechanic looks inside the ‘black box’. While some bike problems, like the squeaky seat-post, fall into the category of memorisable facts, there are innumerable other faults that a mechanic will not 1 There are, of course, other crafts that begin with a problem and move toward a solution, such as the conservation and repair of historical buildings or works of art. It would be fascinating to compare the diagnostic processes of those professions with those of the bike mechanic.

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have encountered previously. In some instances, this is because that specific fault has never occurred before. Diagnosis demands the skilled ability to conceptually dismantle the system in order to identify the individual components that need repair. This means knowing the component parts that exist in the black box, and understanding their roles and functions within the overall mechanical system. Diagnosis is crucial not only for repairing a bike, but also for the mechanic’s self-instruction, wherein component systems are dismantled and the purpose of constituent components discovered. Some mechanics claim that this selfinstruction is not part of the craft of bike mechanics, but rather should be part of a new mechanic’s training. I disagree. The nature of the bicycle industry means that mechanics are continually confronted with new parts and their internal systems, and the most effective way to understand them is through hands-on contact. Furthermore, the long and complicated history of the bicycle has resulted in such a plethora of variations on the same components that even the most seasoned mechanic cannot claim to have seen them all. In addition to diagnosing and repairing faults in mechanical systems, every mechanic regularly needs to learn about unfamiliar hardware. To separate ‘problem solving during repairing’ from ‘problem solving during learning’ unnecessarily divides two instances of the same diagnostic technique. The mechanic is always fixing and, in doing so, is always learning. Both processes require forming mental representations of component parts and the mechanical processes in which they operate. The difference between the senior mechanic and the novice is that the latter has limited experience of components and their functions, and therefore their understanding contains many gaps, misunderstandings, and impossible conclusions. These gaps are gradually filled through the experience of working alongside others, and especially alongside the old-timers. None of this was apparent to me when I first designed the curriculum for my bicycle repair class. I set students up on work-stands and narrated, step-bystep, different maintenance procedures. The students diligently memorised these stepwise checklists and then tried to perform them for me. The results were disappointing. Regularly, a crucial step was skipped, making the subsequent steps nonsensical. More importantly, students could not explain why they were doing what they were doing except in instances where they had figured it out for themselves in spite of my teaching method. Towards the end of my stint as bicycle repair instructor, I introduced a class dedicated to one particular vintage component that is notoriously difficult to understand. I modelled the class on my own learning experience, which included tinkering with the component, debating with other mechanics, and, frankly, spending several years in a state of complete mechanical misunderstanding. Those of my students who had anticipated a lecture on the internals of this complicated system instead found themselves wrist-deep in sprockets and pinions, and without anyone telling them what to do. While some were ill at ease with my new approach, most relished the unique learning experience. By the end of the class, a number

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of students demonstrated a nuanced, complex, and, most importantly, correct understanding of the system. Inside the AW-3 Before proceeding, I will briefly describe the component system we were working with. It was a Sturmey-Archer model AW-3, three-speed internal-gear hub. In simple terms, the AW-3 is the central component of the rear wheels on old threespeed bicycles that allows the rider to change gears. Its parts are concealed inside the hub rather than being visible from the outside. When removed from the wheel, the AW-3 resembles a soup tin with a single sprocket attached to one side. While I intend to spare the reader too much unnecessary technical detail, it is important to know some key facts about the AW-3 in order to understand the remaining contents of this chapter. These key facts are not obvious to casual cyclists or to the uninitiated mechanic; and, as will become plain, they also evade straightforward explanation in language. The central principle of the AW-3 is that, in certain gears, the sprocket turns at a different speed than the hub (and therefore the entire wheel), and the difference varies depending on which gear is selected. In first gear (which is the easiest for pedalling), the sprocket turns four rotations for every three rotations of the hub; in second gear, the ratio is one-to-one, and in third, the ratio is the inverse of first gear, meaning that for every three rotations of the sprocket the hub rotates four times.

Figure 3.1

135° rotation of the wheel per 180° rotation of the sprocket; first gear, a 3:4 ratio. Illustration by Leksa Nall.

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Experienced riders of these vintage three-speed bicycles may be aware that the sprocket and hub turn at different speeds depending on the gear, but they normally cannot explain the process in detail. The movement of the internal components, however, is a mystery to most, including many professional mechanics. In brief, when the rider changes gears, a long pin moves the cross-shaped clutch into one of three different positions. As it moves, the clutch transfers pedalling power from the sprocket to whichever part of the mechanism it connects to in that position. Second gear is the easiest to understand since it is a simple one-to-one ratio. The rider’s pedalling motion turns the sprocket, which turns the clutch, which in this position turns the hub and therefore the wheel. Figuring out third gear requires cracking the interesting secret of the AW-3’s planetary gearing. This represents the first moment of revelation for the mechanic. In third gear, the clutch drives a set of four planet pinions (i.e. ‘gears’). These four

Figure 3.2

Pin, shown as an arrow, moves the cross-shaped clutch. Illustration by Leksa Nall.

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Figure 3.3

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The gear ring and planet cage rotate at different speeds. Illustration by Leksa Nall.

pinions connect the ‘planet cage’ to the ‘gear ring’. The gear ring encloses the planet cage, with the pinions located in between the two. The important point here is that the planet cage is rotating at a different speed than the gear ring that encloses it; in other words, the rotational speed is stepped-up from the slow rotation of the sprocket, through to the gear ring, to the faster rotation of the hub. First gear is essentially the same process as third, but with some elements of the process in reverse order. Instead of rotation flowing from sprocket to clutch to planet cage to gear ring, the position of the clutch reverses the last step, with movement travelling from sprocket to clutch to gear ring to planet cage. The relative ratio (4:3) is preserved, but the transmission of power through the system is re-routed so that the gear ring now drives the planet cage as opposed to the other way around. As a result, four rotations of the sprocket now produce three rotations of the hub, the inverse of third gear. The Limitations of the Spoken Word By this point, it should be evident that the limits of spoken language for describing the mechanical processes of the AW-3 present an obstacle for the trainee mechanic. Trevor Marchand has argued that ‘verbal instructions [for complex physical activities] are necessarily impoverished because linguistic propositions can only convey information about one salient action at a time’ (2010: 112). The strictly linear progression of words in spoken or written language fails to capture

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the simultaneity of events that may be occurring in mechanical processes. Since the words for describing two different actions or events cannot be pronounced at the same time, the speaker (or writer) is reliant on using a series of time-order conjunctions to string ideas together. In so doing, they may mark the correct cause and effect of a mechanical process, but their description unwittingly gives a false sense of stepwise progression. This is illustrated by my earlier description of the AW-3’s operations. In another example, a student in my most recent AW-3 class described the system in the following way.2 Note that I have added the appropriate terminology in italicised parentheses for the benefit of the reader. KELLY: In terms of steps, this (driver) is the first thing that spins, and it pushes against this (clutch). So this is the wheel turning … or the pedal turning (moves driver to simulate sprocket spinning), which then pushes against those gears (planet pinions), pushing against this (gear ring), and those (pawls) are engaged in here (ball ring), which go ‘choo-choo-choo-choo-choo’; ‘push-push-pushpush-push’. And then this (ball ring) is turning the wheel around.

This stepwise progression is not how most mechanical systems operate. Understanding a mechanical device is more like listening to an orchestra of musicians play in harmony than watching the chain-reaction events of a Rube Goldberg machine. In the case of an AW-3, an input of power at the sprocket results in simultaneous movement throughout the system (indeed, this is one of the great advantages of this system because the rider does not need to wait for the system to respond before changing gear or applying pedalling force). Yet, to express the operation of this system in words, Kelly had no choice but to describe the motions as a series of discrete events, one happening after the other. The translation into language contributed to the student missing a key concept: namely the simultaneity of action between all the AW-3 components. If language is so poorly suited to this kind of work, why does craftwork so often take place in social settings filled with conversation? And why has language persisted as a mode of communication in the workshop despite its limitations? The obvious response is that we use language out of necessity because it is our most familiar medium for making thoughts known to others, and, arguably, it is the only way to express certain abstract ideas. It seems, too, that there is an additional answer: a bike mechanic needs language as a means to compare his/her own view in the mind’s eye with those of other mechanics, and thereby fact-check the mental representations he/she is entertaining. Learning demands constant revision of ideas, thereby deepening the trainee’s understanding of artefacts and processes with time. In many cases, a mechanic’s initial understanding of a component system may be completely incorrect. The next section includes a close reading of an instance during my AW-3 class when 2 Student names throughout have been changed to preserve anonymity.

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participants compared their as-yet incoherent concepts of the materials they were working with, leading to great confusion. Before proceeding, I will discuss the theory that has guided my analysis. In his book titled Thinking and Speech, Lev Vygotsky offered a model of how we conceive of an object internally and express thoughts about it aloud to others. As early as 1934, Vygotsky remarked on the problems caused by the linearity of speech: Thought does not consist of individual words like speech. I may want to express the thought that I saw a barefoot boy in a blue shirt running down the street today. I do not, however, see separately the boy, the shirt, the fact that the shirt was blue, the fact that the boy ran, and the fact that the boy was without shoes. I see all this together in a unified act of thought. In speech, however, the thought is partitioned into separate words. What is contained simultaneously in thought unfolds sequentially in speech. (Original emphasis; 1934: 30)

Like Marchand, Vygotsky saw the linearity of language as a concession necessary for expressing thoughts aloud. Yet while Vygotsky did not specifically address craftwork in Thinking and Speech, he did add some complexity to the operation of ‘utterances’. Speech becomes something much more complicated than verbal communication between two people. He separated speech into three distinct categories: inner speech, which issues from thought; external speech, exemplified by dialogue, and the written word. His concept of inner speech is very different from the conversational understanding of ‘internal monologue’. Vygotsky explained that inner speech has its own structure and function distinct from those of external speech that is produced for others. The key structural difference in inner speech is that, since the subject is always known (i.e. we always know what we refer to), the expression is simply reduced to the predicate. Paraphrasing the example offered by Vygotsky, if you and I are waiting for a bus and I see it approaching, I might say, ‘It’s coming’. Internally, however, since the bus is already the object of my consciousness, there would be no sense in repeating the subject, so the phrase is reduced to the predicate, ‘comes’. Written speech must be further expanded, for there are no subject clues for the reader. If I am sitting at a bus stop and I wish to communicate to you, waiting at home, that the bus is late, sending you a text message that reads only ‘Late’ will not do much good. Even ‘It’s late’ will be confusing, because the context that allows me to reduce ‘bus’ to a pronoun is missing for you. Thus, communication between two people, aloud and in person, holds a unique middle ground between how speech works in the mind and how speech works when limited purely to the value of each word, as it is written on the page. Dialogue allows for abbreviation based on the subjects’ shared environment and visual cues, such as gesturing and glancing with the eyes. In some ways, dialogue is a deficient version of both inner and written speech. On the one hand, the necessity of a single subject, either explicit or implied,

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eliminates the possibility of understanding mechanical operations beyond the stepwise progression described earlier. Dialogue fails to capture the many simultaneous actions and qualities of systems that are registered by our perceptual apparatus. On the other hand, the shared understanding constructed between interlocutors during the course of fluid dialogue may not be available to a third party overhearing that interaction. Frustratingly, I initially conducted the fieldwork discussed in this chapter using only a microphone, and later discovered that the recordings were incomprehensible. While the sound quality was excellent, I had no idea what the participants were talking about because their communication relied so heavily on non-verbal cues. As a result, I had to conduct the sessions again, this time using video to capture the interactions. What purpose, then, does Vygotsky’s conception of dialogue serve in illuminating the nature of problem solving in the mechanic’s workshop? I invite the reader to consider the following dialogue from the comedy film Airplane! (1980): A: You got a telegram from headquarters today. B: Headquarters? What is it? A: Well it’s a big building with generals, but that’s not important right now.

Speaker B has replaced his subject of thought (i.e. the telegram) with the pronoun ‘it’, thereby giving speaker A license to interpret the subject as ‘headquarters’. The facility with which we abbreviate thought and achieve shared understanding is so commonplace that exceptional misunderstandings like this become the stuff of comedy. Though such miscommunications happen infrequently in everyday conversation, they do occur more regularly in the workshop – and, unfortunately, without the comic effect. In the bike-repair shop, tiny components commonly lead to misunderstanding between mechanics. Vygotsky wrote, ‘pure predication arises where the subject of the expression is present in the interlocutors’ thoughts. If their thoughts coincide, if both have the same thing in mind, complete understanding can be realized through a single predicate’ (1934: 20). I would add that only if their thoughts coincide, is this the case. Otherwise, problems arise, as I explore in the next section. Fruitful Misunderstandings In the following series of examples, the two students, Kelly and Alice, have not yet achieved a shared understanding of the subject of their conversation (i.e. mechanical parts of the AW-3) because neither of them has developed a complete understanding of it. KELLY: And then if we pull it (clutch) up and it’s here [puts clutch between second and third gear positions] … so we’ve got one setting which is in between

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everything. We’ve got up here [same position], where it (clutch) passes over those (pinion pins), but it doesn’t spin anything … it just freewheels.

Kelly had identified the clutch as being related to the ‘freewheeling’ of the bicycle (i.e. when the rider is able to coast without pedalling). This was a creative but incorrect correlation. While her subject was still the clutch, her notion of the clutch was underdeveloped to the point that it incorrectly included both power transmission and freewheeling, two actions which are, in reality, accomplished by very different parts of the AW-3. This raises an important question: when the students were having a conversation about the clutch, either by pointing to it or calling it by name, were they necessarily talking about the same thing? If they did not have a shared sense of the ‘clutch’, then perhaps the answer is no. Vygotsky separates the meaning of a word from its sense. The latter refers to ‘the aggregate of all the psychological facts that arise in our consciousness as a result of the word’ (1934: 26). Meaning is a property that the word acquires in relation to the context in which it is uttered. Vygotsky illustrates this with an example from Dostoevsky where a group of drunken men use a single (impolite) word to express multiple and various thoughts, fluidly switching between parts of speech (1934: 22). There, the word has a fixed meaning dependent upon the context in which it is spoken and the speakers’ shared understanding of the nuances in its definition. Kelly’s sense of ‘clutch’ (noting that my use of inverted commas indicates that the students interchangeably used the proper name, a pronoun, or a gesture to mark the subject) was still incomplete and partially incorrect. As a result the word was largely without meaning, since meaning is created in the interlocutors’ participation in conversation. ALICE: [Unconvinced] Okay. But you still have [points with finger to gear ring] … it’s (clutch and planet cage) turning this (gear ring).

The use of ‘okay’ here actually indicated disagreement. Alice was stopping the conversation to point out something that she knew would complicate Kelly’s previous statement. Like Kelly, Alice had correctly identified that the movement in the system includes clutch and planet pinions, but she also pointed out the gear ring and recognised that the movement of all three is connected. This recognition was crucial for developing a sense of the parts as functional components rather than independent steel artefacts. Just like a kiss is sometimes ‘just a kiss’, sometimes, too, a clutch is just a clutch. It signifies no more complex meaning than the association with the static referent of the word, the piece of metal. When ordering replacement components, if a mechanic calls a distributor and asks for a clutch to be delivered to the workshop, ‘clutch’ means only the steel cross-shaped object. The distributor does not need to share the mechanic’s intricate and nuanced understanding of the sense of ‘clutch’. However, two mechanics discussing the operation of this mechanism do indeed need to share further understandings about the clutch (i.e. its purpose and its

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dual role in power transmission and gear shifting) in order to have a meaningful conversation. These perceptions influence the mechanics’ sense of ‘clutch’, and they will talk past one another, often with frustration, until their respective senses of the word are aligned. KELLY: But that comes next …? That’s what I don’t understand.

Alice’s explanation challenged Kelly’s conception of the mechanism and resulted in a moment of confusion for her. Kelly’s use of the pronoun ‘that’ apparently referred to ‘movement in the gear ring’. Note, however, that ‘movement in the gear ring’ can never come ‘next’. The hub works because the relative movement of planet cage and gear ring is constant. Her use of the word ‘next’ indicated that Kelly had not yet grasped the simultaneous motion of all of the components. She could see all of the components in action, but in trying to make sense of the power transmission from the chain to the wheel, she had adopted a stepwise understanding of the operations inside the hub. Alice offered an eloquent answer: ALICE: [Be]’cause this … [Alice spins gear ring]

Kelly’s question in the previous passage was essentially, ‘Does movement in the gear ring not come next, after movement in the planet cage?’ In two words and one simple gesture, Alice explained why it does not. The omitted subject of Alice’s assertion was ‘[movement in the gear ring does not come “next”]’. We know this is the subject because Alice phrased this as a reply to Kelly’s question, using the word ‘[be]cause’. Her manipulation of the gear ring, coupled with the word ‘this’, indicates that the predicate of her statement is the spinning of the mechanism via the gear ring. In other words, the complete expression here was ‘movement in the gear ring does not come “next”, because spinning the gear ring produces movement throughout the mechanism’. It would be hard to think of a better example of interlocutors sharing a conversational predicate than this. While difficult to parse in written form, this conversation was effortless for the two speakers in the moment. They managed to communicate these complex thoughts without ever referring to the subject by name, even as it shifted from ‘clutch’ to ‘interaction between clutch and gear ring’ to ‘the impossibility of the interaction between clutch and gear ring being sequential rather than simultaneous’. At the same time, however, the speakers were completely miscommunicating. Despite their effortless subject abbreviation, they possessed very different senses of the subject at hand. As a result, the abbreviation led to meaningless assertions. Based on what we know of Kelly’s idea of ‘clutch’ at this point, it probably sounded to her like Alice had said ‘the bit that comes next cannot ever come next, by definition’. Kelly processed the syntactic value, but there was little meaning. These two students were not communicating in the usual way of making

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meaningful utterances understood through a common sense of the subject at hand. What they were doing was getting frustrated by this breakdown in communication and testing the subtleties of their own concepts to reach a common ground. They were making ‘sense’ of the clutch. KELLY: But then as it (clutch) shifts (positions), it’s not pushing on them (pinion pins) anymore …

Kelly was having a difficult time grasping the idea that everything is simultaneously in motion, rather than sequentially in motion. Here again she made the case for the clutch acting as an on-off switch, either pushing on the pinions or simply spinning in place. Her voice trailed off at the end of this sentence as she struggled to grasp what Alice was saying. She had nevertheless raised an important point: although the clutch is not an on-off switch, it does lift off of the pinion pins. So how, then, is power transmitted to the rest of the mechanism? ALICE: So then the transmission must be by these [she points to splines on the gear ring]. This (gear ring) making this (planet cage) turn …

Alice suddenly saw the missing piece of the puzzle: the clutch reverses the power transmission within the mechanism when it changes positions. Her previous notion of ‘clutch’ was broadened to include Kelly’s idea that it transfers power to the pinion pins in third gear, but it does something else when it moves to second gear. That ‘something else’ is a transfer of power to the gear ring, reversing the power transmission between third gear (i.e. from planet cage to gear ring) and first gear (i.e. from gear ring to planet cage). The Limitations of Language as Basis for Problem Solving Problem solving in the example described above was the result of a locatable social event characterised by friction between individuals who struggled to describe their mental representations of objects and processes. Alice and Kelly experienced a great deal of trouble talking about what they saw happen inside the Sturmey Archer AW-3. That said, it was only in trying to understand one another that they were able to identify the shortcomings in their own mental models. Tactile and visual perception may be the easiest ways to come to understand physical objects, but they are not necessarily correct in their first draft. Discussion in the workshop is a way of ironing out these internal misunderstandings. In conclusion, let me begin again with the assertion that, because of inherent limitations of language, there are ways of knowing that cannot be expressed aloud in words: for example, the fleeting singularity of boy, blue shirt and running as a single experience. As we saw with the differences of opinion about the clutch in the workshop example, though, our ability to understand multiple events and

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qualities of objects simultaneously does not mean that we immediately understand every object or action correctly. The ways of understanding that precede language may produce lucid conceptions of complex mechanical processes, but they do not guarantee them. Just like we can state an incorrect fact about the world with words, so, too, can we conceptualise something incorrectly without them. This is where a unique activity in craftwork (especially in apprenticeship or other kinds of social-craft education) comes into play. Unlike Dostoevsky’s drunks, who were presumably practiced in the many senses of the profane word they were playing with, new mechanics do not possess a particularly well-developed sense of components. At the beginning of a class on the Sturmey Archer AW-3, should the trainee-mechanic hear the name of a component before having had any physical experience of it, his/her understanding of the sense of the word would be devoid of any perceptual experience of the object to which it relates. As their understanding of the sense of the word develops, there will be moments where the individual erroneously associates certain qualities with the object. This is what was demonstrated in the close reading of the dialogue between Kelly and Alice. Craftspeople whose understanding of their materials is incomplete will run into problems. At the point in time when the conversation was recorded, Kelly would not have been able to diagnose faults with second or third gear because her understanding of the clutch initially excluded a crucial fact about how these gears work: namely, that power transmission moves in a counter-intuitive direction. Had a problem like this arisen in a workshop rather than a teaching environment, she would have had to explain to another mechanic what the problem was, and almost certainly would have been misunderstood. Her words would have been without meaning; they would not function to instantiate in both speakers a shared understanding of the world. This confusion would have sent her back to the tool bench to deepen her sense of ‘clutch’, and thereby solve two problems: her own misunderstanding and, eventually, the patron’s sticky second gear. When I initially considered writing this chapter, I was unsure whether I had much to say about problem solving in the bicycle workshop. At first glance, there seemed to be few problems. Bicycles are brought into the workshop; mechanics chat and tinker and argue; bicycles are sent off, repaired. Upon taking a closer look, I saw that the social habit of work in the mechanics’ workshop is a kind of ‘group problem solving’ in and of itself. We come to know mechanical components with our hands because words are an awkward tool for the job. Yet what we know with our hands can be limited and, at times, incorrect, necessitating spoken dialogue – a dense and sometimes confusing sort of dialogue – in order to check our concepts and understandings against those of others. This friction between mechanics’ competing ways of knowing is an on-going analytical social process, continuously complicated by the introduction of new junior mechanics, unfamiliar components, and unusual parts failures. Through this dialogue, we come to know the craft together, deepening our individual conceptions of the world and performing work that we would be unable to perform individually.

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Acknowledgements Special thanks to the staff of the Broken Spoke Bike Co-operative in Oxford for allowing me to teach and record the Sturmey Archer class quoted here. Further thanks to Leksa Nall who provided the fantastic technical illustrations. Bibliography Airplane! (1980). Motion picture, Paramount Pictures, USA. Marchand, T.H.J. 2010. ‘Embodied Cognition and Communication: studies with British fine woodworkers’, in Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, special issue T. Marchand (ed.) Making Knowledge, pp. S100–S120. Vygotsky, L. 1934. ‘Thought and Word’, chapter 7 in Thinking and Speech. Available at http://www.marxists.org/archive.

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Chapter 4

Crafting Solutions on the Cutting Edge of Digital Videography Peter Durgerian

Introduction: The Craft of Film and Video Editing I remember the rasping touch of my grandfather’s hands, his skin cracked and dried by the caustic chemicals used in the process of photoengraving. Like many Armenian immigrants, he took up the photoengraving trade when he arrived in New York City around the time that the Titanic sunk. I remember, too, the smell of solvent on my father’s white lab coat when he came home from work at the medical laboratory of the Veteran’s Hospital in Albany, New York. At some point, possibly while nursing the cuts on my own fingers after first handling celluloid film and using cutting blocks, I realised that I had followed in their footsteps. We are (and were) technicians, and our work involves taking images and substances in hand and making them usable in another format, either as images on a printed page, as data that can be used to diagnose disease, or, in my case, as parcels of light that flicker across a small screen. Throughout our lives, the work we do (and did) with our hands changes through invention and technical innovation. For my grandfather, a major change came with the increasing use of electromechanical engraving machines; for my father, it was the Autoanalyzer which mechanised the analysis of medical samples; and for me, it was the introduction of computer based, non-linear digital editing technology. It is tempting to sentimentalise the hands-on nature of the work that three generations of men in my family undertook, but I would hazard a guess that my grandfather would have preferred soft, smooth hands. I’m pretty sure that my grandmother would have felt the same. My dad might have enjoyed his food a bit more without the constant assault that reagents and reactants made on his olfactory organs. In my case, I find contentment in the fact that I can edit videos in the comfort of my own home rather than commute to a soulless room with videotape machines piled to ceiling height. Technological advances solve some problems, and simultaneously create new ones. The first celluloid films, made in the 1890s, were shot with one camera that had a fixed focal-length lens (i.e. no zoom), and from one point of view and in a wide shot. It was, for all practical purposes, a tool for recording theatrical performance.

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Filmmakers were quick to address the limitations of this method. By the second decade of the twentieth century, films were being shot from different angles with a variety of shot sizes and editing had become an integral part of the evolving language of the cinema. This language is still developing at great speed. For the new generation of ‘digital natives’, communication in image and sound may supersede written and spoken language and become their ‘native tongue’. Early film editing was a multi-step process: the celluloid camera negative was developed and then reprinted onto another reel of film. These ‘rushes’ were then cut and spliced by an editor who usually worked to a plan set out by the director. The negative was then cut to match, and an ‘answer print’ was made for projection. Much of this work was done by hand. With the advent of videotape technology in the 1950s and 60s, the use of ‘telecine’ was established. The filmed images were transferred to video, and the editing was done by copying shots and sequences from one machine to another. This process is called ‘linear analogue video editing’: linear because the sequence had to be assembled from start to finish, and analogue because of the physical nature of recording the images and sound onto videotape. With the advent of digital video, the racks of play and record machines gave way to banks of hard drives onto which mainly analogue video footage was ‘digitised’. In digital format, the footage could be manipulated by complex software programmes that made it possible to edit in a ‘non-linear’ fashion. Sequences could be endlessly reconfigured, almost instantaneously, and without losing quality. We are now at the point where images and sound can be directly recorded in digital formats to solid state drives and cards. Tens of thousands of hours of video will fit on memory cards that would half-fill a box which used to contain a one-hour reel of two-inch videotape. The data on those cards can be transferred virtually over wireless networks, directly from the point of shooting to an editing station halfway around the world. The cut-and-paste capabilities of contemporary non-linear digital video editing have rendered the process much like word processing, but with sound and images. It lends itself more readily to trial-and-error experimentation than traditional film and video editing in which much time was spent over each transition. Now, it is practically instantaneous. It is difficult to imagine that any contemporary editors would ever want to return to the pre-digital days. Editing is essentially an exercise in problem solving. The task is to assemble a sequence by choosing and ordering images and sound from a larger body of source material that is sometimes ten, twenty, or even a hundred times the length of the final programme. In some cases, the scripting and filming, along with the creation of graphics, text, dialogue, music, and sound effects, may be meticulously planned and executed, and the material logged and organised impeccably. The job of editing, therefore, simply entails ordering the material as laid out in the script. Under these conditions, the problem encountered most often by the editor is the challenge of staying awake and keeping motivated in order to complete the job. But in my experience, few edit jobs are like that. More typically, there is a reasonably

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clear, but not overly-finessed, idea of how the finished programme should look. The programme length, too, will be predetermined, but with some flexibility. The editor may or may not have had a hand in creating the original footage material; but, in any case, the suitability and quality of that material for the purposes of the finished programme may be variable. For example, some images might be out of focus or have been shot with an inappropriate colour cast; segments of the sound recording may be unusable due to background noise, or there may be very little to work with in the way of shot logging. Additionally, the editor’s ideas for the programme’s style and content may contrast with the vision of the one or more people whom he/she is collaborating with or working for. A whole different range of problems arises in the process of choosing images and sounds, and ordering them into a unique sequence – a process which, at best, can be both purposeful and playful; or, at worst, can be vexing and fraught with difficulties. In my 35 years as a videographer, I have seen problems arise in all stages of the production process. Expansions in the number of techniques used in sound and image production compounded by the sheer pace of technological change have increased the number of problems and solutions. And so, too, has the pressure to be innovative. ‘We’ll Fix It in Post’ The democratisation of film and video production and the advent of portable cameras have meant a shift away from the Hollywood sound stage, where highly-trained technicians work in controlled studio environments, towards more spontaneous location shooting. The idiom, ‘We’ll fix it in post’, is uttered increasingly when something goes wrong on a shoot that is too complicated or that is going to take too much time to sort out on the spot. These troubles occur usually because either there is an absence of technical know-how or there is a persistent problem within the filming environment. As a result, the editor will have to solve the problem in the post-production stage. Hearing the director utter, ‘We’ll fix it in post’, while previewing the 23rd take, makes an editor’s heart sink. In my case, I usually shoot the material that I will later edit. So, hearing my own voice recorded in the footage saying ‘Fix it in post’ is like a self-inflicted wound. I therefore try to avoid it, if at all possible. An example of a problem encountered frequently in my work is the boom microphone creeping into the top of the shot. In contrast to feature films in which the dialogue track is often overdubbed after the final edit is made, those of us shooting low-budget dramas must rely on the resourcefulness of the sound recordist on location. In order to achieve a relatively clean recording in a noisy environment, the sound recordist must get the microphone as close as possible to the subject – and sometimes the microphone finds its way into the frame. With digital technology, however, it has become relatively easy to replace backgrounds or alter on-screen images in post-production. The solution for the ‘appearing

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microphone’ is often quite simple. I find a shot where the boom is out of frame, and I digitally copy-and-paste the relevant section of that shot over the boom when it appears in a frame. If need be, I can move that copied section to a different location in each frame of video as required. In some cases, it is impossible to get a clean sound recording on location, especially if there are interested passers-by. I was once shooting in a large park on the outskirts of a seaside town that has its fair share of resident eccentrics. One of these was a man who had a fan-propelled hang-glider that he flew along the beach. The film scene was of a father and son who, while picnicking in the park, were interrupted by a recently-escaped gorilla that took an unwelcome interest in their food. On the first take, just as our gorilla-suited actor emerged from the undergrowth and approached the picnic blanket, we heard the noisy ‘fan glider’ overhead. Once the hang-glider had spotted the gorilla, he would not leave us alone to film the scene. Additionally, every dog being walked in the park had to investigate this strange furry creature in turn: one tried to mate with the gorilla suit, and another urinated on the actor’s leg. Although we weren’t shouting ‘fix it in post’ while shaking our fists at the noisome airborne intruder, the phrase was uttered at some point during the takes. Eventually we sent the gorilla off on a bicycle and the hang-glider followed, thereby giving us a chance to shoot some of the scene in peace and quiet.

Figure 4.1

‘You’re in for a big surprise!’ Scene from The Thief, Helbling Languages, Austria, 2009.

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In post-production, we managed to assemble a soundtrack from bits and pieces of dialogue that were shot at the time and some recorded later in the same location. Digital technology allowed us to speed-up or slow-down the audio very slightly without changing the pitch. This made it easier to synchronise the dialogue we had recorded after the fact, and I was also able to tidy-up the scene by copying-andpasting a sample of digital gorilla fur over patches of dog slobber on the costume. Invention is the Mother of Necessity In any creative endeavour, there is pressure to be innovative. The pressure can either come from without or within. Innovation, by its nature, presents problems. In digital video editing, some such problems arise from the development of new technologies that propagate the number of available choices and the accompanying decisions to be made. Classic film and video was shot with either a single camera moved to different places to record the same scene repeated, or multiple cameras recording a single one-off scene. With fairly strict rules concerning the angles of shots and the direction of movement, continuity editing had the effect of making the transitions between shot angles naturalistic and invisible. An editor’s task was to find the right sequence of shots that would retain the continuity of movement, and that also fit within the overall pacing of a scene. Experimental filmmakers often broke these rules. But, with the advent of MTV in the 1980s and the resulting proliferation of music videos, a style that embraced a fast-cutting, free-for-all of images became increasingly acceptable in mainstream cinema and television. Jump cuts, shots taken from a wide variety of angles, and changes in location and costume within the same scene, were all admissible, especially if there was a soundtrack (i.e. the song) that imposed a sense of continuity. Editors solved the problem of abundant choice by allowing the ‘rhythm’ of the edits to trump the procession of expected images. There are now so many different ways to record sound and images that, as an editor, I sometimes feel like I am viewing the world through the compound eyes of a house-fly. Filmmaker’s can now launch a blitzkrieg of coverage on their film subject, using inexpensive handheld camcorders, tiny HD cameras mounted on drone helicopters, mobile phones and tablets, CCTV, helmet mounted GoPros, DogCams, endoscopes, and even high-definition recording binoculars. The problem of how to assemble the material produced by all of these different sources, each with its own distinct style and point of view, poses an exciting challenge, but perhaps one best left to the digital natives! Solutions That Last: The ‘Cutaway’ Early filmmakers were restricted to using a large immovable camera that recorded a single wide-view of the action. Because of the static perspective, the novelty soon

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wore off and audiences possibly decided that live theatre was more compelling than these early films. These filmmakers, however, were innovators by nature, so they experimented by editing closer shots of the same action into the wider picture. In George Albert Smith’s Grandma’s Reading Glass and Through a Telescope, both made in 1900, various objects appear as if seen through a large magnifying glass and telescope. Cutting to action within the wider frame was soon followed by cuts to actions that were happening simultaneously, but that were not present in the preceding frame. This marked the advent of the ‘cutaway’. The cutaway has come to serve a number of purposes, including masking an absence of continuity, joining wider shots taken from different angles, and expanding and condensing time within a scene. Therefore, from my perspective, the cutaway is an example of how a solution to either a ‘one-off’ or recurring problem can evolve to become an integral part of normal working practice. It could also be used to create a comical visual effect, as I found out when I worked as the story editor of a BBC comedy show during the mid-1990s. In our television programme, The Staggering Stories of Ferdinand de Bargos, we pieced together unrelated clips of both drama and documentary archive film to create a fictional storyline. We then commissioned actors to re-voice the onscreen characters with scripted and ad-libbed lines to create our new ‘staggering’ stories. One of the problems we faced was how to connect the multiplicity of footage available to us, including archive black-and-white material, colour film, documentary sequences, drama episodes, vox pop (i.e. an interview with members of the general public), and newsreels. We needed to create a coherent story that ‘read’ visually and flowed smoothly enough for the viewer to grasp the majority of verbal jokes that were interspersed throughout the programme. Our cause was helped by the fact that many of our viewers had grown up with MTV. Wherever we could, we identified edit points in the footage that displayed an action or movement that could be linked with otherwise unrelated bits of film: for example, a person raising their arm to point at something could be cut to a shot of a rising car-park barrier. We used re-voiced vox pops to punctuate the chaos of visuals. These had the added advantage of containing narrative that coincidentally explained the twists and turns in our contrived storylines. One of our mainstays was the cutaway. Whenever a character turned to look in a different direction, we could insert a cutaway that was typically unconnected to the preceding or the following shot. We discovered that we could create a lot of laughs by using cutaways in this manner. For example, imagine two characters from a black-and-white film noir drama engaged in intense conversation. As the dubbed voices speak about the vagaries of the commodity markets, one proclaims, ‘nothing is predictable in this day and age’, and the character on film turns to witness a colour cutaway of kangaroos holding tennis rackets. The episode then cuts back to the film noir scene as the second character says in dubbed voice, ‘I see what you mean’. I believe that our use of cutaways in this way worked because the unpredictable nature of the sequencing challenged viewers’ conventional expectations of how

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scenes should link up. As we began using non-linear digital editing technology, our willingness to experiment grew. This was partly because it was now possible to view and review edits instantaneously; and, because of that, to experiment with numerous possible alternatives. Sometimes it was impossible to find an effective link between clips or a suitable cutaway, so the story indeed ‘staggered’, and it was only through repeated viewing that it became intelligible. This perhaps explains why much feedback from viewers contained phrases like, ‘after watching the episode for the fifth time, I realised how much I liked it!’ Kill Your Darlings Film editors are often focused on technical problems that crop up. But, like in any craft that involves working with others, there is always potential for problems related to interpersonal issues. Depending on where they are arriving from, some people travel with luggage, others don’t – but everyone carries baggage. A client or colleague might turn up riding a wave of emotional crisis that affects their attitude towards the task at hand. The editor, too, might be having a bad day. I was once making a promotional video for a music performer whom I know and like. I was pleased with the material we had shot of him and his band. I had contributed a number of ideas during the shoot and I had some favourite bits of the material, as did the performer. The trouble was that our respective favourite bits had little in common. Determined to show that I was right, I pushed ever harder against his wishes. We eventually paused for a break, and he explained for the first time – or at least the first time that I had heard – that the intention of the piece was to show, as near as possible, a live performance. By contrast, the scenarios that I was creating looked staged and contrived. I realised then that I was making the video that I wanted, not the one that the performer needed. I sent the performer away for a few hours, and, when he returned, I showed him an edit that was much closer to what he had envisaged. He had also reflected a little, and could now see the possibilities in the material that I liked. He suggested that we put a few of those shots back in. We came to see each other’s point of view, and compromised. In the end, however he still did not have the video that he needed. I solved that problem by shooting a live performance and making a clip without doing any editing at all. We’re All in This Together; or, At Least We’re Not Alone Problem solving results in learning. A film editor’s feedback about the problems of a new piece of software finds its way to other editors, and eventually back to software developers who will seek solutions and build them into subsequent versions of the editing programmes. The establishment of internet-based forums and message boards has encouraged the creation of communities that are fundamentally based

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around problem solving. I learned much of what I know about the video editing software that I currently use by reading posts on the website of the Los Angeles Final Cut Pro Users Group (LAFCPUG), and perusing advice and information posted by the renowned Final Cut Pro guru, Ken Stone. If the first step to solving a problem is realising that there is one, then, in my estimation, the second step is to share it – and preferably with someone who has a good idea of what the solution might be. Take a Break Problems don’t always have to be solved through concentration and hard graft. Non-linear digital video editing is so immediate, and so engaging, that the process can inhibit the creation of ‘thinking time’ or even ‘stargazing time’. This may be why some old-style film editors found it a challenge to give up cutting and sticking celluloid strips together: they missed working with their hands and, by extension, giving their brains a break. Studies in psychology show that problem solving can be achieved during down time, as well (c.f. Yang et al., 2012). Taking a short to medium-length break allows unconscious processes to work in the background and, sometimes, solutions seem to pop into one’s head. The key, then, is to hold the thought and get back to work soon enough to execute the solution. When I face a particularly sticky, non-linear digital editing problem, I remind myself that a utopian world is not one without problems, but rather one where everyone is involved in, and gains satisfaction from, finding solutions to the problems that are an inevitable part of life. Then I take a break and solve the damn thing. Bibliography Yang, H., A. Chattopadhyay, K. Zhang, and D.W. Dahl 2012. ‘Unconscious creativity: When can unconscious thought outperform conscious thought?’ in Journal of Consumer Psychology, 22(4):573–81.

Chapter 5

Mastering Mimicry: Strategies of Transference in Print-Based Art1 Jenn Law

Empire Building The starting point for my engagement with print-based strategies of mimetic transference is Luis Camnitzer’s essay Printmaking, A Colony of the Arts (2006). In this, he described from an ‘insider’ perspective, the social, historical and psychological processes by which printmaking has come to be marginalised by larger art world forces and artistic media. At once impassioned champion of print and fierce critic of its self-pigeon-holing parochial leanings, Camnitzer did not hold any punches, writing ‘When I refer to colony, I mean it quite literally: as a territory taken over by another power, where identity is maimed and slowly forgotten, values are shifted and the will for independence becomes ritualized into an increasingly empty and hopeless vow’ (2011: 102). As an anthropologist and a practicing print-based artist, I have researched and written about art and colonialism in a variety of historical and social contexts, most notably in relation to Africa and the Caribbean. Camnitzer’s description of the medium of print itself as a colony of the arts resonates deeply with me on a personal level as an artist. While he employed this analogy largely as a conceptual device in order to comment on print’s current side-lined status in the contemporary art world, the history of print processes and technology more broadly is intimately entangled with that of colonialism in a very real way. With the development of moveable type printing technology in the fifteenth century, the way in which knowledge was manufactured, packaged and circulated globally was fundamentally transformed. Print quickly became a radical agent of nation and empire-building, extending the imperial reach of competing European sovereignties across vast geographic and temporal boundaries, while simultaneously becoming a revolutionary means to challenge and subvert such colonial power structures from the margins of empire. While print’s history may be inextricably entangled with political powerbroking and the quest for world domination, its role in the contemporary art world has been decidedly less domineering by comparison, plagued by the very characteristics that made it such an effective agent of social transformation to begin with – that is, its mimetic capacity for repetition and imitation. Linked in 1 Sections of this chapter are published in Tara Cooper and Jenn Law (forthcoming).

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popular perception with commercialism, mechanical reproduction, and (sometimes self-inflicted) technological ghettoism, printmaking, as Camnitzer lamented, ‘is probably the best example of the conquest of technical fundamentalism over the creative freedom of art making’. This, he explained, is primarily a result of the ‘colonial thinking’ of printmakers themselves for whom making prints becomes the primary task, with art as a ‘miraculous by-product’ (2011: 102–3). Colonies, however, are notoriously difficult to suppress indefinitely, and often the most epic of battles are fought from the margins. Certainly, print seems perfectly positioned to stage its own revolution in the contemporary art world. By its very nature, printmaking lends itself to experimentation with new methods, materials, and technologies, and has long involved the marriage of traditional processes with new media. Moreover, printmaking is not a singular practice, but rather an umbrella term encompassing a diverse and complex set of processes and technologies. Regularly spoken of as a ‘culture’, printmaking is a true social media firmly rooted in a history of skilled collaboration and networks of knowledge exchange – between masters and apprentices, and between printmakers and artists from diverse disciplines and media backgrounds (c.f. Pratzker, 2000). The boundaries of the discipline have been defined and consistently challenged by such ongoing exchanges, and it is this network of ‘sympathetic’ connections that I am most interested in exploring here. I set out in part to consider the ways in which print-based knowledge is applied and extended into a broader artistic practice. From a pedagogical perspective, I propose that contemporary printbased practice be approached not simply as an assortment of technological skills to be acquired and employed, but should also be understood as a set of aesthetic and conceptual problem-solving strategies that may be transferred across diverse media. In contemplating the question ‘When does this becomes that?’,2 I extol print’s chameleon-like ability to simultaneously mimic and inform other disciplines, while remaining faithful to a distinctly graphic ‘printerly’ outcome. Transference Rooted in mimesis and repetition, transference is a particularly apt term for discussing print-based strategies and the movement of images, processes, and ideas from one surface or media to another. In the most basic terms, transference references a shifting from here to there; a conversion of this into that. In both biology and cultural studies, transference is a term associated with ‘memes’ or systems of behaviour passed on from one individual or organism to another through evolutionary processes of adaptation, imitation, reproduction, and

2 This question, posed by contemporary print-based artist Barbara Balfour in her exhibition text (2010), has become a dominant theme in Cooper and Law (forthcoming), in which Balfour is a contributor.

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inheritance. In psychoanalysis, transference refers to the process of redirecting desire to a substitute and is defined by both repetition and repression. While transference may indicate the physical action of moving an image from a matrix to another surface, it may also be understood as a conceptual and/or applied approach to making art, involving the application of past experience and skills in one area of knowledge to another. Transference in this sense represents a snowballing of knowledge, a building upon that which existed before. In cognitive science, this process is often referred to as ‘combinatory play’, a term that may be credited to Albert Einstein who wrote that it ‘seems to be the essential feature of productive thought’ (1995). Here, creativity is believed to lie in the ability to make (often unconscious) connections between seemingly unrelated things, and actively synthesise this knowledge into one’s specialised practice. Making art is, in part, about negotiating rules – both those defined by the artist and those imposed by the art world at large. Some rules are publicly articulated in order to frame a work aesthetically and/or conceptually, setting specific, measurable parameters as a contextual frame of sorts. Sometimes the rules are the meaning. Other rules, however, remain privately articulated, defining for the artist both the limits and potential of engagement – the boundaries of the work – in the process of creating. Knowing the rules is not always essential for the interpretation or enjoyment of the work by the viewer, but may be nevertheless important to the labour of creating the work and the decision-making involved therein (i.e. Why do this and not that?). Often the rule is to break the rules. This happens across media. But what can print specifically teach artists about creative problemsolving, material practice and making art? Print conveys important lessons about time and timing, momentum and rhythm, and the value of building layers and working with repeatable modules or components. To be skilled at printmaking requires meticulous preparation and organisation, a thorough understanding of the equipment and materials, and an embodied knowledge of technical process that can only be mastered over time through practical experience. The Problem with Fidelity Mastery in relation to printmaking has a long and established history grounded in a very specific set of technological and pedagogical traditions. Historically, the technical knowledge of printmaking was generationally passed down from master to apprentice in ateliers or vocational schools run by artisanal families and protected by trade guilds. Such knowledge was traditionally male-dominated, highly guarded, and shrouded in secrecy, even between master and apprentice, with technical knowledge acquired largely through years of practice and example, rather than verbal instruction. The role and education of the master printmaker has changed dramatically over the past century. Technological developments in industrial printing and the introduction of automated commercial printing presses

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have corresponded with a marked decline in print ateliers and apprentice-style training programs.3 Today, many artists increasingly seek print training through college and university programs as part of acquiring a degree or general diploma in fine art. Few artists working in print media formally qualify as certified master printers, and those who do often specialise in one area of print, for example lithography or intaglio. Certainly there are differences between becoming a formally trained master printer who predominantly prints for other artists, and becoming an artist who wishes to master specific print-based techniques to forward their own artistic practice. As new ways of learning and making take hold, perhaps an expanded notion of mastery is warranted. Here, I am not aiming to overturn a traditional understanding of mastery, but rather to expand upon it. Mastery, of course, requires a certain measure of dedicated focus learned mimetically over time, which in turn allows for an instinctual awareness-in-action to develop. Traditionally, mastery is believed to demand fidelity. But I wonder if we might acknowledge a form of mastery that is decidedly more promiscuous, defined precisely by its ability to navigate across boundaries, subjects, disciplines, and practices, and ultimately transfer the lessons acquired from one process into the learning of another? In his essay The Task of the Translator, Walter Benjamin asked: ‘What can fidelity really do for the rendering of meaning?’ (1999: 78). Here, I will shift Benjamin’s question of fidelity from the realm of translation to the realm of transference, to ask: What can fidelity do for the mastery of knowledge? In some ways, I am simply defending the virtues of a multidisciplinary approach to research and making. But, in doing so, it is worth emphasising that knowledge production is a hybrid, shifting, collaborative exercise that does not always adhere to disciplinary boundaries. Accordingly, anthropologist and architect Trevor Marchand maintained that ‘[m]aking knowledge … is an ongoing process shared between people and with the world. Knowledge is in constant negotiation, it is not fixed or a priori to one object or thing’ (2010: s1). Along these lines, literary critic Marjorie Perloff contended that, ‘because of changes brought on by technology and the Internet, our notion of genius [or, I might add, “master”] as a romantic isolated figure is outdated. An updated notion of genius would have to centre around one’s mastery of information and its dissemination’ (in Goldsmith, 2011: 1). Fellow literary theorist Kenneth Goldsmith took up this idea in Uncreative Writing (2011), arguing that strategies of appropriation traditionally thought to fall outside the scope of literature (cutting, collaging, databasing, programming, and even plagiarising), may open up possibilities for reinventing writing. In considering the work of Perloff, Goldsmith noted that she ‘has coined a term, moving information, to signify both the act of pushing language 3 There are a few notable exceptions, including the Tamarind Institute of Lithography in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Crown Point Press for intaglio in San Francisco, California.

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around as well as the act of being emotionally moved by that process. She posited that today’s writer resembles more a programmer than a tortured genius, brilliantly conceptualizing, constructing, executing, and maintaining a writing machine’ (2011: 1–2). Similarly, a revised notion of ‘master’ in a print context, might well refer to an individual who expertly manipulates knowledge across fields; Perloff’s master of information and its dissemination. In order to illustrate how transference is enacted in a practical sense, I will discuss the work of four Toronto-based artists, including myself, who actively employ print-based strategies in the making of multimedia work, and in so doing reveal the porosity of disciplinary boundaries. History Machines Matt Donovan and Hallie Siegel are collaborative artists who are not formally trained as printmakers, yet they regularly employ strategies inherent to print media, culture, and history in their work. They refer to their sculptures as ‘History Machines’, their short-hand term for an ongoing conversation engaging historical shifts in communication trends and knowledge circulation, spanning the oral age through the print era into the contemporary digital revolution (Donovan and Siegel, website). In their first solo show in 2007 in Toronto, Donovan and Siegel produced a series of artefacts indexing the tensions inherent to radical shifts and innovations in information technologies, caught at the moment of transition. This liminal angst is made manifest in Impressions (2005), consisting of two interlocking magnesium plates, each cast with a section of dialogue from Plato’s Phaedrus, in which Socrates debates with Phaedrus the merits and pitfalls of oral speechwriting versus the written word. Each plate is a stamping mould of the other, bearing both sides of the debate in two running columns, alternately embossed and debossed, so that they fit together perfectly. The maquette is both a monument to the written word and a memorial to the loss that inevitably accompanies technological innovation. While Impressions marks the shift from the oral to the print era, Self-Printing Book (2004) prophesises the dawning of the digital age. Machined in brass, this book is a ‘sculptural edition’ of Vannevar Bush’s 1945 essay As We May Think. This post-war text was a call to scientists to take stock of the past and turn their future attentions to the massive task of developing networks of communication and information exchange in order to make scientific research more widely accessible. A visionary gesture towards the digital age, As We May Think is commonly cited as one of the earliest projective descriptions of personal computers, scanning devices, fax machines, hypertext, and the internet. Each left-hand page is a printing mould of its right-hand readable counterpart, so that when the page is turned, the book appears to print itself. Undermined by the same technology imagined within its pages, this is a book heralding the end of the print era and effectively enacting its own demise with each reading.

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Matt Donovan and Hallie Siegel (with original poetry by Gregory Betts), Haikube, ebony, edition of 3, 2005. Size: 3″ (l) × 3″ (w) × 3″ (h). Photo by Matt Donovan and Hallie Siegel.

Donovan and Siegel repeatedly create objects that appear to take over their own reproduction; that is, the self-fulfilling object is the machine. In this vein, the duo produced an exquisitely carved ebony-wood Haikube (2008), each individual component of which is carved with Haiku-inspired syllabic fragments ultimately composing six original commissioned poems by poet Gregory Betts. Modelled on a Rubik’s Cube, each turn of the cube results in a new three-line poem. A twist on Japanese woodblock printing and traditional poetry, the Haikube is capable of manufacturing endless varied editions, produced from a singular multifaceted matrix. Petits Genres One of the aspects of print-based culture that most intrigues Donovan and Siegel is its propensity for ‘fixing’ information and temporally suspending knowledge in a specific historicised moment. In their most recent exhibition Petits Genres (2012), they set out to reveal this as an elaborate illusion, exploring the tenuous ‘links between different forms of artistic representation – painting, sculpture and the printed word’ (Donovan and Siegel, website).

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The largest work in the show, Landscape, was a three-dimensional installation of a passage from John Steinbeck’s 1938 novel The Grapes of Wrath. Filling the entire back half of the gallery, Landscape was composed of a series of carefully clustered and scaled groupings of text near-invisibly suspended in space. A description of a dust storm, the work appeared as a perfectly justified paragraph of text against the ‘blank page’ of the gallery wall from only one perfect vantage point. Inverting the strategies of a landscape painter, Donovan and Siegel employed reverse perspective so that from this singular point, what is 3D in real space appeared to the eye to be 2D. However, as the viewer moved around and walked through the work, the text shifted and broke apart, as if enacting the storm itself. Working in graphic components allowed the artists to tease apart natural groupings of words that, once isolated, took on new poetic emphasis. Doing so altered the rhythm and patterns of reading and created subtle fluctuations and nuances in meaning with every shift in perspective, allowing sympathetic connections to be revealed that may have otherwise been missed. Landscape was accompanied by a series entitled Portrait Project, comprised of three printed poems presented alongside three cylindrical wooden rollers seemingly made for hand-printing, each roller bearing one of the poems in inverted relief. As with Landscape, the artists invited the viewer to consider these works as paintings, since both landscape and portraiture have been genres historically associated with painting. Indeed, the exhibition title Petits Genres alludes to the historical hierarchies between various genres. From an art historical perspective, seventeenth- and eighteenth-century petits genres were perceived as being inferior to the grand genre of history painting because they were considered vernacular reportage, devoid of moral force. In this context, petits may be conceived as alluding to print’s ‘lesser’ status in the art world, and its reputation as the poor cousin or handmaiden of painting. However, in Donovan and Siegel’s exhibition, the viewer was invited to consider these printed works as something greater. Like much of their work, Petits Genres dealt with thresholds, teasing out the precarious tipping point at which one thing may become another. Extended Gestures Multimedia artist Penelope Stewart has similarly built her practice on pursuing connections across disciplinary fields and media. She has developed a way of working that combines strategies from both sculpture and printmaking, recently extended into artisanal handcrafted architectural installations. Stewart takes a phenomenological approach to making, building her sensory structures in a decidedly printerly fashion, layer by layer, module by repeated module, in order to create a temporally and spatially embodied experience of the work. The starting point for such projects is often found in architectural fragments and graphic details, focused and isolated and then recombined into new visual language patterns and contexts.

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In 2005, Stewart created Canopy, a screenprinted diaphanous veil printed with images of neo-Gothic ribbed groin vaulting in charcoal ink on white organza. The ethereal quality of the softly shadowed fabric belies the weight of the architectural stone detail, photographed, graphically isolated, and printed onto its surface. Over the course of a year, 500 feet of hand-printed organza was installed in various locations, inside and out, the dimensions altered and recombined in response to each space. Installed on the ceiling, as it was in Calgary and Quebec City, the work floated above like a tented sky; horizontally installed, as in Canberra and Buffalo, it acted as an encompassing shroud, cocoon-like at times, suffocating at others, hugging the walls like a voluminous skin. In Canberra, Stewart installed the work outside in the Senate Rose Garden of Australia’s Old Parliament House. Entitled Chora, the printed fabric was wrapped around a colonnaded pergola, its name a play on the fluttered whisperings created as the wind moved and caressed the fabric. There is likewise rhythm to be found in the repeated images themselves; like poetry it is reliant on timing, repetition, and cadence, the flow of one form into another. In 2006 in Buffalo, the work was erected in the derelict, decommissioned Buffalo Central Terminal. The rail station was built in 1929 in Art Deco style. Entitled Terminal, the charcoal-imaged surface seems imprinted with the sootmarked traces of faded industrial ambition, the title proclaiming the ephemerality

Figure 5.2

Penelope Stewart, Terminal, photographic screen print on organza, Central Terminal Buffalo, New York, 2006. Size: 500ft (l) × 9ft (h). Photo by Penelope Stewart.

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of all things, and the disenchantment and despair that lurks on the edges of utopian hope and urban renewal. The superimposition of one architectural image (i.e. the Gothic fragment) onto another (whether a gallery ceiling, a garden pergola, or an abandoned rail platform), conceptually and literally creates a shifting of perspective, necessitating a dialectical exchange across historical time and space. Though monumental in scale, Stewart’s wrappings transform each setting into a space of intimate reflection and commune, enveloping the viewer in what Stewart referred to as the ‘animated gesture’, which she considers central to her practice. In an unpublished interview that I conducted with her in October 2012, Stewart noted that, when she first began working in photographic screenprinting, ‘it was really important … that everything be perfect and tight, that it become photographic in such a way that there really was no evidence of the hand, that the gesture was gone’. However, conscious of the loss, she began to embrace the small imperfections that would occasionally occur in the process of printing on such a large scale (for example, organza threads that would get caught in the ink and printed), thereby giving those moments pride of place. Stewart explained that, for her, such gestural marks have become ‘part of what I always look for in print. And I always think that I don’t want to see the smoothness of the electronic. When it’s too tight it becomes more of a simulacrum of something else’. This emphasis on gesture is all the more evident in her recent wax tile work. In 2007, Stewart installed Parois in a small room at the Musée Barthète in Boussan, France. Composed of 4,000 hand-cast beeswax tiles, the work was inspired by the museum’s extensive collection of historical tiles. Cast in multiple from silicone moulds, each handmade tile remains unique, revealing slight gestural variations in texture and line, as well as colour, which changes from golden yellow to a deep honey brown depending on the age of the wax and the various pollens and nectars collected by bees from different regions. The beehive metaphor serves as a perfect conceptual frame for Stewart’s interests in modular structures and utopian idealism. Indeed, natural and manmade hives and bee skeps particularly influenced Modernist architectural design, inspiring the likes of Gaudi, Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, and Mies van der Rohe. In Apian Screen (2010), the artist mounted 15,000 tiles on three walls in the transept of the Albright-Knox Gallery’s sculpture court, depicting a spectacular blueprint of utopian urban space. The tiles are based on drawings by Chicago architect Walter Burley Griffin made for Australia’s capital city, Canberra. Reimagined and cast in high relief, the patterns read as an aerial topography of the urban landscape seen from a bee’s eye view. Ultimately, Modernist architecture, despite its commitment to egalitarian social reform, failed to create spaces that integrate the individual into the built environment. Imposing and often alienating, Modernist design falters, as Nikos Salingaros and Michael Mehaffy argued, in part because of its lack of ornamentation, claiming that ‘[o]rnament may be what humans use as a kind of “glue” to help weave our spaces together’ (2003). Stewart skilfully plays with

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such contradictions and juxtapositions of utopian idealism and its dystopic failings – transforming Modernism’s urban blueprints into patterned architectural embellishment. Tactile and overwhelmingly fragrant, her spaces are immersive by design. They are made to be touched. Even sound alters within their waxen walls, the wax muffling and diffusing ambient noise. In 2013, Stewart created a wax-tiled room at Lotusland in Montecito, California, a historic estate set on 37 acres of botanical gardens. The property was purchased in 1941 by Ganna Walska, a Polish opera singer and socialite who spent 43 years living on the site, designing unusual, theatrical garden displays. Counter to the prevailing Modernist landscaping trends at the time that tended to be minimalist and austere by comparison, Walska organised her garden into accumulated groupings of plants and objects. Influenced by Walska’s unconventional landscaping strategies, Stewart’s work was guided, as she explained, by the principles of excess, repetition, accumulation, and transformation. With such an approach in mind, the artist covered the entrance wall in close-knit huddles of wax succulents that crept around the corners of a wall of massed lotus pods hand-cast from life on one side, and a wall of perpendicularly attached waxcast architectural fragments – faucets, doorknobs, pineapple doorstops – on the other. This work was decidedly baroque in the sheer excess of ornate adornment, accumulating on the walls like growths, both natural and manmade. Protruding objects reached out, limb-like, as if they intended to eventually fill not only the walls, but the cavity of the room itself. Like many of Stewart’s installations, this was a space both comforting and suffocating, delicately poetic in its orchestrated rhythmic clusters and deafening in the sheer volume of its materiality. Entitled Daphne, the work dealt with thresholds and becoming. As told in Ovid’s Metamorphosis, the water nymph Daphne, daughter of Gaia and the River God, Pineios, is relentlessly pursued by the God Apollo whose affections she spurns. Turning to her parents for assistance, they transform her into a laurel tree as a means of escape. Stewart’s Daphne is forever caught in the moment between states. Such liminal moments of being caught between this and that, here and there, are points of both deepest anxiety and tremendous promise. For Stewart, the process of print itself has served as a threshold of sorts. She explained that, for her, print has been ‘the foundation for everything’, an originary moment of sorts to which she continuously returns. It represents an extended gesture outwards. Making Connections Similarly in my own practice, print has long served as the touchstone for my engagement with art and writing. As an artist, I work with found printed matter, as well as traditional printing techniques, including screenprinting, intaglio, and lithography. Recently, I have also begun to work with new printing technologies such as 3D printing, and I am intrigued by the ways in which developing technologies may be combined with, and inform, traditional techniques and media.

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Printmaking offers a material, tactile counterpoint to the more cerebral practice of writing and research, and I have increasingly sought connections between my philosophical interests as a writer and my material and conceptual practice as an artist. Ultimately, my relationship to text is based upon engaging the written word as a graphic object and embodied process, as well as a meaningful signifier. I am drawn to print for its mimetic capacity for replication, as well as for the technical and temporal challenges it presents. Much time is spent in both preparation and production, processes that require focus and cannot be rushed, yet become rote with repetition, affording time and opportunity to reflect on and become absorbed in the business of making. Printmaking demands patience. It takes time to grind and prepare litho stones, to etch plates, to expose screens, and this forces one to slow down and take pause in a world that otherwise seems expectant of immediate responses and driven by hurried schedules. Many print techniques require a rudimentary understanding of chemistry, and mastering the media in part depends upon one’s ability to predict and control reactions. How long should one etch a copper plate in ferric chloride? What is the optimal ratio of nitric acid to gum arabic to etch a drawing on a litho stone? How long should one photographically expose an image onto a silkscreen? Each general rule of thumb must be adapted to the specific image, the quality of line, the idiosyncrasies of the materials and equipment, etcetera. Thus, while printmaking demands fidelity to specific chemical and technological rules, the outcome retains a certain element of surprise and unpredictability. Inevitably, technical challenges arise when working in print media, and learning to troubleshoot is a skill acquired over many hours (or years) of practice. Printmakers often work collaboratively or in collective studios or print shops, and actively share advice on technical processes and problem-solving techniques. However, for this chapter, I am less inclined to discuss the specific technical obstacles in print, for that would be more of a print manual than a discussion of transference. Rather, I am interested in contemplating the ways in which artists use the multi-varied lessons learned from working in print media ‘to think’ about making. Just as writing is a means of working through certain problems and theories about how the world works, print is a way of confronting similar issues, questions, and challenges in a decidedly more material way. My artistic practice grants me applied insight into creative labour that I cannot easily learn or theorise from a book. It offers an embodied way of seeing and knowing the world that is more phenomenological than verbal. At the same time, print’s history, at least in its connection to the printing press and the evolution of book culture, is intimately connected to the practice of writing. Conceptually, my work is concerned primarily with the production of meaning. In this, mimicry and repetition – the foundations of print-based culture – are understood as fundamental to the processes of social learning and the creation of knowledge. Practically, printmaking has taught me to play with repeatable images and components and to construct work in a cumulative, layered way. I am intrigued by multiples and accumulations of images and objects, of patterns created through repetition in

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the natural world and mimed by culture. In my work, text is often embedded, collaged, and camouflaged into the structure of natural patterns, playing with the ways in which culture copies, appropriates, and is read into nature, becoming second nature. To mimic is to study closely, to simulate, or to tease through the act of impersonation. The world becomes meaningful through processes of imitation and repetition. Mimic In 2010 and 2011, I produced a series of prints that examine questions of mimicry and language through the lens of evolutionary theory and the writing and research of Charles Darwin. Darwinian theory is characterised by its attention to process and the mechanisms by which species change and adapt over time. It is, in essence, preoccupied with the question of ‘when this becomes that’. I am fascinated by the predictive aspect of evolutionary theory that speaks not only to the past, but to our desire to predict the future and how it will unfold, adapting the practice of divination into a science. For an exhibition of this work entitled Mimic, held in Toronto in 2011, I created a collection of screenprinted images largely based in graphic patterns found in the natural world. Each image is built up in layers, the individual components of which are created from separate stencils and screens. Text and objects are subsequently embedded, collaged, and camouflaged into the structure of these patterned surfaces: shadowed silhouettes of Darwin’s finches are composed from the pages of scientific texts; found phrases are woven and hand-printed onto birds’ nests; custom Letraset strands of type are hand applied onto tangled patterns of seaweed; and texts appropriated from horoscopes and evolutionary theory are hand-beaded onto tortoise shells. In these works, I attempted to disrupt the twodimensional printed image through layering and collaging text, hand-cutting and affixing objects to the surface of the image, and effectively transforming the printed edition of multiples into singular, unique works. These two-dimensional works with three-dimensional longings eventually evolved into more sculptural pieces. In Weight: Eternal Return (2011), the German phrase einmal ist keinmal, is hand-printed several hundred times, screenprinted onto paper and formed into multiples. The words are an adage, roughly translated as ‘once is never’, taken from a line in Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being, which he reads through the lens of Nietzsche’s theory of eternal return. Here, meaning is found through repetition; though, ironically, the more something is repeated, the more it comes to feel innate, embodied, and thereby obscured to meaning. Formed into barnacles, the work plays with the association of ‘weight’ with meaning, as well as temporal delays and infinite repeats in relation to the future. Individually, barnacles are barely noticeable; but taken en masse they considerably impede progress. Barnacles slow down the momentum of ships, and need to be

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regularly scraped off their hulls. Darwin spent eight years studying barnacles and published four volumes on the subject before he published On the Origin of Species in 1859. Although Darwin’s theory of evolution was well developed during this time, his famous Origin manuscript sat unpublished in his desk drawer while he strove to complete and publish his definitive study of ‘cirripedia’. Barnacles were Darwin’s weight and procrastination, but also where he found meaning in his theory. The work is accompanied by a barnacle book called Light Reading. It is made from a found text written by Norwegian psychologist Ragnar Rommetveit, titled Words, Meanings and Messages (1968). The barnacles on the cover of the volume are made from the pages within, the resulting holes in the text impeding its reading and understanding. I am slowly making an entire library of barnacle books, mimicking the laborious, protracted progress of creating a body of knowledge. The enormity of the task weighs me down. Unwritten Building on these strategies, in 2012 I produced a series of hand-cut screenprints and book work engaging the theme of writing, regret, and mortality. The work was inspired by the writing of French literary theorist Maurice Blanchot whose ideas had a major influence on post-structural philosophers, including Derrida and Foucault. I am particularly taken with Blanchot’s attempts to articulate the impulse to write or create and his interest in the relationship between writing, authorship, and death. For Blanchot, creating is always underwritten by mortality. The cornerstone of the series is a book work entitled Unwritten (2012). It takes the form of a large-scale death’s head constructed from an assemblage of hand-cut paper cicadas made from the pages of Blanchot’s The Book to Come, a collection of critical essays interrogating the future of the book and the ineffable impulse to write. Blanchot believed that, above all, it is in the process of writing that the author finds meaning and purpose; in the crafting of language itself. In Unwritten, I employ the image of the cicada as a harbinger of sorts. In classical mythology cicadas are symbolically linked to immortality and appear as background noise in Plato’s Phaedrus. Historically, during the Han Dynasty in China (206–20 ad), people were often buried with jade cicadas on their tongues to give them voice in the afterlife. But most poignant for me is a line by the novelist John Berger who wrote that cicadas ‘are the souls of poets who cannot keep quiet because, when they were alive, they never wrote the poems they wanted to’ (1991: 197). In this, they represent both a promise of an endless future and a symbol of regret; of time misspent or unfulfilled. In Unwritten, the individual cicadas are composed of 26 hand-cut pieces, each insect made from a single page from Blanchot’s volume. This body of work echoes the dual questions of possibility and impossibility, and mortality and immortality that haunt Blanchot’s writing and lie at the core of the creative process.

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Jenn Law, Unwritten (detail), hand-cut found book (Maurice Blanchot, The Book to Come), glue, stainless steel pins, 2012. Size: 50.5″ × 63″. Photo by Thomas Blanchard.

In a related piece, The Book to Come (2012), a graphically rendered photographic image of the upturned roots of a tree is screenprinted onto archival vellum. The negative space between the roots of one print is hand-cut and layered on top of another identical (uncut) print. The lace-like cut version hovers over the doubled layer beneath, separated by unseen pins and foam-core supports, thus creating a three-dimensional image from layered two-dimensional prints. In this work, the roots of a tree read as graphic pre-text, as the book that is not yet penned but on the margins of becoming. Lines, is composed of enlarged handwritten lines from an essay by Blanchot entitled Reading. The lines are screenprinted in multiple copies onto lightweight Japanese washi paper, hand-cut and piled into a tangle of repeating text, which is draped over a plinth. The words form a riddle of sorts: ‘What is a book that no one reads? Something that is not yet written’ (Blanchot, 1999: 430). It can also be read as a taunt. For me, it is a procrastination; the repetition of the lines and the material crafting of the work, becoming a proxy standing in for the thing itself (that is, the unwritten text). The theme of procrastination continues in Hour Glass, a multitude of screenprinted volumes, hand-cut and pinned three-dimensionally into place. The repeating volumes accumulate into a swirl of tasks left unfinished, books left unread or unwritten, becoming the physical markers of time running out. The density of the layered books is intended to invoke an image of a tornado, sweeping one up in its frenzied momentum. Or alternately, it may be seen as

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a bisected hourglass; an image of time paused, reduced by half. The storm of books are frozen in motion; pinned like entomological specimens behind glass, suspended in place. Library This investigation into the processes of writing naturally evolved into a material analysis of reading. Inspired in part by Jorge Luis Borge’s contention that a book is ‘an axis of innumerable relationships’ (2007: 188), my 2014 exhibition, Library, continued my examination of print culture, bibliophilia, and textuality through the close material readings of several key books in my personal library. Working with hand-cut and altered found books, 3D printed objects and lithographically printed illustrations, I set out to uncover the links between the literal and the literary, the linguistic and the visual, engaging the familiar tropes of lightness and weight and their association with the making of meaning through material practice. In both writing and drawing, the line is considered both a material trace and a conceptual conduit, capable of demarcating boundaries, establishing connections, and creating illusions. The line simultaneously reveals and conceals meaning. Here, the outline of the book acts as frame and lure, drawing us into a promise of some truth or other, so often assumed of the published, bound, and printed text. In the face of contemporary debates surrounding the purported crisis in print culture, I contemplate the future of the book, our fetishisation and attachment to its physical object-form, and our desire to collect and possess the knowledge contained therein. A ravenous and ever-growing collection, the library as a living archive – both bibliographic and biographic – exceeds its material boundaries, facilitating and revealing the connections of books, ideas, and readers across time and space. In both art and writing, I am interested in the ways in which fact moves through fiction and vice versa. Fact and truth are not necessarily co-extensive, and neither is fiction necessarily opposed to truth. Taking the form of a winged book, Unbearable Lightness plays with philosophical notions of truth, transcendence, existential meaning, and eternal recurrence. The hand-cut feathers are made from the pages of Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Set predominantly in Communist Prague during the 1960s and 70s, the novel is a story of human relationships in a time of social unrest, and the consequences of individual and collective choices. Kundera wrote: ‘History is as light as individual human life, unbearably light, light as a feather, as dust swirling into the air, as whatever will no longer exist tomorrow’ (1984: 217). The work’s counterpoint in the exhibition was The Book of Shadows, which uses Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1899) as both medium and surface for a series of cumulative pen and ink drawings. On each page of the book, from end paper to end paper, is a hand-drawn image of a snake or multitudes of snakes, rendered as inky shadow forms reminiscent of calligraphic marks on the page. Set

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during the late-nineteenth-century ivory trade in the Congo, the snake appears as a recurrent metaphor in Conrad’s novel – of the serpentine Thames of Marlow’s present, the Congo River of his past, and as a lure drawing him deeper into the depths of the African continent and the horrors of colonialism and human brutality. In The Book of Shadows, the snakes accumulate in number with every turn of the page, becoming increasingly entangled, and progressively obscuring one’s reading of the text. The snakes completely fill the page as the story reaches its climax, before gradually receding. By the end of the book, only one snake remains on the end page, curled into an ‘ouroboros’ (an image of eternal return). In much of this work, I set out to unsettle the aura of the book through acts of destruction and deconstruction; cutting into the text, writing or drawing onto the pages, transforming the book into something new. In my personal bibliophilic world, such acts (i.e. folding pages, bending spines, drawing in the margins, etc.) are taboo, and admittedly there is a sense of liberation in breaking these selfimposed rules. While such interventions do not always involve printmaking per se, they are always informed by the visual language and culture of print: in the use of found printed texts, but also in the process of employing repeatable graphic layered components. While this work may appear machine-made (i.e. laser cut), I intentionally hand-cut every piece and retain evidence of the gestural in the small variances that are often only visible from an intimate distance. In making the work, I am particularly intrigued by the idea of ‘time well spent’ and the ways in which meaning is located in repetitive, ritualised labour. Such labour may be considered ‘in excess’ of time, the purpose or value of which lies as much in the mimetic act, as in the resulting object. The Crisis in Print The tensions between hand-crafting versus mechanical reproduction, and our accompanying anxieties surrounding changing technologies, are further explored in my most recent project in which I have created two related objects (a book and a printing press) using the newest form of printing technology, 3D printing. Historically, as I noted earlier, printed book culture has its roots in the invention of moveable type printing technology, which revolutionised the way in which knowledge was produced and circulated globally. Books, which were once handcopied by scribes and predominantly in the hands of the elite, could now be printed en masse on a much larger scale and thus entered the popular realm. In Artifact, I set out to engage contemporary debates surrounding the so-called crisis in print culture and the future of the book, by 3D printing a replica of a volume by Edmund C. Berkeley, an American computer scientist who wrote one of the earliest popular publications on computers in 1949, called Giant Brains or Machines That Think. The book is open on Chapter 11, in which Berkeley imagines what the social impact of computers will mean for mankind. While Artifact appears to be a regular book, it is, rather, a carefully constructed illusion.

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The pages are printed on the surface, but do not turn; the book is open, but cannot close. Although technically printed, it is in fact unreadable. It exists solely as an art object, an artefact of sorts. As a book, it is redundant. Unlike many manufacturing processes that tend to use subtractive processes (e.g. grinding, milling, drilling, etc.), 3D printing is an additive manufacturing process, creating sculptural objects in a printerly fashion by literally building up successive layers of material.4 The object is created from a digital CAD file using a 3D modelling program or alternately from an existing object with the use of a 3D scanner. It is a technology that it rapidly evolving, and is capable of printing objects in a variety of materials including photopolymer plastics, ceramics, paper, and even food. It is even possible that in the near future, researchers may be able to 3D-print living tissue (Libson and Kurman, 2013). Currently, 3D printing is used to create industrial prototypes, machine parts, medical models and prosthetics, jewellery, art objects, and more. Artifact was printed on two different machines: a PolyJet Stratasys Objet500 Connex3 printer capable of printing high resolution images and text using an ultraviolet light to cure liquid photopolymer resin; and a uPrint SE Plus that uses FDM (fused deposition modelling), extruding melted material in layers to create a solid object in ABS thermoplastic. It took over 30 hours of printing to produce the main body of the book, and the 3D modelling software used to design and print the text treated every character as an individual 3D printed object. The resulting book was hand-assembled from six separate parts. While new technologies offer enormous creative applications for scientists, engineers, artists, and designers, they have their limitations, like any media. For example, 3D printing is not the most efficient or cost-effective means of producing multiples. However, it is quite effective at creating prototypes and objects with moveable parts. With this in mind, I created a 3D-printed miniature, fully-functional printing press, designed from blueprints for a full-size intaglio press. Here, I have employed a contemporary printing technology to reproduce a traditional printing technology. Entitled Reinventing the Wheel, the work is, in effect, a print that prints prints. It is capable of printing an infinite variety of plates. This particular plate is written in binary code, an instructional coding system of 1s and 0s used by all computers, including 3D printers. Each eight-digit string of binary code represents a single written character, which in this case translates as ‘Print Rules!’ As a self-perpetuating object, the 3D-printed press references an evolution in print culture that does not signal extinction but rather perpetuation.

4 Refer to ‘What is 3D Printing?’, http://3dprinting.com/what-is-3d-printing/ (accessed September 22, 2014).

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The End? If there is a problem to be ‘solved’ within contemporary print culture, it is how to adapt to new technologies and expand the boundaries of the discipline, while sustaining and celebrating tradition. Today, artists such as Donovan, Siegel, and Stewart test the ways in which we think both about print and with print, transferring print-specific strategies of mimesis, repetition, timing, labour and materiality across diverse media. At the end of his essay, Camnitzer predicted that the digital age will eventually bring about art that is the representation of pure vision or image, relinquishing materiality altogether; adding, in his tongue and cheek way, that printmakers will be too busy with their ‘heads in the acid tray’ to notice (2011: 107). However, if print has been remiss in the past in finding the balance between technique and vision, these days, printmakers are actively employing the lessons learned from the margins to create new visions of what print – and art more broadly – can be. Today, we witness print expanding not only the boundaries of its own territory, but actively influencing and transforming the definitions and perimeters of other media. Print has thus definitively entered the post-colonial age. Bibliography Balfour, B. 2010. A Matter of L and D. Toronto: YYZ Artists’ Outlet. Benjamin, W. (trans. Harry Zorn) 1999. ‘The Task of the Translator’, in H. Arendt (ed.) Illuminations. New York: Pimlico, pp. 70–82. Berger, J. 1991. G: A Novel. New York: Random House, Inc. Blanchot, M. (trans. Lydia Davis, Paul Auster and Robert Lamberton) 1999. ‘Reading’, in George Quasha (ed.) The Station Hill Blanchot Reader: fiction & literary essays. Barrytown, New York: Station Hill, pp. 429–36. Borge, J.L. 1964. ‘A Note on (toward) Bernard Shaw’, in J.E. Irby and D.A. Yates (eds) Labyrinths: selected stories and other writings. New York: New Directions Publishing, pp. 187–90. Camnitzer, L. 2011. ‘Printmaking: a colony of the Arts’, in The Graphic Unconscious. Philadelphia: Philagrafika, pp. 102–7. Cooper, T. and J. Law (forthcoming). ‘Notes from the Margins of Empire’, in T. Cooper and J. Law (eds) Printopolis. Toronto: Open Studio. Donovan, M. and H. Siegel, http://www.historymachines.com/ (accessed September 22, 2014). Einstein, A. (trans. Sonja Bargmann) 1995. ‘A Mathematician’s Mind’, in Ideas and Opinions. New York: Three Rivers Press, Kindle file. Goldsmith, K. 2011. Uncreative Writing. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Kundera, M. (trans. Michael Henry Heim) 1995 (1984). The Unbearable Lightness of Being. London and Boston: Faber and Faber.

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Libson, H. and M. Kurman 2013. Fabricated: the new world of 3D printing; the promise and peril of a machine that can make (almost) anything. Indianapolis, Indiana: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Marchand, T.H.J. 2010. ‘Making knowledge: explorations of the indissoluble relation between minds, bodies and environment (Introduction)’, in T. Marchand (ed.) Making Knowledge, special issue of Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, pp. s1–s20. Mehaffy, M. and N.A. Salingaros 2013. ‘Towards Resilient Architectures 3: How Modernism Got Square’, in Point of View: The Metropolis Blog, April 19, 2013. http://www.metropolismag.com/Point-of-View/April-2013/Toward-Res ilient-Architectures-3-How-Modernism-Got-Square/ (accessed September 22, 2014). Platzker, D. 2000. ‘Reconsidering the Fine Art Print in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’, in D. Platzker and E. Wyckoff (eds) Hard Pressed: 600 years of prints and process. New York: Hudson Hills Press, pp. 27–33.

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Chapter 6

From ‘In Our Houses’ to ‘The Tool at Hand’: Breaching Normal Procedural Conditions in Studio Furniture Making David Gates

Introduction: ‘By Which To’ This chapter presents an extended discussion of a practical studio research project in which I disrupted and interrogated my own embedded working practices as a studio furniture maker. The effect of those disruptions and breaches of my normal working assumptions brought into sharp focus the very suppositions on which my skilled practice is founded. I will outline the studio/workshop design process: the iterative, sequential progression from a conceptual sketch, to modelling, to working drawing. I propose that although this strategy clarifies intention and thereby reduces risk in the eventual making of the piece, it nonetheless relies on a woodworker’s ability to improvise in the ‘now’ of the working moment. Competence of this kind is grounded in the work-ecology of tools, materials, and the body, the combination of which creates the context for emergent ways of knowing. Cabinetmaking, however, is a time-consuming activity, and the results of decisions made through drawing and modelling can only be truly assessed once the piece is completed. Feedback loops of learning and development can therefore be frustratingly extended. Next, I introduce the lines of enquiry that emerged while working and that gradually led me to adopt a critical strategy centred on the agency of tools. In turn, this resulted in the practice-based project that I will describe, and its further evolution through related bodies of work. A key question emerged from my general investigations into the ways that design problems are encountered and subsequently resolved in workshop practice: What method of working might I adopt that would allow me to retain an exploratory approach that embraces risk and invites intuitive exploration of spatial arrangements and material qualities? In other words, I was seeking a way of working within the technological and bodily boundaries of cabinetmaking (i.e. retaining the material resistances and bodily engagement of an ‘actual project’), but that embraced chance and the unexpected. The chapter then moves on to describe some of the differences that I discovered between my normal ways of working and the strategies that emerged under the destabilised conditions. This penultimate section of the chapter consists of notes

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that I made during the exploration (in italicised text) and reflective notes that I made subsequently (in plain text). The objects that I made were an intermediate, hybrid output that, while reaching some kind of resolution, remained open-ended and ambiguous. They facilitated the kind of development that testing and modelling would normally allow, but produced a different kind of knowledge than the making of prototypes and maquettes. Later, as I worked on subsequent iterations of the project, it became clear to me that ‘evidence’ of how I had gone about the work was visible in the finished pieces. Because the chapter is grounded in my own experience, there is a risk that it may be read as an autobiographical diary piece. This is not my intention. By carefully reflecting on a studio project, my aim is to offer a different perspective on the practices of cabinetmaking that contribute to the idea that making is foundational to knowledge production. Despite the variety of individual practices in cabinetmaking, there are certain shared assumptions about working methods, as there are in most crafts. I wish to draw attention to such assumptions about embedded ways of working. I offer a thick description of particular aspects of cabinetmaking studio practice. The studio has received little attention as a site for critical enquiry (Hoffman, 2012: 12). The craft studio is typically presented in seductive, highly staged photographs as an arcane yet beautiful place (c.f. Sayer, 2010; Whiting, 2009). Accounts offered from sites of craft production tend largely to be instructional texts (see for example Albers, 2010; Reigger, 2010), and there are copious ‘how to’ publications in the crafts section of any actual or virtual bookshop. By contrast, Pamela Smith repositioned the workshop and artisanal knowledge as central components to the development of scientific knowledge in the early modern period (2004). By connecting historical documents with the development of new knowledge, some researchers have successfully unsettled the canonical view that craftspeople unquestioningly repeat existing solutions (Butters, 2014; WeisbergRoberts, 2014). Douglas Harper’s ethnography of a repair workshop supports the theory that new solutions are generated through active engagement with tools and materials that is oriented toward improvisation and bricolage. Trevor Marchand’s research has investigated the way that movement, posture, and bodily attitude are parsed during the close working interactions between master and novice, and he contends that ‘making things is making knowledge’ (2010: S118). Nonetheless, many other craft-focused texts from the studio tend toward the didactic and emphasise visible skill. This chapter does not aim to present an instructional text on ‘how to’, but rather to discuss the more open conditions ‘by which to’. A Design Process During the course of designing a piece of furniture, two paths of questioning and decision making continually overlap and intertwine. These concern aesthetics and

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construction, and the two are inseparable. Decisions regarding form, mass, and volume cannot be taken without considering how the piece will be assembled. At the same time, resolving how a material like wood is joined together will almost always determine how a piece looks. Considerations of aesthetics and construction are combined in sketching and modelling, which constitute the core of the design process. A key aim of the design process is to minimise future risks in realising the work. Risk is of course inherent at every turn of the making process, but by sketching and modelling, and by producing samples, maquettes, and measured drawings, many important decisions are made and problems are solved ‘aside’ or remote from the actual job. By listing sketch, model, samples, drawing, maquettes, prototype, and rod drawing in that order suggests a clean, linear progression through a number of clearly demarcated stages toward producing a final design. Real practical experience, however, is less linearly defined. While the list does reflect the general evolution of a clear intention, what in fact usually happens is more iterative and circular, one stage informing another in a gradual ‘looping forward’ of refinement. Each of these modes of activity has its particular strengths in resolving a design, and arguably it is beneficial to work more or less simultaneously in each of these different modes and media. Sketching is quick. Its very speed facilitates fast feedback as ideas are proposed and modified. A designer-maker can edit, decide, and proceed, and then he or she can return to sketching in light of further decisions. Sketching, however, cannot present the three-dimensionality of form and volume as effectively as even the most simple of models. For my own purposes, I make simple block models to a regular scale of either 1:5 or 1:10 in order to help me conceptually organise the proportion and volume of a piece. These block models do not inform the constructional details in any meaningful way; for example, how two components might be assembled or how the geometries of moving elements might be resolved. The details of such issues are more effectively worked-out and understood by producing full-scale samples and mock-ups. By using similar, but perhaps lesscostly materials, a cabinetmaker can work through ways of problem solving at full scale in the same manner that they will be executed in the actual piece. Full-scale maquettes facilitate decision-making about scale and proportion. Importantly, fullscale maquettes can be evaluated in context and comparatively related to other objects in their environment – crucially the human body that will be using and interacting with the finished piece. Throughout most of the process so far described, multiple iterations occur, working back and forth between two- and three-dimensional representations. The ‘final act’ is the production of a so-called rod drawing. The rod is a fullscale measured drawing of all of the elevations of the piece, set out on a sheet of plywood. Every element of the piece is drawn with equal attention to detail, and therefore most of the final construction details can be resolved at this stage. The rod also performs a particularly important function: it potentially removes the need for any further mathematical and geometric calculation from this point

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in the project onward. This is because all measurements of the individual timber components can be taken and marked directly from the rod. Additionally, the rod serves as the basis for translating drawn components to a cutting list. The cutting list is a document that lists each component part of the finished piece, its dimensions, and the quantity needed. The cutting list moves the job forward from the design process to physical production of the finished piece. All of the modes of activity and their corresponding media so far described are more or less defined, and each possesses its particular strengths, as well as its limitations. As part of a holistic process, each plays its part in resolving numerous problems, but no single one can serve all purposes. If a cabinetmaker is working on a one-of-a-kind piece, this manner of problem solving and decision-making activity is ongoing, from one moment in the design-and-making process to the next. I think of myself as operating in a mode of ‘perpetual prototyping’. The procession of interlinking, mutuallyinforming judgements and calibrations defy the cultural trope of craftwork as a form of repetitive, unthinking labour that endlessly reuses existing solutions. As a designer-maker navigates their way through the various modes of activity, the number of risks in the actual making decrease; but, equally, as the hours invested in a piece of cabinetwork accrue, the level of risk accumulates (in other words, the consequences of going wrong become greater). Not all problems that a cabinetmaker will confront in making the piece can be foreseen at the design stage. Intentions can be stated with some surety on the rod drawing, but the more complicated matter of ‘how’ something will be made and assembled may only become apparent once enmeshed in the making. To some extent, decisions of ‘how’ can be mitigated by the trust that an experienced cabinetmaker places in their previous experience and existing ability. No piece of furniture is so entirely different from the pieces that they will have made in the past. Prior experience will therefore inform their approach to a present problem, at least in some way. My level of reliance on assumed knowledge became apparent to me a couple of summers ago. I had employed a recent Foundation Degree furniture design student, whom I will call Dan, to assist me in the workshop. I was determined that Dan would not merely sweep the floor and make the tea. I was about to begin work on a new commission and so decided that Dan would work on it with me, from start to finish. It was an unusual piece; something I had never made before. Despite the uniqueness of the design, its making was conceptualised around traditional methods, namely ones that would employ ‘frame and panel’ constructions. These were to be assembled using mortise-and-tenon jointed frames that would support panels made up of interlocking timber sections. In other words, making the piece would involve many processes and techniques that I had used before. I drew a fullscale rod to finalise the design. On Dan’s first day we made a cup of tea, took the rod down from the rack, and set it out on trestles to have a look. It all seemed to make sense. ‘This piece hinges from there’, I said, ‘and those staves will be machined on the spindle moulder.

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And this drawer will run on runners set here’. Pointing at the junction between the sides and the top of the piece, Dan asked, ‘How are we going to put this corner together?’ ‘Hmmm … Not sure. We’ll sort it out when we get to it’, was the best answer I had at the time. Indeed, I was not worried because I knew the detail would be resolved in the making. It happens all the time. The lack of clarity in my response to Dan was due, perhaps, to the combination of facts that I most often work alone and therefore do not need to explain every action, and the piece in question was a one-off object, and thus making it would not involve an exact repetition of what came before. Dan’s question threw into sharp focus that much problem solving and decision making is done on the hoof. The apparent finality that the preceding design processes are meant to achieve is to some extent a chimera, and unresolved issues are revealed as the work progresses. Relying on accumulated knowledge to make an object simultaneously reveals what the craftsperson doesn’t know. Accomplished cabinetmakers are forever devising new solutions in the flow of work. I think that, as craftspeople, we do not always understand the problem until we actually encounter it in the context of making. Other things already need to be in place for improvisational thinking to occur: the past needs to have happened in order to confront the future. Improvisation In having described my methods for working through the design process, it should be evident that problem solving is emergent and processual. A schema has emerged that seemingly foregrounds mental activity. But I want to be clear that such a schema locates the mind squarely in the body, whereby the two together constitute a whole. The scenario with Dan described earlier was located in making. Few design problems can be approached without haptic reckoning of some sort and without direct experience of the material world. Equally, the corporeal cannot be wrenched from the mental, but rather effective working relies on both, together. Improvisation, and hence risk, are ever-present in the activity of ‘perpetual prototyping’. Improvising in cabinetmaking, as in any craft, entails responding to provisional and emergent conditions, and formulating strategies in that moment. Far from introducing freedom, improvisation in fact brings structure. A craftsperson borrows from what they know as he or she interprets a situation and reforms it as needed in the moment-to-moment of the ‘taskscape’ (Ingold, 2011). In this way, making becomes embedded in the idea, and the idea becomes embedded in the making. As a re-presentation of prior knowledge, improvisation is a new formation. A maker does not know in advance the outcomes of their improvisations, and thus uncertainty inheres, accompanied by an element of risk. I turn my focus now to the instabilities inherent in making. At one level, Tim Ingold’s description of sawing a plank may appear to be ‘unnecessarily elaborate’ (2011: 53). I caution, however, that if we take into account all the micro instabilities that are integral to the work-ecology, his description might actually appear to be

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The work ecology: body, tools, and material. Photo by David Gates.

scant. At what scales of magnitude in the working process do we acknowledge the occurrence of acts of improvisation? A cabinetmaker has objectified their intentions in their rod drawing and cutting list, but these artefacts say nothing

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of how we manage that intention and realise it; and, relatedly, how we conduct ourselves as part the total work ecology. Ingold’s description of using a handsaw tallies well with the popular image of a ‘craft task’, but, notably, an equal or greater number of hours might be spent operating powered machinery to produce the components for a piece of cabinetry. Machining in cabinetmaking is far removed from Karl Marx’s depictions of man subservient to automation. Machining tasks are intermittent and variable, and as such they regularly present the same level of need for contingent strategies as ‘handwork’. When all is considered, the particularities of any situation are always more complex than the generalisations implied by instructions. This applies as well to apparently more regulated procedures and tasks. Like Ingold, I too wish to saw a board; but in this case, I want to rip it to width on the powered saw-bench. I first study the board of timber resting on a pair of trestles to decide which of its edges should run against the machine’s fence. In doing so, I also determine which edge of the board will become waste after the cut. In studying the board’s edges, I need to flip it over, end-for-end, and without knocking the overhead light fixtures. Outside, the sun shines through a gap in the clouds and through the window of the workshop, reflecting off surfaces and momentarily impairing my vision. At that moment, the phone rings. Startled, I lose grip of the board and it slips in my hands. I quickly recover my balance. Moving the board into position on top of the saw-bench, I note that it doesn’t swing as easily between the dust-extraction vents as I had imagined it would. The board is now nicely balanced on the saw-bench, but I realise that I haven’t switched on the power. I rest one end of the board on the trestle behind me so that I can momentarily let go of it. I crouch and reach underneath the board to turn on the power. As I stand back up, my pencil falls from my shirt pocket. I return to where I was positioned and gently push the edge of the board against the fence of the saw. I then start pushing the length of the board toward the spinning circular blade while still gently holding its edge against the fence. I began this movement from a comfortable position, but pushing the board forward means that I must take half a step in the direction of the saw. I can tell a lot from the sound of a blade on the timber: how well it is cutting, and any adjustments I need to apply to the speed and the pressure of my feed in order for it to cut sweetly. The cut starts well, but the sound of the blade against the timber rises in pitch as I cut through the knot that I am trying to lose. I respond by slowing down a little to avoid the possibility of the blade spitting out the chunk of hard knot wood. There is more tension in the board than I had imagined: both lengths of the cut board are pinching on the riving knife immediately after passing the sawblade. I therefore need to slow the feed, gently pushing again along the length and judging the scale of the problem, shifting my footing as I do so. The telephone ringer sounds off again. I walk around to the other side of the saw in search of a hammer … No, not a hammer; a mallet will be much safer. With the mallet, I tap a wedge of timber into the kerf to relieve the pinching pressure on the riving knife. I come back around the saw to continue

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pushing the board through the blade, and I finish the cut with a pair of push sticks that I have lifted from the peg on which they were hanging. This account was reconstructed from my imagination, but it is not far off from what actually happens. The sequence of activities is sufficiently controlled, but generally unplanned. The intent of my account is not to offer a ‘how-to’ for ripsawing a board, but rather to illustrate that a woodworker rarely pushes a piece of wood through a machine in a purely straightforward manner, no matter how pre-determined are his or her aims. What strikes me is that the seeming mundane interventions are actually critical to the overall operation. These small responses, adjustments, and alterations normally go unnoticed by a maker as they move through their well-rehearsed movements, thoughts, and actions – tool, material, and body responding to one another in concert. Much like riding a bicycle, one rarely remembers the small decisions, changes in posture, the tiny swerve to miss a grating, or changing grip on the handlebars to ease tight shoulders. What we do tend to remember is what we did when we arrived at our destination: in other words, the end-product of the process. Similarly, the craftsperson normally only steps back from the making upon arrival. Tools The work of making is carried out using handtools and machines in combination with jigs, holding devices, and other fixtures and apparatus such as trestles and benches. All of these have evolved through long histories of vernacular tradition. Many specialised cabinetmaking tools have been progressively developed for carrying out particular tasks. The cabinetmaker’s armoury can be vast, consisting of possibly hundreds of tools. A set of tools contains two basic categories: those used for measuring and marking-up the timber (i.e. tools for ‘setting out’ the maker’s intention) and various kinds of cutting tools (i.e. for executing those intentions). Although measuring and marking tools are used mainly at the start of a project, they are also frequently used later for checking the precision of the work. Cutting tools fall roughly into three categories: saws, chisels, and planes. Generally speaking, cabinetmaking is a reductive, or wasting, craft activity. In other words, it centrally involves the removal of material from planks of timber – that is, until the gluing-up of assemblies and sub-assemblies. Although a workshop might contain many tools, it is not unusual for a cabinetmaker to reach for the same relatively small selection time after time, project after project. Much can be done with a small kit of tools. Recognising the quotidian nature of those trusted tools brings into focus the fact that many of the other tools in the tool cabinet are designed for increasing levels of sophistication and specialisation. That is to say, certain tools have evolved to do one thing very well, but are quite unsuitable for the majority of other tasks. For example, the socalled side rebate plane (or side rabbet plane), as either a combination model or as a pair of left- and right-handed planes, is beautifully attuned to its function. But

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Handtools: some of these are used every day; others lie waiting for their moment. Photo by David Gates.

a side rebate plane will do very little else aside from widening an already cut groove. It therefore sits in the cabinet most of the time, except for the five or ten minutes during a particular project when it is very useful. Not all the variants of a basic tool type are as extreme in their limited functionality as this example. While much can be done with a single bench plane, having a range of bench planes (each for slightly different purposes) enables more efficient and focused working. Tool diversity helps to address problems, but equally, specialisation restricts affordances. Over the past 20 years or so, I have become enmeshed in cabinetmaking practices, becoming part of a network of self, tools, and materials to solve design problems and make furniture: a durational embedding of co-constitution. But, as I mentioned above, the opportunities to reflect upon visible, tangible results can occur infrequently. If a piece takes upwards of 100 hours to make, feedback loops of learning are that much more extended. This realisation came to me as I witnessed other people around me working in different design and craft disciplines reaching conclusions – and hence reflecting more frequently – at quicker intervals.

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In Our Houses1 Realisation that my routinised ways of making furniture entailed long intervals of educative reflection emerged alongside other self-critical thoughts about the kind of work I was making. It is beyond the scope of this chapter to expand upon these realisations and thoughts, but it is noteworthy that they emerged more or less simultaneously. At that time, I was frequently exhibiting my work. Naturally I was interested in hearing people’s responses to it. The responses can be categorised, firstly, as those that expressed an overt concern with the qualities of making what was perceived as traditional joinery, and secondly, a concern to know what was the specific functional utility of a piece. From my own perspective, the quality of my joinery was not of prime importance: the workmanship was good, and any visibility of the workmanship was intended to provide clues to the way a piece was constructed. Regarding the precise function of a piece, my hope was that this would evolve over time and in place as the piece took part in the ‘social life’ of its users. So, to the question outlined at the beginning of the chapter, I add from these experiences ‘the problem of reception’; or the ways that my intentions were apprehended by others. I spoke with silversmith Simone ten Hompel about these thoughts, and from our conversation arose the idea of leaving a work unfinished, the aim being to find something out and then leave it alone. We also discussed that, in making a piece, the junctions and intersections of its planes, surfaces, and parts require careful resolution, whereas in sketching, the lines that represent junctions are permitted to ‘hang there’, fulfilling a mental intention and simultaneously suggesting other possibilities. These thoughts led to the decision to produce a body of speculative work in a way different to my normal working methods in order to explore the question stated at the start of the chapter as well as the problem of reception. I planned to do this by focusing on the relationship with tools and by destabilising my assumed work ecology. I introduced four key limitations to my orthodox ways of working based on categories of time, tools, materials, and measurement. I would aim to spend only one day on each piece. The intention of this limitation was to foster an intuitive approach and encourage a more direct form of response to material, tools, and context. I would limit the number of tools I could use. The aim was to focus my attention on my relationship with particular tools. My assumption was that limiting the number of tools would produce greater need for improvisation, thereby amplifying the agency of the individual tools. I would restrict myself to using only offcuts and surplus material. This strategy would reduce financial risk and thereby encourage experimentation. 1 ‘In Our Houses’ is the title given to the various outcomes of this project as it evolved.

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I would not use formal methods of measuring. I wanted to embrace the direct contribution of sketching and obviate numeric regulation. Of these four limitations, that concerning tools requires further explanation. In conversation with the ceramicist Richard Slee about the project, I was reminded that my selection of tools was not random. Richard had wanted to know to what extent the tasks I would undertake were preconceived and whether I had chosen tools accordingly. The tasks I had imagined are as follows: I had reckoned that I would need to make fast, coarse cuts, as well as finer ones – probably at the bench. I would need to regulate and surface the wood’s faces and edges: some of the offcuts would be rough-sawn from the mill and would not have been machineplaned. I would need to trim and pare various components, and I imagined that making holes would feature among my jointing techniques. I would also need to hit things harder than I could manage with my bare hand. By thinking through these conditions and possibilities, I arrived at a selection of tools consisting of: a bandsaw; a tenon saw and dovetail saw; a no.4 bench-plane; a cabinet scraper; one small and one large bevel-edged chisel; a hammer; a small knife and a drawknife. This gave me a total of ten tools. The drawknife was an unknown quantity. It is not a bona fide cabinetmaking tool. Traditionally, it was used in crafts such as wagon building and chairmaking. A drawknife consists of a long, free blade controlled by the angle and pull exerted on its pair of handles. I found this tool interesting because it’s design seemed to suggest working possibilities between David Pye’s notions of ‘free’ and ‘regulated’ work (1968). I was attracted to its ‘free’ quality and as well as its potential to ‘sketch’ contours into a square-cut component of timber. It struck me as something I could draw with. This would be useful since my intention was to work without a drawn plan on paper. Indeed, I would make no prior drawings, and instead simply begin making. Making and Thinking without a Plan This penultimate section of the chapter is a record of my working processes that I employed in realising the body of speculative work with the set of limitations that I described above. Working without a design, and with no prior notion of the components (if any) that I was forming, I plunged myself into processes without an imagined end-point. As stated in the chapter introduction, this section comprises

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a mix of italicised notes that I made while carrying out the exploration and later reflections recorded in paragraphs of plain text. Line and mass; volumes and the spaces between them; shadow and gap; dynamic and balance. Walk around – three dimensionality. Not a front elevation and support. Two or more fronts. Black steel as drawn line; material in tension. The drawn line and the volume prescribed by planes as drawn. Technique is only what is fitting and necessary in most cases (dovetails??). Technique is used to achieve what I want. THE UNFINISHED LINE: the fluidity of drawings, the openness, and the forced perspective, chance and inaccuracy not being translated into pieces.

The first offcut of timber was not planed on its faces and edges. One of its ends was hand-sawn at an almost right-angle. I planed one of the faces and one of the edges of the board flat. ‘Why?’ I later asked myself. Perhaps I had already decided by that point to saw through the thickness of the board on the bandsaw to make two boards of useable thickness (a process known as ‘deep-cutting’ or ‘re-sawing’). Having ‘true’ surfaces (i.e. perfectly flat and squared surfaces) makes for safer work and allows for greater precision in the task. But, I realised that my experience and expectations have habituated me: planing a rough board was simply what I would do next during the ‘normal’ course of working. Normally, I work with a handtool or a machine to regulate the surface of the material and when I want to find out about the condition of the wood beneath the rough surface of the boards I am using. When making a designed piece, I am normally curious about the nature of the grain and figure of the timber beneath the sawn surface, but my search for that knowledge is guided by the overall design plan and my original intentions. I was curious in this instance to what extent my planing of the board was to produce a true surface and to what extent it was to reveal the aesthetic possibilities of the timber. Through my accumulated experience, I have come to think that the standard thickness of a board for cabinetmaking is between 16–19 mm. So, when I deep-cut through the thickness of the board, was I subconsciously converting the off-cut board into boards of a thickness to which I was more accustomed? Work with a bench plane is usually tightly controlled. There is a degree of precision in both expectation and intention. The aim is a measure of precision whether planing the long edges of the boards for a table top so that they clamp-up without gaps under just the right amount of pressure, or easing the sides or edges of a drawer so that it fits sweetly on its runners. At this stage of the work, there is rarely any need for taking formal measurement with rulers: the role of numbers has passed, and the ‘rightness of fit’ will be achieved by working the component with the plane. This is more easily judged by the perceptual senses of sight and touch. Working quickly, and always oriented to the job, my body is more animated. Almost all of my body is in constant movement. I am constantly altering the angle at which I plane the board. This produces a variety of crossing lines; a

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mesh of hatchings across the surface. My overall intention is to level the board to a flat, untwisted surface. I work quite rapidly, and with an aim in mind. While planing, I gauge my progress by tilting the plane along its length at about 45 degrees, keeping it flush against the board’s surface. In this way, the edge of the plane acts like a straight edge. I hold the plane steady and crouch so that my sightline is level with the board, and I judge the ‘trueness’ of the surfacein-progress. At some point I realise that what I am doing has shifted back from coarse stock removal to finer work. My pattern of working has reverted to something much more comparable to my normal routinized work. The task has changed from merely regulating the geometry of a surface (i.e. bringing it to flatness) to regulating its surface qualities (i.e. its smoothness). In doing so, I have moved from making something that can be quantifiably ‘measured’ to something that is experientially ‘gauged’.

I would not normally push timber through a bandsaw without marking the board or setting the fence of the machine to regulate the cut. I was judging the progress of the cut as I went along. I set the fence to an approximate width. As I fed the wood into the saw, I was not only having to check moment by moment that the cut was proceeding well in a mechanical sense by using my senses of sight, touch, and hearing, but I also had to assess what I was doing ‘aesthetically’. I use the term ‘aesthetically’ advisedly, but what I mean is that I had to interpret the changes in the timber as the procedure unfolded, and I had to assess how those changes would inform any next stage. I was working perhaps more slowly at this point. This was paradoxical given that my aim was to work quickly. I was working intuitively; but, in truth, I had conjured a somewhat loose, overall plan. I realised this after reviewing my journal notes taken while working. The notes reminded me that I had been thinking about internal and external corners of the piece, which are impossible not to think about when making cabinet furniture. This prompted a series of improvised corner constructions that served as abstract, compositional devices. In my conventional way of working, when making the corner of a piece of furniture, I think of the corner as being two individual components that need to be joined (for example, the top and a side of a cabinet). By contrast, in producing my speculative work, I was joining two pieces of material, but they were not a top and a side. Rather, two pieces were joined merely to make a corner. In doing so, I needed to make decisions about the length of each piece relative to the other. I was not measuring, but rather I was assessing proportion. Although this is still a form of regulating and managing, assessing proportion was closer to my objective of responding directly to material than my regular ‘measured’ way of working. I nicked the edge of the board with a tenon saw to mark where I would cut, and then set the board onto a bench hook. Without a pencil line to work to, I started to saw. Some elements of the piece were assembled by drilling through two components and fixing them together with a dowel. To make a dowel, a piece of wood was first sawn square on the bandsaw, and then worked round with a plane. Some of

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these were over-length, hanging and unfinished, like the extended lines in a sketch that indicate where a fixing might be. This form of assembly was doable with the redacted tool kit and relatively quick. It also helped me to move away from the repertoire of cabinetmaking joints as a means of assessing a piece of work. As I considered the relationship of the process I was exploring to drawing, other materials found their way into some of pieces I produced. Paper panels and grids of thread suggested the transparency of hatch-marks in sketches; propositions without commitment. A principal corner has emerged – or, perhaps, persisted. Even when trying to work faster, the dovetail finds a starting place in the composition and the act of work. It won’t let go.

The dovetail joint became impossible to exorcise from my repertoire of techniques. I thought about the ‘time’ element of the project parameters and reckoned that, contrary to popular belief, dovetails can actually be cut quickly. So I decided to work with them and imagined that I had repositioned them from their ‘proper place’ in planned and polished work to the incongruous place of quick, intuited work. A notable departure from my standard planned work processes was the order in which I conceptualised and made the carcasses and the legs of the pieces. Unconventionally, I chose to conceptualise and make the carcasses first, and to do so separately from the legs. This resulted in a kind of asymmetrical relationship whereby the legs needed to be subsequently fitted to carcasses, not the other way around. I never started with the legs, and I wondered whether this reflected an overt interest in resolving an abstract or discreet volume in the carcass before thinking about how it might sit in (a) space. Almost all of the finished speculative pieces were about the same height and bore similarities to the scale and proportion of the human body. In stating this, my intention is not to anthropomorphise the pieces, but rather to recognise that they possessed something in, and of, a physical relationship with the body. Many of the resulting structures were three-legged. Perhaps this was to achieve maximum stability with an economy of time, as set out in the project aims. Leg components were ‘drawn down’ – literally tapered with the drawknife. Spatial and structural arrangements were braced and strutted, and fixed temporarily as the work progressed. They were then lapped, drilled, pegged, and wedged. The Tool at Hand The project just described achieved a particular focus by informing the work I later made for an exhibition titled The Tool at Hand that toured around the USA.2 2 For more information, see toolathand.org, and see the exhibition review authored by Jennifer Geigel Mikulay.

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Work for the Tool at Hand show: ‘Saw, Slice, Split, Scrape, Shave’, 2011. One piece of oak, plaster of Paris, thread. Photo by David Gates.

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The curator Ethan Lasser (who at the time was working at the Chipstone Foundation) selected a group of artists and makers and proposed that they each make a piece of work with just one tool. The exhibition programme included a think-tank event in Milwaukee. The aim of that event was to discuss the various issues that arose from the exhibition brief. The brief had provided me with the opportunity to further reduce my minimal toolkit. I chose to embrace the notion of ‘everydayness’ suggested by the ‘the tool at hand’, and therefore proceeded to modify the blade of a regular saw from a hardware shop. By making modifications to the edges of the saw, the resulting tool offered a number of affordances. Someone suggested that my modifications reclassified the saw as a multi-tool, like a Swiss Army Knife. My response was that a Swiss Army Knife is effectively several tools assembled and articulated around a mechanical junction. My reconfigured saw, on the other hand, was a single piece of steel. I recalled from my childhood the pressed steel spanner that came with a new bike, and that could be used to carry out almost every repair and maintenance task. Is that spanner one tool? My modified saw was conceptually closer to a claw hammer. It might also be compared to the human hand (the human appendage most fetishised in discourses on craftwork). But the hand is an assemblage of smaller ‘tools’ that offer their own specialisms, on their own or in combination. It is a multi-tool that is conceptualised as a whole. With the fingers, we point, work a depression into some clay, press a thumb-tack into a surface; with fingernails, we might scrape away dirt or paint flakes, among other things; and with the fleshy muscle of our palm, we knead dough, for example. Focus, however, is usually directed at the combinatory effects produced by one or more of the hand’s components. This, of course, includes grasping and manipulating tools. I modified the ‘hardware-shop’ saw by grinding its edges so that, at a functional level, they replicated a scraper, chisel, drawknife, and hatchet. Working with a single tool on one piece of timber (an additional constraint that I had added) allowed me to explore more deeply the relationship between body, tool, and material in the work ecology. Familiar tool affordances presented in an altogether unfamiliar form forced me to learn quickly how to work with it. In trying to achieve various tasks, the tool communicated its own agency: sometimes I skilfully learned what I could do with it and thereby governed the relationship; at other times the tool won out and led me in different directions. Some surfaces of the resultant work clearly display how the tool brought them into being. My body postures had to be adapted and new ones adopted as I sought to reach familiar aims by unfamiliar means. By continuing to handle the tool in my grip as a saw, I sliced and cut my hands as I flipped and turned it over to make use of the different functions I had introduced. My bodily memory of manipulating a normal ‘hardware-shop’ saw therefore had to be undone. Challenge to bodily memory was not confined to the hands and their grips, but rather to the whole body: establishing different sightlines; bracing and pushing my shoulders and arms in somewhat strange directions; and calibrating new balance in my stances and in my use of the tool. The ways in which I had to

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struggle to find effective cutting angles and comfortable postures – shifting body, tool, and material – highlighted for me the extent to which even commonplace ‘proper’ tools are evolved and efficient. In keeping with the emergent and continual nature of perpetual prototyping, it would be difficult to bracket-off specific problems that were solved. But by working with one tool – albeit one with several improvised affordances – the ongoing entanglement and the perpetual negotiation of agency between my self, the tool, and the material that together constituted the work ecology was made more explicit. Bibliography Albers, A. 2010. ‘On Weaving’, in G. Adamson (ed.) The Craft Reader. Oxford: Berg, pp. 29–33. Butters, S.B. 2014. ‘From Skills to Wisdom: making, knowing and the arts’, in P. Smith, A. Meyers, and H. Cook (eds) Ways of Making and Knowing: the material culture of empirical knowledge. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, pp. 48–85. Geigel Mikulay, J. 2012. ‘Exhibition Review, The Tool at Hand, Milwaukee Art Museum’, in The Journal of Modern Craft, 5(3):351–4. Harper, D. 1987. Working Knowledge, Skill and Community in a Small Shop. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Hoffman, J. 2012. The Studio. Cambridge: MIT Press. Ingold, T. 2011. ‘Walking the plank: meditations on a process of skill’, in T. Ingold, Being Alive. London and New York: Routledge. Marchand, T. 2010. ‘Embodied cognition and communication: studies with British fine woodworkers’, in Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, special issue 2010, pp. S100–120. Pye, D. 1968. The Nature of Art and Workmanship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Riegger, H, 2010. ‘Primitive Pottery’, in G. Adamson (ed.) The Craft Reader. Oxford: Berg, pp. 34–9. Sayer, P. 2010. Studio: ceramicists and their studios. Denbighshire County Council, Ruthin Craft Centre Smith, P. 2004. The Body of the Artisan. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Smith, P., A. Meyers, and H. Cook (eds) 2014. Ways of Making and Knowing: the material culture of empirical knowledge. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Weisberg-Roberts, A. 2014. ‘Between Trade and Science: Dyeing and Knowing in the Long Eighteenth-Century’, in P. Smith, A. Meyers, and H. Cook (eds) Ways of Making and Knowing: the material culture of empirical knowledge. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, pp. 86–112.

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Whiting, D. 2009. Modern British Potters and Their Studios. London: A&C Black.

Chapter 7

Weaving Solutions to Woven Problems1 Stephanie Bunn

Introduction and Definitions Basketry is a venerable craft, both in terms of how long it has been practiced and in regard to its foundational relationship with other textile practices, such as weaving. Some of the earliest archaeological textile finds are basketwork.2 In all probability, the use of plant fibres for mats predates the use of spun thread for weaving, or the use of wool fleece in felt-making. Basketry’s requirement for tools is minimal (Bunn, 2010). The very product of basketry – namely the basket – forms a container. This marks a significant and uniquely human solution to the problem of containment and carrying things; a solution not developed by any other creature excepting, so far as I have learned, the Fairy Lamp Spider (Agroeca brunnea). Nests, shelters, and traps (all of which can also be made using basketwork) are far more common animal constructions. Like all categories, determining what is and is not basketry is fraught with wrangling and contradictions. I am in agreement with Otis Mason (1904), Irene Emery (1966) and Annemarie Seiler-Baldinger (1979) that baskets are textiles, in that they comprise interlaced ‘threads’. Additionally, the term ‘constructed textile’ (which is also used for woven, knotted, looped, sewn, or knitted artefacts) seems appropriate, especially given the typical three-dimensional construction of baskets. Baskets and associated artefacts are almost always made from plant materials, often without a loom. Instead, making requires a minimum of tools or equipment, and is achieved either through sewing coils, weaving stakes and strands, or plaiting. Basketwork is thus shaped as it is made, rarely structured entirely by an external frame or loom. The weaving technique used in basketry is different from loom weaving, however, because of the short, uneven lengths of the strands. Therefore, more attention is paid to joining in each newly inserted strand to ensure even quality. Basketry techniques incorporate tension into their construction, giving them a kind of flexible rigidity (Mason, 1904; Wendrich, 1 This chapter draws on research conducted for the Woven Communities Project, a part of the AHRC Connected Communities Programme. Woven Communities is a collaborative study between the author and the basket-makers from the Scottish Basketmakers Circle. The project follows Scottish basket-makers’ autodidactic research into the social history of Scottish vernacular basketry. 2 See, for example, Mellaart (1966) on mats from Çatal Hüyük dating to 5600 BCE.

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1991 and 1999; Ellen, 2009). Basketry thus forms a unique category of textiles with the above characteristics. Basketry techniques are used for making more than just baskets. Other items include mats, traps, screens, thatch, toys, masks, hats, and even brushes, all of which are made from plant materials. Rope making is closely related because it employs twining, which is a classic basket-stroke. Some twine is then used in basketwork, such as kishie-making on Shetland. Net-making and looping are similar techniques, and are often confused with basketry, but these create a meshwork using one continuous strand, whereas weaving uses separate warp and weft threads. Notably, net-making and looping do not result in tensile structures, like baskets or woven cloth, but rather loose, stretchy ones. They therefore form a related, but separate, category of textile. This is important, because the term ‘meshwork’ has been used liberally in recent anthropological literature to cover a range of textile techniques. Scottish Vernacular Baskets and Creels Until recently, vernacular baskets provided an interface between people and so many aspects of domestic, social, and economic life in Scotland: from fishing to farming; from crofting to home-building. They were used to carry or contain peats, seaweed, bait, fishing lines, fish, tatties, animal fodder, bees, grain, eggs, salt, fleece, and so much more. Furthermore, baskets did not immediately become obsolete with the onset of the Industrial Revolution; rather, they were an essential (if understated), element of its development in Scotland where they were used in mills and hospitals, and by herring fleets and the military. Baskets were only progressively replaced by carrier bags, cardboard boxes, and shopping trolleys during the twentieth century. Classical Scottish creel and basket forms are frame baskets, back- and donkeycreels, and coiled baskets. Frame baskets are made by setting in place the basic three-dimensional form or frame of the basket (including the strong structural stakes), and weaving in-and-out through these. Scottish frame baskets include tattie sculls, line sculls (for fishing lines), and arm creels (which have handles for carrying fish or shopping). Back- and donkey-creels are u-shaped, and the strong stakes are set either into an external wooden former or into the ground in order to hold them in place, and then woven. There are variations to this weaving process in Shetland and Orkney. Coiled baskets comprise a straw or grass core that is wrapped or sewn with bramble, thread, or string from the centre, out and up. These include grain and bread baskets, ciosans (Hebrides), or toigs (Shetland), as well as straw bee skeps. Classic stake and strand baskets with round, oval, or rectangular bases are thought to have been more common in other parts of the British Isles (e.g. England) and continental Europe (e.g. France) until the nineteenth century at which point they expanded to Scotland for use in the fishing and textile industry.

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On first consideration, these baskets and creels may appear to be simple and utilitarian. Made for everyday domestic or subsistence use, they were so ubiquitous as to be real fabrics of society; so commonly used as to be almost unnoticeable. Their hard treatment also meant that their lifespan was short. Usually, there was little added colour or decoration, and no obvious meaning system or aesthetic was incorporated, such as one might find, for example, in Yekuana baskets from the Amazon (Guss, 1989), or in Dogon baskets from Mali (Griaule, 1965). For these and other groups, basketry was finely woven and patterned, the imagery linking person, body and basket with cosmos through an unfolding resonance, as described in local creation myths. While Scottish creels and baskets were used until recently in all manner of domestic, working, and cultural practices, it is their strong, sturdy, and understated presence that shines through. A ‘vernacular’ basket might be defined as the kind of textile artefact made ‘by the people, for the people’ (c.f. Oliver, 2000). Vernacular forms are often equated with ‘the traditional’, frequently interpreted as an unselfconscious process as opposed to the product of individual decision-making or personal creativity. Such forms are usually produced by handwork, and are considered to have remained relatively stable over time, being tied to localised needs and often grounded in a community aesthetic. Any new developments were, and are, deemed to be constrained by practical considerations, such as the needs of fitness for purpose or limitations of materials. One would not imagine such products of collective endeavour to be suitable contenders for a study of problem solving. My chapter challenges this somewhat static consideration of the vernacular by suggesting that, like most other crafts, basketry is an ‘open system’ with potential for experimentation, change and development (Sennett, 2008: 198–200). Problems are constantly being solved, and new problems are devised. Even basketry’s continued practice is a question to be resolved. But basketry is also a practice which promotes thought, analysis and, at times, invention. Thus, basketry is not a cognitive ‘dead end’, but rather a source of inspiration. If, as Richard Sennett suggests, the key to human cognition lies in small, everyday acts (ibid.: 286), then an understanding of vernacular basket-makers’ practices may offer as profound an insight into the nature and development of human design practices as an examination of Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s engineering innovations for the Clifton Suspension Bridge. What is Basketry Problem Solving? Until I began writing this chapter, I had thought of problem solving as an ‘out-ofthe-ordinary’ event: in other words, a difficult or tricky moment, or an obstacle, that is encountered during one’s rhythm of work, and that requires one to pause for thought and devise a solution. However, basketry problem solving contradicts this assumption. In contrast to such ‘one-off’ challenges, I have come to understand

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that, in basketwork, problem solving is an integral part of the working process, and not something exceptional. This is partly because basket-making, like most crafts, is an improvisatory process, even while working within the constraints of certain anticipated, standardised forms and materials. But there is more to this than mere improvisation. Scottish creels are often made by being set into a forming frame; some line- and tattie-sculls follow closely similar forms across Scotland; and herring quarter crans, being a prescribed government measure for herring, required preciselyspecified materials and had to measure an exact height and depth.3 Yet, despite these constraints and apparently clear structural forms to work towards, the maker was (and is) nevertheless continually making decisions from moment to moment, confronted with what Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari describe as ‘a continuous variation of variables’ (2004: 410). In basket-making, this is encountered in the maker’s relationship with materials which, being plant-based, are never uniform. To illustrate, one can consider that most Scottish baskets involve working with a ‘warp’ and ‘weft’. Respectively, these are the ‘stake’ and ‘strand’ of basketry (although straw and Marram Grass baskets, such as Shetland toigs and Hebridean ciosans, are coiled, as are the backs of Orkney chairs). According to textile theory, the warp in loom weaving is deemed ‘passive’ because it is held still by the loom frame, while the weft is ‘active’ because it is woven in and out by hand (SeilerBaldinger, 1973). Willeke Wendrich also describes the warp in basketry as passive because it is the ‘body’ of the fabric, while the weft is active because it ‘holds the technique together’ (1999: 28). This analysis portrays the whole process as simple and straightforward: one merely weaves in and out of a static set of warp threads, building up a fabric with weft woven through warp. Even on a loom, however, this simplistic division into active and passive is difficult to accept because the warp holds a great deal of tension and, in most forms of weaving, the warp is manipulated into different sheds4 through which the weft is passed. This impacts upon the fabric structure and texture, and indeed there can be warp-face and weftfaced weaves. So, for all sorts of reasons, this notion of passive warp does not fully describe the actual situation. In woven basketwork, the contrast made between passive stakes (warp) and active strands (weft) is even less acceptable. Basketry stakes are usually firm (in 3 All herring quarter crans had to be made according to precise instructions issued by the Fisheries Board in Scotland and were branded by official inspectors. The prescribed materials for their construction included ‘[a] piece of hardwood beneath each cane handle, 1.5 inches broad; pieces of “hoopwood” (6 in number), 1 inch broad, bark outermost and equidistant with willows in between; and binding, waling and cane fitching …’ (Martin, 1904: 62–3). 4 A ‘shed’ in cloth weaving is the space created between the different warp threads when some of them are raised and others left in place to allow the weft to be passed through. A new shed is created by raising different warp threads at each passing of the weft in order to hold the weft in place. Sequential manipulation of sheds can create a diversity of patterns.

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Close-up of creel weaving on North Uist. Courtesy of the School for Scottish Studies.

contrast to cloth threads which are soft and pliable, and so need the tension created by a loom). While basketry stakes (warp) may be held in place by a frame or with tied string, they are nevertheless uneven and often move, if only slightly. This can impact on the form of the basket, so the stakes need constant adjustment. Furthermore, if a willow stake in the warp structure is too thick or inflexible and could alter the form of the basket, the skilled maker – who is highly aware of the subtleties of tension involved – might then choose to use a different thickness of weave from strand to newly-introduced strand, thereby subtly altering the pressure and minutely adjusting the shape of the basket. Or, the maker might use a different degree of hand-pressure to similar effect. Because no loom is used, at certain stages in a basket’s construction, such as beginning, upsetting5 or finishing the basket, the warp is often specifically manipulated and woven in to create an initial base or a finished edge. Adding in new material also gives cause for adjustment. Plant materials are, by nature, variable in strength and thickness along their length, often being more flexible at the tip-end than at the butt. This means that each new strand incorporated into the basket must be used either at the tip- or butt-end to ensure that the variation in tension is balanced and does not impact upon the overall appearance of the basket. As such, and at a fundamental level, basketry problem solving is a part of the rhythm, the weave, the aesthetic, and the tension of basketwork. Basketry strokes, materials, and techniques are continually adjusted 5 ‘Upsetting’ refers to shaping the basket by turning it from base to sides.

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Traveller basket-maker building up the form. Courtesy of the School for Scottish Studies.

as the maker monitors the unfolding task at hand, drawing on touch, vision, and sense of rhythm as part of the process of their work. Therefore, the rhythm and flow of basketwork is, as Charles Keller describes for blacksmithing, ‘a complex reciprocal process’ (2001: 37). This involves a flow, but likewise a resistance to the challenges of materials, an engagement of bodily strength and dexterity, and emerging form. A further significant feature of the continuous nature of problem solving in basketwork is that, in weaving a basket, the maker is simultaneously building up the form, creating a three-dimensional structure, and using that basket structure as the frame or ‘loom’ on which he or she is weaving. The basket is thus an emergent artefact, both form and frame; product and technology; artefact and tool; both a part of the process of becoming the final form and, at the same time, incorporating the loom or frame on which it is made. This balance between emergent form and technology, and between attention and adjustment, is a continuous process

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of problem solving. Problem solving is therefore part of the continuous rhythm of engagement with materials and creation of the basket. This integration of technology and form, and the need for continued attendance to the work explains why, as first noted by Otis Mason, no basket can be made by machine (1904). Ironically, in loom weaving, as opposed to basketry, constant adjustments to warp manipulation throughout history have provided problems and, in turn, scope for all sorts of solutions for weaving weft through warp. This has ultimately led to many great inventions in the textile industry. Most of these inventions have centred around mechanically moving warp threads to create sheds (i.e. systems of picking up warp threads between which the weft is passed) without individually manipulating them by hand in order to save time and be more efficient (Albers, 1965: 22–37). One could argue that the effort and inventions used in developing loom weaving, and especially shed mechanisms, far surpassed those introduced in any other textile form and served as a catalyst to the Industrial Revolution (ibid.). However, while mechanisation makes weaving easier, it also ‘lessens the freedom of the weaver, and his control of the design in working’ (Hooper in Albers, 1965: 25). This is because the weaver works within the constraint of the mechanism. Mechanisation also foregoes the space for engagement between body and materials. Thus, while the problems encountered in loom weaving spawned previously unimaginable technical developments alongside a more restricted creativity in weaving practices themselves, basketry’s necessity for constant decision making and problem solving (linked to its lack of need for a loom) demanded a highly-engaged form of practice, and the creativity involved was a kind of mirror opposite to that of loom weaving. Pragmatic Problem Solving In addition to the fundamental factors of basketwork practice so-far introduced, there are three further features of Scottish vernacular basketry that illustrate aspects of problem-solving in the craft: materials, adaptation to change, and mending. Materials In the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, a well-known display case exhibits string and basketry artefacts from across the world that are made from different plant materials and with different techniques. Because these artefacts look broadly the same but are made from quite different substances, they elicit the question of which factor – materials, technique, or final form – guided the development of the others. For example, rope or string made from straw entails a different twining technique to cotton or jute rope (which can be spun first), or to rope made from heather. Even when using the same materials, techniques may vary: some makers using the palm of their hand, others using finger and thumbs, and so on.

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Such questions also arise when examining Scottish basketwork where a range of materials and techniques produce back-creels and other kinds of baskets with the same, or similar, final forms (although not always with the same texture or structure). While the two most commonly used British basketry materials are willow (Salix) and rush (Scirpus lacustris), these do not grow so well in the Scottish Highlands and Islands, meaning that substitute materials must be sought. These may be hard to come by, illustrating the extent to which basketry is bound up with local plant ecology. Although willow is still used in Scottish basketwork, it does not grow everywhere in the country. Alternative materials include straw, Marram Grass (bent), moorland rush (floss), heather, and docks (dockens). Hairmoss (Polytrichum commune) was also used in the past. Adapting and modifying basket-weaving techniques to a range of different plant materials demands another form of problem solving. The natural environment provides its own form of resistance to the practices of the maker, which, in turn, he or she must overcome. I find it hard to imagine being faced with the choice between Marram Grass, flos, or docken stems for making an artefact, and yet this limitation provides a deepening and comprehensive knowledge about what is available, and the qualities and potential of local materials. Along with such local constraints, the use of plants is also bound up with historical relationships between both Scandinavian Viking culture and Irish influence in Scotland. In Viking-influenced Shetland and Orkney, black oat straw (gloy) or docks (dockens) are often used for back-creels, locally called kishies and caisies. This perhaps reflects a historical cultural preference for black oat straw over and above willow and hazel, both of which are used on the Western Isles despite their rarity. These black oats are specially grown for their long stems for straw work on Shetland and Orkney. The weaving technique for kishies and caisies appears quite different from that on back-creels produced in other Scottish regions. It looks almost like coiling, but, on closer analysis, it too uses a stake and strand technique, but with thicker warps and more open, wider weft spacing. Here, it is the materials that fundamentally change the look, rather than the stroke, which has simply been adapted. Kishie warps (hyogs) have to be constructed from bunches of straw in advance, and are much wider than stakes on other back-creels. They are not held in place in any way by a frame during weaving. The rope or simmens (weft) which binds or twines the hyogs together is itself twined from flos (moorland rush), which is very widely spaced as it circles and binds the hyogs. As contemporary basket maker Ewen Balfour relayed, ‘It was not uncommon for evenings to be spent with neighbours, friends and relations ‘winding simmens’, telling yarns and having supper during the evening. The womenfolk would have had their ‘sock’ (knitting and carding wool) to occupy themselves when they were meeting’ (2014: 1). Ian Tait, the Curator of Collections at Shetland Museum, once told me that from one coast on Shetland to another, available materials might vary from bent (Marram) grass to heather, to dockens, or straw, depending on availability, yet the strokes remained similar, just adapted.

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Weaving a flakkie on Orkney. Courtesy of the School for Scottish Studies.

Creels from the Western Isles, including Lewis, Harris, the Uists, and those from Skye, while similar in form, are closer in detail to Irish creels than either the kishie or east coast creels. They are made from willow, hazel, or heather, despite the scarcity of these materials. The tensile strength of such materials requires them to be held in place by setting them into the ground or in a wooden frame. Skye textile artist Caroline Dear told me of three brothers from Uist who travelled to Skye each year to collect hazel from the steep woodland in Uig Bay for new creels (Bunn, 2014). On willow and hazel creels, the wefts are much more closely packed, and a special gap is left for the strap. When newer materials reached the Islands, such as rattan (which has extremely long strands and is imported from Malaysia), one might have anticipated that the technique would have adapted to simple stake and strand, closely-packed weaving. And indeed that was generally the case. But at least one kishie maker from Unst in Shetland used the rattan in pairs, as hyogs, thereby continuing the local style, and many other weavers kept to local materials, although they were less durable. The dynamic between materials and cultural preference in Scottish basketry suggests a strong element of resourcefulness within constraint, yet a kind of problem solving which cannot be entirely separated from cultural practices despite

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severe practical limitation. In philosopher Wilhelm Flusser’s view, adaptability in regard to restraint, such as limited materials, is a prerequisite for an ultimate kind of design work: ‘design on the edge of feasibility, where nothing could be done but somehow the possibility of something emerging through human understanding remained’ (Pawley in Flusser 1999: 9). People think laterally, use what is to hand, and adapt technique where necessary. But such practical solutions do not lead to makers ignoring or abandoning cultural knowledge, as though culture were something non-essential, added on. Cultural practices are ever-present as part and parcel of the problem, and the way to solve it. Adaptation to Change One might have imagined that basketry would have become obsolete with the onset of the Industrial Revolution, or that its production would have been taken over by some form of mechanised process, but the opposite was the case. Baskets could not, and cannot, be made by machine because, unlike loom weaving, basketmaking cannot be broken down into a series of mechanical steps. Additionally, the emergent shape formation of baskets and their use of irregular materials resist mechanisation. In fact, the flexible tensile strength and lightness of baskets made them invaluable to all manner of industrial production. Thus, in the early stages of the Industrial Revolution, industry was dependent on new forms of basket for containing and transporting goods and materials to and from Scottish mills, fishing fleets, factories, and distilleries, as well as for use in hospitals and the military. The emerging herring industry in the late nineteenth century required woven herring quarter crans. These had to be both light and strong enough to carry the fish. Textile mills required skips for moving around raw and finished materials. Basketworks made these and other kinds of factory skips in all shapes and sizes for containing and moving goods. They were used for the gondolas of hot air balloons, hospital cots, surgical dressing containers, post and laundry carriage, and in all means of transporting goods. The demand for baskets led to the growth of new basketworks, and a greater volume of work for the Blind Asylums and Highland Home Industries. These latter organisations were the outcome of social reform movements in the late nineteenth century, providing training for the visually impaired and income for crofters and Highland housewives. All these workshops introduced new forms and techniques of basketry during this period. Classic stake and strand baskets became more common in these new work sites. Such workshops also marked the historical point at which basketwork moved outside the home to dedicated workplaces. Although it is difficult to be certain, the existing records suggest that, until this time, most baskets were made either by individuals for family use, or by a few specialists in their spare time to generate supplementary income. The needs of the Industrial Revolution created demand for dedicated basketry workshops. Thus the craft responded to both the demand for new basket forms and novel organisational forms and dynamics of work.

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In sum, basketry’s success as a living craft is reflected in the range of possible uses, working practices, and forms that it affords (Gibson 1966). During the Industrial Revolution, challenges were posed from the outside. Emerging industrial and economic development supplied new and challenging problems that needed to be resolved. Sennett has suggested that new and challenging problems are a prerequisite for open thinking and experimentation (2008: 222–6). Basketry was a practice on which people depended for providing artefacts that were light, strong, and flexible (as opposed to rigid) for use in transport and for containment. It was also a craft with improvisational production methods and flexible social dynamics that could respond to changing and evolving needs. Thus, although basket-making itself could not be adapted to machine production, its adaptable nature and capacity for solving problems enabled development and innovation in other industries. Tim Ingold, following James Gibson (1966), has written about the relationship between what the environment affords its inhabitants; and, following Jacob von Uexküll’s work, he has explored how inhabitants also draw the environment into their own sphere of activity, or ümwelt (2011: 77–80). Ingold noted that while Gibson’s theory of affordances suggests that the solution to the problem of whether nature or culture dictates adaptation is lodged in the certainties provided by the environment, and the way an organism develops to fill an a priori niche, von Uexküll’s ümwelt suggests that it lies in the activities of the inhabitants within that environment, drawing potentialities into human activity. In short, Gibson privileged environment and von Uexküll privileged the actions of inhabitants. Perhaps the discrepancy here can be addressed by paying greater attention to ‘skilful engagement’, which is central to the process of basketwork. Basketry provides solutions to new problems, not through new technologies, but through its flexibility as a skill, through the close relationship between maker and materials, and through the constant attention to practice that this relationship demands. The constraints on the maker (namely the nature of the materials, the emergent form of the basket, and community needs) promote, through engagement, work, strength, skill and effort. Without these, the results would be fruitless. Therefore, the dynamic of basketwork suggests that it is not merely the environment that shapes solutions to the problems of its inhabitant, nor the inhabitants in social interaction alone, but rather solutions are found through our engagement in skill with the environment and with one another. Mending Maintenance is an integral activity in any kind of making. From the maker’s point of view, an artefact can be finished since there is a point at which they consider it complete and stop working on it. Yet, from the perspective of the life history of an artefact, it is never finished. This is because from the moment an artefact is deemed to be ‘done’ by the maker, it goes on to be used; and, in use, it needs to be maintained.

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The kind of heavy work for which baskets were used in Scottish agriculture and fishing, and on crofts, however, meant that they did not last very long. From Shetland to Lewis, baskets such as woven straw kishies or heather creels often lasted little more than one season, or a year at most. Similarly in the fishing industry, the life span of a quarter cran was short, often lasting for just 100 catches, or the equivalent of five or six months. Therefore, the question arises: If a basket is broken, do you mend it or throw it away? Mending baskets is not easy because, once finished, they are edged, and there is not the flexibility to insert new strands into what has become a closed structure. It is often easier to use them until they wear out, then throw them away, and start again. The last ‘life’ for many kinds of baskets was their use for clearing out the midden: a common practice with creels, tattie sculls, and all manner of fishing basket. Baskets biodegrade, so there is a sustainable dimension to this cycle. Nevertheless, in places where people bought baskets (as opposed to making their own), a broken basket meant that more money was needed for new ones. For the housewife, a broken basket handle meant a loss, but also a problem that needed solving. Scottish Travellers turned the problem of repairing and extending the life of ephemeral objects into a niche occupation. Alongside making excellent frame baskets and brushes for sale, Travellers mended broken baskets by adding new struts or a piece of wire. The problem of the housewife became a partial solution to Travellers’ needs to make a living. Baskets as Solutions to Questions Not Asked There are at least two further aspects of problem solving evident in Scottish basketwork that perhaps relate more to the nature of making per se than basketry alone. These are learning and finding solutions without clear evidence of an existing problem. Basketry provides a useful illustration. Learning does not necessarily spring to mind as a core aspect of problem solving. In many crafts, learning is about doing and practice, even when one does not fully ‘understand’. It is difficult, if not impossible, to conceptually and narratively comprehend what one is doing without the embodied knowledge that comes through practice. In basketwork, the maker has a range of word phrases that he or she recites in order to help bring to mind and organise what they are actually doing: ‘tip-to-tip, butt-to-butt’; ‘in-front-of-two, behind-one’, and so on, but these short phrases only make sense when the maker is in action. Gradually, the maker pieces together everything they have practiced and learned so that the pattern of work takes form in their being, their body, and their consciousness, thereby becoming known and ‘understood’. At this point, the know-how might even be articulated. This piecing together of practice and patterned understanding can be described as a kind of problem solving. But I think there is something more. In an evening art class that I attended more than 30 years ago, the teacher told us to value that moment when we were stuck, frustrated, and wanted to throw our

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drawings away. This, she said, was because the work was not doing as we wanted. We were confronted with a challenge, but if we kept with it, we could learn to understand the nature of the difficulty encountered and might overcome the problem. Such moments of frustration and dealing with problems were important, the teacher explained, because they were points at which we could learn to achieve what we were aiming for. Learning basket-making entails such challenges, particularly at the stage when beginning to simultaneously learn technique and shape form. At this point, one does not have the rhythm of basketry, the bodily knowledge of movement, or adequate knowledge of the materials. The novice can therefore end up with an uneven kinked weave, a pile of twigs in their hands without structure or form, or be stung by a strand of willow or hazel that whips back due to a misplaced release of tension. For Sennett, problems that initially make you want to throw the work away are important indeed (2008: 198–200). If this frustration and resistance does not cause the maker to give up or destroy their work, then it breeds patience. Mustering patience, staying power, and sustained concentration when something is not working, or is taking too long, creates opportunity for reorientation. At these junctures, the maker pays the work a different kind of attention, or thinks about the problem differently. This can be productive. The maker might recast the problem, change materials, or, for a while, move to a different domain of activity. This can lead to a leap of imagination or an intuitive space. The maker might also turn their attention outwards in order to identify with the resistance of the materials, thereby becoming more sympathetic to them. They might focus on the technique beyond the body and the process at hand, and engage with the environment in a more extended way (ibid.). And so it is in basket-learning that the basket maker finds their rhythm and the pattern of the stroke. In doing so, focus changes and the basket maker can pay more attention to the materials, to the warp and weft, and to the form of the object they are producing. Alongside ‘learning as problem solving’, a question arises about reasons for local distinctiveness and about making delightfully beautiful baskets for mundane uses. At times, solutions arise through basketwork without obvious stimulation from any particular problem, even in the face of adversity or hardship. These kinds of solutions suggest that there are perhaps questions we are not asking, or problems we are not articulating. In any case, they are solutions which people work on and develop, as I go on to discuss below. Why develop dexterity and skill to produce artefacts of such quality that serve no other possible purpose than satisfying the maker’s desire to make them well, or to provide the best possible solution for a specific task, or just to make them look lovely? What was the ‘problem’ that precipitated their making? These are answers in search of a question. They reveal a necessity or a problem that has not been articulated. If, as Isobel Grant (Founder of the Highland Folk Museum) described, Scottish baskets were just ‘homely Highland things’, workaday, utilitarian and used hard until worn out and no longer mendable (2007), then why did some

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Arbroath line-scull by Peter Lindsay. Courtesy of the Scottish Life Archive.

makers pursue excellence? And, why was there regional diversity despite the fact that one form would clearly suit most purposes? For example, why did most line sculls and fisher-lassies’ arm-creels develop in such a diversity of forms around the Scottish coastline? Or, why are the arm creels of the north coast flat, while those of Arbroath are rounded to such an extent that they are called ‘buttock baskets’? Why are line-sculls from Cromarty deep and bowl-shaped, while just a short distance south in Arbroath, those made by Peter Lindsay are flattened out? Lindsay’s work exemplifies the pursuit of excellence. He is one of the few historic basket makers whose name has been identified by the researchers in our Woven Communities Project. Lindsay worked in an Arbroath mill during the day, and made fine sculls and creels in the evening. His laminated frames were probably constructed using boat-building equipment, and this method replaced the conventional bent-willow or hazel frames. His even weave and fine finish suggests that he was concerned with pushing his work to the limits of excellence. His baskets were collected by the National Museum of Scotland and featured in the Living Traditions Exhibition section of the 1951 Festival of Britain (HMSO, 1951). The local distinctiveness of baskets across Scotland suggests the presence of individuals, such as Lindsay, who were concerned to make things well, as well as specific community and ecological constraints that were all part of the dynamic process and the ümwelt of basketwork. Other remarkable, yet, ostensibly unnecessary solutions to this kind of undefined problem include the plata mhuillin, such as that collected by nineteenth-century traveller Erskine Beveridge (1911).

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This Monach Isles grain basket, made far from the demands of mainstream use, is testament to the level of workmanship that was maintained, even during such times of hardship as the Highland Clearances. At this time, many people were moved to the extreme outer limits of Scotland, such as the remote Monach Islands (off North Uist), where raw materials were scarce. Bent (Marram) Grass was woven tightly into the waterproof plata mhuillin, a bag used for transporting grain across the sea to the mill on Uist. Further examples of such workmanship include fine straw horse collars made in the Western Isles, and heather, straw and floss bait cubbies made in Shetland. In all these cases, it is difficult to explain the reasons for creating such refined work with such challenging materials, and for mundane uses that would quickly wear them out. These final solutions promote reflection on human motivations and practice in craft. Not all makers work in this way. Indeed, as Soumhya Venkatesan has discussed, when craft activities are driven by economic imperatives, many makers admit to finding their craft difficult, stressful, or boring (2010). But some do enjoy the work, or want to do it well – or both. And this can even be achieved in difficult circumstances, like those experienced by the Scottish basket-makers discussed in this chapter. For Ingold, such forms of practice, or solutions to the task at hand, lie in improvisation and flow, following the ‘ways of the world’ (2011: 216). The maker ‘joins with and follows the forces and flows of material that bring the form of the work into being’ (ibid.). He cites Deleuze: ‘To improvise is to join with the world, or meld with it. One ventures from home on the thread of a tune’ (ibid.: 84). But while Ingold’s description evokes a sense of how working feels, it does not take us to how it happens. In such description, the term ‘flow’ suggests a path of least resistance. While this may describe the feel of work when it is progressing well, it does not encompass the constraints and the rough points that are experienced by most craftspeople during their journey to becoming skilled makers. As I have described, these points of challenge can improve the work. The challenges of learning, the influence of past skills and knowledge, the impact of constraints, the work involved, the problems to be solved, and the economic limitations, all may be experienced as either obstacles or as potentially-positive contributors to who we are, and how we work. Challenges and problems take us back to the moment of learning; when things are difficult and one has to (re-)begin. Without this striving, there is no improvement, and thus no transformation from novice to expert. Makers may revisit such moments each time they begin working, as part of the process of refocusing their attention; or, as Sennett describes, of allowing patience, sustained concentration and intuition to come into play (2008: 198–200). Concluding Remarks At the 2013 Making Futures conference, where an earlier version of this chapter was first presented, the views of my audience ranged from suggestions that

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craftspeople’s aspiring for excellence in the ways I have described is an ‘inherent aspect of handwork’ to critiques that this notion romanticises craftwork. Designermaker of furniture Gareth Neal suggested that constraint is an important catalyst to striving for excellence. This view resonates with the ideas of design philosopher Wilhelm Flusser (1999), Richard Sennett (2008), and, to a large degree, with my own. It takes us full circle to the moment-by-moment problem solving that is enacted by the maker when they put tension into the basket, continuously engaging with and modifying it, stroke by stroke; and to the effort put into learning basket-making, to developing skill, and to incorporating this tension. When all this comes together, the rhythm of work flows; but without the engagement and the effort, there would be no improvement and no development. But, notably, without experiencing the rhythm, or flow, the maker might never sense the beauty, or understand what they are actually striving for. I can only conclude that one is both compelled and impelled, both going with the flow and overcoming resistance, both in the rhythm and on the journey. And so the practice of working well remains a solution that we can puzzle upon, while continuing to be content that at least some basket-makers see the need both for working to solve existing problems and for providing solutions to problems which are not always evidently there. Bibliography Albers, A. 1965. On Weaving. New York: Dover. Balfour, E. 2014. At www.wovencommunities.org. Beveridge, E. 1911. North Uist. Edinburgh: William Brown. Bunn, S. 2015. ‘Who designed Scottish vernacular baskets?’, in Journal of Design History (forthcoming). Deleuze, G. and F. Guattari 2004. A Thousand Plateaus. London: Continuum. Ellen, R. 2009. ‘A Modular Approach to Understanding the Transmission of Technical Knowledge: Nuaulu basket-making from Seram, eastern Indonesia’, in Journal of Material Culture, 145: 243–76. Emery, I. 1966. The Primary Structure of Fabrics. Washington: The Textile Museum. Flusser, W. 1999. The Shape of Things. London: Reaktion Books. Gibson, J. 1966. The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems. George Allen and Unwin. Grant, I. 2007. The Making of Am Fasgach: an account of the origins of the Highland Folk Museum by its Founder. Edinburgh: National Museums of Scotland. Griaule, M. 1965. Conversations With Ogotommêli. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Guss, D.M. 1989. To Weave and to Sing. Berkeley: University of California Press. HMSO 1951. Living Traditions Catalogue. Glasgow: Council of Industrial Design, Scotland. Ingold, T. 2011. Being Alive. London: Routledge.

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Keller, C. 2001. ‘Thought and Production: insights of the practitioner’, in M.B. Schiffer (ed.), Anthropological Perspectives on Technology. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, pp. 33–45. Martin, A.J. 1904. Up to Date Tables of Imperial, Metric, Indian and Colonial Weights and Measures. London: T. Fisher Unwin. Mason, O.T. 1904. ‘Aboriginal American Basketry: Studies in a textile art without machinery’, in Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, Report of the US National Museum for the year ending June 30 1902, pp. 171–548. Washington: Government Printing Office. Mellaart, J. 1966. ‘Excavations at Çatal Hüyük, 1965: fourth preliminary report’, in Anatolian Studies, 16:165–91. Oliver, P. 2000. ‘Ethics and Vernacular Architecture’, in W. Fox (ed.) Ethics and the Built Environment. London: Routledge. Seiler-Baldinger, A. 1973. Classification of Textile Techniques. Ahmedabad: Calico Museum. Sennett, R. 2008. The Craftsman. London: Penguin. Venkatesan, S. 2010. ‘Learning to Weave, Weaving to Learn … What?’, in Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, special issue T. Marchand (ed.) Making Knowledge, pp. S158–S175. Wendrich, W. 1991. Who is Afraid of Basketry: a guide to recording basketry and cordage for archaeologists and ethnographers. Leiden: Leiden University, Centre for Non-Western Studies. Wendrich, W. 1999. The World According to Basketry. Leiden: Leiden University, Center of Non-Western Studies. Woven Communities Project website, www.wovencommunities.org.

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Part II Social, Economic, and Philosophical Dimensions in the Problems of Craftwork

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Chapter 8

Social Strategies and Material Fixes in Agotime Weaving Niamh Jane Clifford Collard

Introduction: The Problem of Social Networks Drawing on fieldwork carried out with weavers in a community workshop in Kpetoe Agotime, a small town in southeastern Ghana close to the border with Togo, this chapter explores what problem solving meant for a community of Ghanaian craftsmen. The ethnography presented demonstrates that while Agotime weavers were adept at manipulating tools and materials to solve practical problems that arose during craftwork, the issue that most concerned them was seeking solutions to managing the complex networks of social relationships that secured their positions within the community of makers and that facilitated their work. This strategising was an ever-evolving process, contingent and unfinished, making the social challenge of being a weaver and a person in Agotime an intractable and, ultimately, an insoluble one. In order to understand how craftspeople managed their lives, I explore beyond those problems that were amenable to a ‘quick fix’, and look to the wider social contexts in which they lived and worked. Skilful material problem solving went hand-in-hand with the long-term nurturance, management, and strategising of often-precarious forms of social capital. The ability to produce high-quality cloths was therefore closely related to the strength and successful management of the numerous social ties between weavers, customers, patrons, and traders. The crafted product thus became a material manifestation of sociality; a sedimentation of the relationships that went into its making. By its very nature, sociality is shifting and contingent, and therefore the limitations of the weavers’ relationships need to be recognised. Development studies scholar Kate Meagher observed that social capital is never an unlimited good in the context of West African informal economies (2006, 2010a, 2010b). Social limits and borders are an integral part of the community fabric, and they can be both exclusive and exclusionary. In the same way that they may curtail a craftsperson’s relationships with fellow makers, customers, and traders, they may also limit his capacity to weave well.

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The Importance of Sociality and Exchange in Strategising Challenges Located on the outskirts of Kpetoe Agotime, the weaving workshop housed the looms of nearly 30 kente weavers. Kente cloth is a distinctive Ghanaian craft, and that produced in Agotime is renowned for its quality and style. Like much craftwork across West Africa, weaving in Agotime has been a male-dominated activity. Of the workshop’s many members, only one was female. Fifty-eight per cent of Ghana’s population is aged 24 and younger (Ghana Statistical Services, 2013: 5) and levels of youth unemployment are high (Amankrah, n.d.). These statistics were reflected in the workshop where membership was dominated by young men who had taken up weaving because they were unable to find stable, salaried employment after leaving school. In the absence of state social security systems, the livelihood strategies of these young men routinely and opportunistically combined weaving with other available kinds of work, including subsistence farming and driving taxis, local trotro buses, and motorbikes. These men and their young families lived precariously on the margins of an already unstable local economy that, too, was marginalised in relation to a national economy that is centred upon the capital, Accra. They regularly struggled to make ends meet, and the threat of going without food or being unable to pay the rent was ever-present. By turning to weaving, young Agotime men were not only exploiting the skills they could learn (or that they already possessed) to produce and market a distinctive and popular commodity, but weaving also allowed them to cultivate widespread and resilient social networks. Nurturing loyalty in their relationships and fostering social ties of dependence and mutual exchange with members of their extended families, friends, neighbours, work colleagues, and the visitors to the workshop (and to the town more generally) was a strategy for reducing the risks of hardship. If a weaver was unable to work or was faced with unforeseen expenses, then he could rely on the investments he had made in his networks to ‘call in his debts’. This strategy was grounded in relations of continuous reciprocity and cycles of ongoing and unresolved indebtedness between all parties. The nature of this sociality demanded that weavers support one another, thereby each securing security for themselves. In effect, a cultivated social network became a buffer against scarcity and the unexpected. The concept of ‘wealth in people’ espoused by scholars studying societies in Equatorial Africa (cf. Argenti, 2007; Guyer and Belinga, 1995) has been compellingly applied to explain the importance of extensive social networks for negotiating scarcity and poverty across West Africa (Lindell, 2010; Meagher, 2006, 2010a). Whilst this concept is relevant to the working and social lives of Agotime weavers, I underline that the importance of social ties in the context of the workshop extends well beyond their sheer function of safeguarding against scarcity. My fieldwork observations of the very considerable attention paid to the work of becoming a well-connected person within the weaving community leads me to suggest that the cultivation of numerous and various kinds of social ties of dependence, exchange, and reciprocity was a style of ‘social being’ with an

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aesthetics of its own. At stake was not mere material survival, but also – and perhaps more saliently – the status and prestige associated with being a wellknown, well-connected, and successful craftsman. Social strategising and its continual renegotiation resulted in not only a contingent sense of economic security, but it also propelled one toward becoming a ‘full and proper’ person in the workshop and in the wider community. Being a full and proper person in the workshop gave access to the knowledge and resources of fellow weavers. The successful cultivation and maintenance of a social aesthetics of exchange, indebtedness, and hierarchical relations created opportunity for individual weavers to become integrated members of the learning community, and thereby grow their craft knowledge and solve day-to-day practical problems in weaving with the resources to hand. In short, the on-going resolution of social challenges created the spaces in which practical and material problem solving could happen. A Small Pile of Pebbles: Material Solutions to Material Problems Intense sociality underpinned the ways that workshop members managed the challenges of making a living. But, as craftsmen, they were also constantly engaged in a search for solutions to the tangible problems that cropped up while weaving a cloth. Time was of the essence: the needs of customers had to be met quickly and efficiently. When thinking about practical problems in the Agotime workshop, my memory often returned to a particular case that illuminates the ingenuity of weavers’ solutions. Early one Sunday morning, I was sitting against the trelliswork walls of the workshop, reading a book. Most of the townspeople were still in church, and an unusual stillness hung in the air. In the otherwise deserted workspace, Saviour, a man in his mid-30s, was at his loom shuttling bobbins of orange and black cotton back and forth to weave a series of long and narrow strips. The strips would later be sewn together along their length to make a funeral cloth. He sat perched on a low stool, his upper body bent over his loom, and his legs swiftly working the heddles that open and close the web of warp threads. He was silently focused on the strip of cloth that was stretched out before him. From time to time, Saviour paused to carefully reel in the length of cloth he had produced onto the cross bar on his lap, which grew thicker with finished cloth as he proceeded with the work. On a squat stool next to him were set out a cylinder of brown wax that is used for smoothing the warp threads as they snap open and closed, a supply of prepared yarns to throw as weft threads, scissors for trimming loose ends, a short length of reed, and a small collection of ten or so pebbles divided into two piles. Periodically he paused, looked up from his work, and shifted a pebble from one pile to the next. The wax, the yarn, the scissors, and the reed were standard tools of the trade that I kept in a box by the side of my own loom in the workshop. The pebbles, however, were something new.

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Saviour had recently taken up a government job halfway across the country and came home to Agotime for the weekend to see family and friends, and to spend time weaving to make a little money, I guessed. I later heard from another weaver that although Saviour’s job started ten months ago, he had not yet received his first pay check. For the time being, he was supporting himself and his family with proceeds earned from weaving. He was busy and time was short. If he managed to complete a cloth or two, he could perhaps sell them to one of his new colleagues in the government office. As each black and orange band of the woven strip was completed, Saviour shifted a pebble from one pile to the next to keep track of the number of bands and thereby to calculate the length of the cloth. Individual strips of the particular cloth that he was making comprised 21 alternating bands of black and orange. When one strip was complete, the next was started. Saviour’s use of the pebbles for keeping count made good sense given the format of narrow-strip cloths. Narrow-strip cloths are composed of a number of woven narrow strips that are stitched together, edge-to-edge, to form a larger cloth. In the case of kente cloths, each strip is made up of two or more designs in a number of contrasting colours that alternate sequentially in blocks or bands along its length. Design possibilities and the overall look of the cloth therefore depend on the arrangement of the finished strips, one next to the other, to create contrasting but balanced patterns of colour across the entire cloth. For a cloth to look neat and wellmade, each of its constituent strips that are stitched together must be equal in length. Agotime weavers place great store in neatness and balance. Because each strip in a cloth is several yards long, and a cloth might be made up of 20 or more strips, it is vital to keep track of the length of each strip and the length of each block or band of design in a strip. Ability to do so indexes a weaver’s skill. A tape measure with a notch in one end was tied to my loom, and I had been drilled in the importance of ensuring that each woven section was of equal measure. The small reed, perhaps eight or nine centimetres long, that sat on Saviour’s stool served the same purpose. His pebble counting, though, was a deft and novel solution to a recurrent problem. I watched Saviour work for a while before interrupting to ask about the pebbles. From where had he got the idea? Why was he using them now? Would he mind if I took a photo? With his characteristic reticence, and perhaps wary about my knowing that he had taken time off work to be in Kpetoe, Saviour merely replied that he was ‘feeling lazy’. When nudged a little further, he explained that the pebbles helped him to keep track when he was tired; and then he added that I could take a picture if I wanted. He then returned to his work and I sat back down with my book. I recorded the episode in my field-notes that evening and returned to it repeatedly when contemplating the role of problem solving in the making of Agotime weavers and their cloths. I imagined Saviour, walking sleepily to work that morning, collecting the pebbles as he went along, and setting them down by his loom as an aide-memoire. The image I concocted fit squarely with the ad hoc ethos of the workshop. Scraps of material, lengths of yarn, bits of wood, and parts from old looms were stored away to be refashioned and re-purposed when

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Gabriel laying out a kente narrow-strip cloth in the workshop. Kpetoe, August 2013. Photograph by Niamh Jane Clifford Collard.

someone’s tool or a part of their loom broke or wore out, and needed replacing. Resourcefulness was born of necessity. The weavers’ elegant bricolage with gathered objects and leftover bits and pieces ‘oiled the machinery’ of their working processes when things broke down. I never again saw Saviour or any other weaver use counters to keep track of their weaving. But, I did start making notes on the uses to which gathered odds and ends would be put. When the cross bar on my loom snapped, for example, Gabriel came to the rescue. Gabriel worked at a loom close by and he kept an eye on my progress and gently mentored me in the craft during my time in Kpetoe. To solve my broken cross-bar problem, he cut a pliable branch from the tree at the back of the workshop and whittled a new one. Brooms were made locally by female relatives by tying together bunches of palm reeds. The brooms were kept in the corners of the workshop and used each morning to sweep the dusty concrete floor. If a bobbin came loose from its shuttle casing, one or two palm reeds were pulled from a broom and snapped to size and used to slot the bobbin back into place. While preparing the weft yarns on the spinning machine, another length of reed (again pulled from the broom and folded back on itself) was used to fix the bobbins in place. Snippets of plastic cut from empty water sachets or stray ends of cotton fabric were wound around yarn that was being spun to keep

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the fast moving thread from burning the weaver’s fingers. Loose lengths of yarn and excess pieces of fabric from old weaving projects were collected and stored in plastic bags. The yarn and fabric could be later plaited to make straps for the loom: circles of coconut shell were attached to the end of the straps and the weaver could interweave the strap between his big and second toes in order to operate the heddles. If a heddle leash frayed and snapped, this part could be carefully repaired using bits of saved thread. Unused bobbins of yarn were stored more carefully, kept away from the light and dust in case they were needed for some future project that called for that colour and ply of thread. When the carved softwood pulley that held the heddles cracked on one weaver’s loom from years of use, an old plastic spool was coupled with a salvaged length of sturdy wire and put to work as a makeshift pulley. Crumbling breezeblocks, left over from when the workshop was built in the late 1990s, had been saved and used to weigh down the wooden sledges that kept the lengths of warp thread in tension. Things that were no longer needed at home eventually found their way to the workshop where they were given a new lease on life: old sofa cushions were used to pad hard wooden stools or as pillows for a nap in the midday heat; worn-out shopping bags with broken handles were used to wrap cloths to protect them from dust and the voracious jaws of the termites that colonised every corner of the workshop. Tools, too, had multiple purposes: a weaver’s knife for trimming loose lengths of weft thread, for instance, came in handy when he needed to repair some part of his loom. Many weavers were also skilled at fashioning the looms and other things that they needed to weave. Francis, who had become involved in the workshop after taking a weaving class at school, said that in the beginning he hadn’t the money to buy a carpentered loom and so instead constructed a ‘traditional’ one at home. This entailed planting a number of interlocking branches into the ground outside his house to form the loom structure. As Francis’s weaving skills became more adept, he decided to move into the workshop in the hope of attracting more custom. He could not bring his traditional loom from home to the workshop, but he was still struggling to find the 50 cedis or so needed for commissioning a carpenter to make a portable one.1 Francis therefore set out to build his own. With the help of a friend, and using another loom as a model, he constructed the base, the frame, the carefully-notched supports, and the cross bars. After years of use, his portable loom had become rickety and Francis spoke to me about replacing it with a properly carpentered one. In the meantime, he patched the old loom when necessary and kept on weaving. Improvising with available materials and found objects allowed weavers to work around the bigger and costlier problems that arose. It was a kind of tactical and skilful wayfaring for navigating the challenges and getting on with work 1 During the course of my fieldwork in 2012–13, the value of one Ghana Cedi (¢) fluctuated between £0.33p and £0.25p. For most workshop members, ¢50 was a considerable amount of money to pay upfront for tools or materials, and such a sum could constitute a craftsman’s entire working capital.

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(Ingold, 2010: 120). Improvisation itself engendered certain kinds of relationships between people and things (Ingold and Hallam, 2007: 7). If a loom got stuck or a tool broke, the weaver had to step out of the workflow to fix the problem. Proper management of one’s physical and emotional engagement with the cloth and tools was crucial to succeeding in the craft, and these brief periods of detachment from the regular workflow played a part in shaping the weaver’s overall social and material experience of making. The anthropological study by Thomas Yarrow and Sîan Jones of the life of a Scottish masonry yard suggests that this process involves balancing periods of engagement and immersion in the work with moments of detachment in which craftspeople might break to chat and share a smoke or cup of tea (2014: 260). I noted a similar dynamic at play in the Agotime workshop, where finding a rhythm in the work required skill and purposive effort. Maintaining focused and unbroken attention was demanding and tiring. If a thread snapped, or a tool gave way, the workflow was disrupted, thereby allowing the craftsman to step back and take stock of what had happened. These moments gave rise to reflection and offered opportunity for socialising. Neighbouring weavers in the workshop would take pause from their own work to offer hypotheses about what had gone wrong and suggestion of how it might be fixed. Disengaging from the flow to repair a snapped thread, replace a broken tool, or deliberate with a colleague about why the cloth is behaving in unexpected ways, provided, on the one hand, a breathing space that facilitated eventual re-engagement with the flow of work. But, perhaps more importantly, disengaging from the flow of one’s solitary work at the loom made time for renewing social relations with other weavers, fortifying networks, and reconfiguring social groupings and boundaries in the workshop. Skill as the Ground upon which We Work: Sociality and the Invisibility of Skill During discussions with my fellow weavers, my questions about problem solving were met with confusion. Although they managed problems in their everyday work, as I described above, and developed novel ways of designing and making their cloths, the category of ‘problem solving’ that I had in mind was nonetheless unfamiliar to them. I rephrased and modified my questions in the hope of eliciting explanations of how sparse, and often elegant, solutions were found to challenges at the loom. I laboured to get my fellow craftsmen to speak about the things that I had been watching them do for months. I was frustrated by the responses I eventually received. The weavers merely made cursory references to ‘friends helping each other’. Just as Saviour had said little about his small piles of counting stones, others, too, demonstrated little interest in speaking about the bricolage of tools and materials used to resolve hiccups, and keep their weaving on track. The practical, tangible work of weaving was left largely unspoken, and instead preoccupations with making and negotiating relationships always came to the

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fore. I felt increasingly that it was my questions, not their answers, which were missing the point, so I eventually stopped raising the issue of ‘problem solving’. In focusing on problem solving as a category for contemplation, I had assumed that the Agotime weavers approached their work in the same way as I did. Part of my reason for being in Kpetoe as an anthropologist was to master kente weaving, and I had taken learning to be a conscious, deliberate process of enskilment. From that perspective, I had conceptualised problem solving as a material process whereby a maker uses what they know and the things at their disposal to apply themselves in consciously creative ways to the task at hand. Despite my having read the literature that addresses the ad hoc, improvisational, and relational elements of working, and my having been conversant in theories of learning that emphasise the social processes of open-ended collaboration within porous and shifting communities of makers (cf. Lave and Wenger, 1991), my imagination was nevertheless stuck on the idea of craftwork as a linear and mechanistic interplay between skilled practitioner and environment. In temporal terms, this implied that the movement from problem to solution was a single moment – an epiphany of sorts. Upon reflection, the perspective I held was socially and temporally bounded: the individual conceived as the locus of skill and innovation, and the work as comprising discrete and discontinuous moments of practice. In focusing on material solutions to material problems, I was missing the ways in which practice was fundamentally socially mediated over long periods of mutual engagement and exchange between makers. Anthropological fieldwork and ethnographic writing are processes of learning to be elsewhere, at a constantly shifting frontier between what one already (thinks one) knows and something else entirely. Jean Lave, whose research on apprenticeship placed sociality at the heart of the learning process, has written eloquently about the importance and difficulties of re-engaging with and reworking one’s own ethnography (Lave, 2011). Lave argued that the commitment to questioning our own work is what makes ethnography ‘critical’. In my case, it was only after having admitted defeat in Kpetoe on the ‘problem solving’ issue, putting my interview questions to one side, and beginning to write up my research back home in the UK that I started to come to grips with what problem solving in the workshop really entailed. By jettisoning the assumptions I had carried with me to Kpetoe, I was able to revisit my field notes and read what they actually revealed about the links between practical skills and social relationships. In a process that could best be described as ‘ethnographic bricolage’, I tried to make sense of what I had learnt by (re) assembling the parts. Revisiting my recordings of what was said, done, and taught in the workshop made clear that skill was not something talked about, but rather it formed the kind of invisible and unremarked ground upon which weavers worked. Skill that supports craft practice was, like the ground that supports our feet beneath us, taken for granted. Questions of skill were therefore side-lined when weavers spoke about their lives and their work. Talk centred instead upon the meshwork of relationships that bound one to another, in the workshop and beyond. These friendships and ties were ever-present and forever under construction: new ones

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sought, existing ones nurtured or abandoned, and old ties reactivated and brought back to life according to the exigencies of personality and circumstance. In contrast to the bounded temporality of the problem solving I had set out to find, friendships (and animosities) were expansive, long-standing, and encompassed whole lifetimes in the community of craftspeople. Working Together: Craftwork and Collaboration Although Agotime weavers emphasised the importance of being able to work independently, there were a number of instances in which they would band together to get things done. Depending on the kind of help a weaver might need (e.g. asking for an opinion in passing, seeking guidance for completing a task, or requesting to use or borrow someone else’s materials), different levels of intimacy inhered in these collaborative relationships. Although weavers took pride in managing alone, some tasks necessitated collaboration, such as laying out the complex, striped warp designs. Mensah was one of the first weavers I met in the workshop. Small and sprightly, his shirt and trousers hung loose on his wiry frame, and his open face bore a broad grin that would erupt from time to time with infectious laughter. Mensah was formerly a member of the workshop, but he had moved his loom back home several years earlier. He was nevertheless a regular face around the shed. Stopping by now and then to see his friends, and occasionally lending a hand or offering an opinion on a cloth, his visits epitomised the ways in which weaving was interlaced with the pleasures of socialising. One afternoon, Mensah greeted Gabriel with a handshake and a click of his fingers before squatting down low to the ground on his haunches close to Gabriel’s loom to chat. Mensah turned to offer greetings to other friends around the shed. Brimming with confidence, he then introduced himself to me and gestured for me to follow him and Gabriel to the other side of the workspace. The chat between Gabriel and Mensah flowed, and soon they were unpacking a bag of brightly coloured spools of rayon thread that I had bought from a store in town the day before. With the spools counted and organised according to colour and laid out in groups on the dusty concrete floor, they set to work pegging out the warp threads that would be set in the loom for my first cloth. It was an intricate job that involved carefully counting threads and making a series of spatial calculations to determine the length of weft to prepare. These calculations would ultimately determine the width and length of the strips that would make up the cloth. It is an important skill that apprentice weavers struggle to learn and which they might only master at the very end of their training, if at all. Throughout my own apprenticeship in Kpetoe, I remained entirely dependent on friends to help with this task, and I left the field still unsure of how to lay a background. In any case, it was a tricky task even for the initiated, so laying the warp was often done collaboratively. Trailing yarn back and forth between two sets of nails hammered into several lengths of wood, Mensah and Gabriel worked fluidly, exchanging an occasional

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word or glance as they set up an intricate striped pattern of threads in purple, deep blue, and pink. After an hour or so of meticulously counting and calculating, the last of the background was laid. Gabriel snapped the final lengths of yarn from the spool, and then fetched a circular wicker frame from across the workshop. Mensah, holding the frame in both hands and pulling backwards upon it so that his weight pivoted around his heels and his back was angled toward the concrete floor, began to carefully wind the background threads around the frame. After finishing, they returned to Gabriel’s loom to continue chatting for a short while before Mensah bid everyone goodbye and headed home. In addition to the occasional chore of laying the warp, there were other tasks that prompted weavers to turn to a colleague for assistance. For example, if a weaver was tackling a weft pattern that they had never attempted before, it was common to ask for help. In fact, weavers often said that having available help for this task was one of the main advantages of having a loom in the workshop. There was usually more than one way to approach a pattern, and colleagues would discuss the advantages of different techniques before settling on a method. When a cloth was nearing completion, weavers paired up to work out the best arrangement of strips, laying out the pieces edge-to-edge on the workshop floor. Whilst novelty in the choice of colour and design of a cloth was valued, considerable emphasis was also placed on composing a visual balance in the overall appearance of the textile. By flipping strips back to front or end to end, the overall design of the cloth was subtly, and sometimes radically, changed, and colleagues would gather to proffer their opinion on the most attractive configuration before the pieces were sent to the tailor to be sewn together.2 Both of these kinds of assistance were given freely, even between workshop members who were not necessarily the closest of friends. The lending of tools and materials was another highly valued form of assistance. In comparison with the preceding examples, however, lending tools demanded greater levels of trust between partners and a shared understanding that offers of help had to be reciprocated. For example, weavers would calculate the amount of thread they needed for a project before starting, but occasionally a weaver might run out of a particular colour before finishing the cloth. It might be financially difficult, if not impossible, for that weaver to buy the thread needed to finish the piece – in fact, they might receive their next income only once they had finished and sold the cloth. Thus, it was important for weavers to have trusting relationships with fellow craftsmen who would be willing to lend the spools of yarn with the knowledge that the debt would be repaid. Having or not having such relationships meant the difference between being able to deliver a completed cloth to a paying customer and the project being abandoned. Bonds of intimacy and 2 Tailoring is a separate craft from weaving, with its own apprenticeship and workshops. In Kpetoe, tailors who specialised in stitching together kente cloths were distinct from those who tailored ordinary clothes. Weavers generally had a preferred tailor to whom they would take their finished pieces to be made up into cloths and other garments.

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trust also inhered in relationships in which work was shared between close friends and family members. For instance, weavers who had large commissions or who were already busy with other contracts would subcontract out part of their work to trusted fellow craftsmen. This arrangement allowed the principal weaver to both meet the demands of his customers during busy periods and offer valuable work to those who had little of their own. Sharing commissions served to smooth out the flow and availability of work, thereby providing a solution to one of the key challenges facing Agotime weavers. Making Cloths, Growing Bodies: Collaboration and Commensality The process of making a cloth in the workshop was a collaborative effort that involved various kinds of social ties. Weavers who worked together also tended to socialise and share food with one another. As such, a parallel can be drawn between the collaborative strategising that went into managing material problems and commensality as a process that organically grew bodies and relationships. If cloths were made collaboratively, then so too did weavers grow together in the shared social and material world of the workshop. The idea that sharing food is a semiuniversal mechanism for creating common substance was suggested by Maurice Bloch who wrote, ‘… food unites the bodies that eat together and eating different foods distances them’ (1999: 138). In the workshop, the production of common substance extended from commensality and talk about certain sorts of foods to the practice of weaving itself, so that food and work became bound together in the discursive production of particular types of socialised, working bodies. The physical demands of weaving, compounded by the intense equatorial heat, called for regular breaks to eat, drink, and rest. Over the course of the day, women bearing tin bowls of fresh oranges, plastic basins of boiled maize, or a bundle of fresh sugar cane on their head wandered through the workshop. Those who were the mothers, sisters, wives, or neighbours of weavers would stop for a chat, setting down their wares and untying sleeping infants from their backs. The weavers kept a few loose coins in their pockets or work boxes to buy a snack, and they would break from their work to eat and talk together. Sharing food or drink signalled that weavers valued each other’s company, and these offers were accompanied by kindly smiles, joking, and chatting. An offer of food might also initiate an exchange of gifts, whereby an offer was reciprocated at a later date. Offers of food and drink in the workshop were also entangled with complex ideas about the relationship between food, strength, and the work of weaving. While offering me a piece of corn or grilled plantain, Francis would ask what I had eaten for breakfast. When I would reply that I had eaten only fruit and bread, he worried that my diet was inadequate. Taking only ‘tea’ (i.e. a hot drink and some sweet sugar bread) or a meal of only rice did not count as eating. A meal was considered complete when it included soup or a portion of stew accompanied

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Pouring libations and sharing drinks in the weaving workshop. Kpetoe, November 2013. Photograph by Niamh Jane Clifford Collard.

by fufu (sticky dough made from cassava), yam, cocoyam, or akple (a local staple made from fermented corn flour and pounded cassava). If a weaver did not eat enough ‘strong’ food, then they risked weakening themselves to the point of illness. The link between ‘strong’ foods and ‘growing strong’ was a recurrent theme in conversations among weavers. Their concerns about scarcity or lack were expressed in terms of not having enough of the ‘right’ kind of food. These worries translated into offers of food and drink as part of the work of maintaining ties with friends, family, and valued colleagues. Exchanges of food and drink therefore functioned in two interconnected ways: to feed the corporeal body and to feed the social body. The intertwining of commensality and collaboration in the workshop bound the organic processes of keeping alive to the social work of belonging to a community of craftspeople. Mutual Assistance and the Limitations of Belonging Weavers’ strategies for managing the problem of a precarious working life included more substantial forms of mutual assistance. During times of financial need, gifts of money were exchanged between close friends and family members.

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For example, weavers could expect friends and relatives to help defray the costs of such unanticipated events as a funeral or the ‘outdooring’ of a new baby.3 Like craft skills, these relationships were grown slowly over a lifetime of shared experience and friendship, and they were treasured assets. In functional terms, they acted as a buffer, allowing weavers to even out financial peaks and troughs and to organise their working lives with a sense of security, however limited. In terms of prestige, the ability to call on a wide social network for support was a marker of status. It was expected that gifts of money would be reciprocated. In explaining these arrangements, Gabriel said that he was happy to give to a small and select group of his closest friends and associates because he trusted each of them to return the favour in his time of need. Just as a cloth embodied the sociality that went into its making, money and things exchanged over time became material manifestations of longstanding relationships. These offers of assistance, however, came at a cost. To maintain close ties one had to possess the means to reciprocate. If one party was unable to return the gift, then relationships were liable to fray and disintegrate. It could be argued that the resilience of the Agotime weavers’ social networks was only as strong as the abilities of its most vulnerable members to reciprocate. The literature on the resilience and resourcefulness of social networks has made this point well (Dijkstra, 2010; Lindell, 2010; Prag, 2010; Simone, 2010). Meagher’s studies of informal manufacturing in Nigeria, for example, emphasised that in contexts of enduring poverty, state weakness, and infrastructural failure, social ties and networks can only achieve so much and should not be hailed as a cure-all for systemic problems (Meagher, 2006, 2010a, 2010b). Offers of mutual financial assistance between weavers were never freely made. They operated exclusively between particular people, marking the intimacy of their interpersonal relationship as well as the ties that existed between their families. It was therefore not surprising that some of the most generous offers were made between cousins. Two of Gabriel’s patrilineal cousins wove in the workshop. One was Saviour, introduced earlier, and another was a young man named Bright. The three enjoyed a warm, friendly, and productive relationship that extended beyond the workshop, deep into the fabric of their lives. They were 3 Funerals in Agotime, and throughout Ghana, are elaborate and lavish affairs lasting several days. The family of the deceased is expected to provide hospitality for the mourners, often numbering in the hundreds. Funerals are an opportunity to socialise as well as mourn, and they are a marker of a family’s status and prestige. As such, the weavers believed that a family should invest as much as they could reasonably afford in a funeral not only out of respect for the dead, but to fulfil their obligations and renew ties in their social network. The so-called ‘outdooring’ of a new baby takes place in the weeks after birth, when mother and child visit family, friends and neighbours. It is an intensely social occasion that marks the arrival of the child within the community and the passing of the dangers posed by pregnancy and childbirth. Gifts are exchanged and the father of the child is expected to provide a new set of clothes for the mother (often in auspicious indigo wax print or white cloth) and a kente cloth wrapper in which to carry the baby.

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closely bound together through the sharing of work, gifts of food, offers of help at the loom, and exchanges of money. At times, their conversations became quite lively, with boisterous laughter volleyed across the workshop. The nature of these exchanges communicated to others a definite sense that they enjoyed a relationship of mutual support. Not everyone in the workshop was included in this kind of tight-knit community of friendship, family, and work. Victor was a shy man in his early thirties who had been apprenticed in adulthood to an older weaver who had since retired. Victor’s parents had been farmers from the northern Volta Region. He was friendly and willing to speak, but he lacked confidence, avoided eye contact, and stumbled over his words. Now and again, ebullient chatting and banter in the workshop spilt over into open taunting and mockery, and Victor was often the target. Quiet in nature and lacking the family ties and close friendships that others enjoyed, Victor was easily cast as an outsider. One afternoon, in the midst of a particularly rowdy bantering session between Gabriel and his cousins, Victor was loudly called from his work to carry an empty water sachet to the bin. The indignity of the request was writ large across his face. Nevertheless, he slowly bent down to pick up the rubbish while the entire workshop looked on, and he walked to the bin while glancing over his shoulder. Victor returned to his loom and muttered something angrily under his breath. His retort was met with whoops of laughter from a few, and the ashamed silence of everyone else. He was thoroughly cowed and humiliated. This event fully exposed the exclusionary dynamic at work that allowed some weavers to feel at home in the workshop and others to feel alienated and defeated. Some time later, the normally tolerant and gentle weaver who sat next to Victor in the workshop expressed to me his frustrations with his workmate. He complained that Victor did not know how to lay out his own warp background and that he regularly asked neighbours for help with his weaving. It was clear to me that there was little patience afforded Victor by even his kindest colleagues. Victor had not been taught how to lay the warp during his apprenticeship. Not being from a weaving family, Victor depended entirely upon his master to learn the trade. When the master retired and left the workshop, Victor was forced to pay colleagues to help him or to depend on their grudging goodwill. He lacked practical problem-solving abilities and was running short of the social capital that would allow him to acquire that knowledge, and to work successfully. Although it would be overstating the matter to suggest that Victor’s master had deliberately withheld training to lay a warp, it does seem reasonable to suggest that Victor had not mastered practical skills because he was not socially-embedded within the community of makers in the ways that others were. In short, Victor lacked the relationships that enabled others to collaboratively problem solve and resolve work challenges, and this fact was reflected in the relatively poorer quality of his weaving.

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Conclusion: Tracing a Path from Growing to Making The ongoing and insoluble challenges of being a craftsman and a person in Agotime were socially framed because skilled practice was developed through the careful cultivation and nurturance of relationships of exchange and commensality. Not everyone who weaved came from a family of weavers, or was from Agotime, but growing up in the weaving community offered greater access to skill development and endowed individuals with a certain sense of belonging. Together, these things formed the social basis of the problem-solving strategies that enabled weavers to live and work within the community of craftspeople. Where ties to the community were weaker, there was reduced capacity to collaboratively solve problems concerning practical and social issues that arose in the processes of crafting. The themes of sharing, food, and nurturance that ran through everyday life in the workshop powerfully expressed ideas of community, growth, and belonging – but they could also inflict the opposite. To be on the margins of the workshop community was an experience that stunted the growth of makers. Without the support of colleagues, a weaver was unable to fully develop mastery and a sense of independence, and his weak social ties crucially impinged on his capacity to problem solve around the practical challenges of making. Such craftsmen struggled on, marginalised and ever-reliant on the ‘grudging goodwill’ of others. If, as I was told, weaving in Agotime is ‘the work of the community’, then it was this craft – often shared with warmth and friendship, but also laden with the potential to exclude – that defined the possibilities and limitations of ‘being’ amongst these men. Bibliography Amankrah, J.Y. (n.d.). Youth Unemployment in Ghana: prospects and challenges. Online at: http://www.cepa.org.gh/researchpapers/Youth73.pdf (accessed June 26 2014). Argenti, N. 2007. The Intestines of the State: youth, violence, and belated histories in the Cameroon Grassfields. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Bloch, M. 1999. ‘Commensality and Poisoning’, in Social Research, 66(1):133–49. Dijkstra, T. 2010. ‘Does Trust Travel? Horticultural Trade in Kenya’, in D.F. Bryceson (ed.) How Africa Works: occupational change, identity and morality. Rugby: Practical Action Publishing. Geurts, K. 2002. Culture and the Senses: bodily ways of knowing in an African community. Berkeley: University of California Press. Ghana Statistical Service. 2013. 2010 Population & Housing Census ReportChildren, Adolescents and Young People in Ghana. Online at: www.statsghana. gov.gh/docfiles/publications/2010phc_children_adolescents_&young_peo ple_in_Gh.pdf.

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Guyer, J. and S.M.E. Belinga 1995. ‘Wealth in People as Wealth in Knowledge: accumulation and composition in Equatorial Africa’, in Journal of African History, 36(1):91–120. Ingold, T. and E. Hallam 2007. ‘Creativity and Cultural Improvisation: an introduction’, in E. Hallam and T. Ingold (eds) Creativity and Cultural Improvisation. Oxford: Berg. ——— 2010. ‘Footprints through the weather-world: walking, breathing, knowing’, in T.H.J. Marchand (ed.) Making Knowledge: explorations of the indissoluble relation between mind, body and environment. Chichester: WileyBlackwell. Lave, J. 2011. Apprenticeship in Critical Ethnographic Practice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lave, J. and E. Wenger 1991. Situated Learning: legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lindell, I. 2010. ‘Between Family and Market: urban informal workers’ networks and identities in Bissau, Guinea Bissau’, in D. Fahy Bryceson (ed.) How Africa Works: occupational change, identity and morality. Rugby: Practical Action Publishing Ltd. Meagher, K. 2006. ‘Social Capital, Social Liabilities, and Political Capital: social networks and informal manufacturing in Nigeria’, in African Affairs, 105(421):553–82. ——— 2010a. Identity Economics: social networks and the informal economy in Nigeria. Woodbridge: James Currey. ——— 2010b. ‘Social Capital or Social Exclusion?: social networks and informal manufacturing in Nigeria’, in D. Fahy Bryceson (ed.) How Africa Works: occupational change, identity and morality. Rugby: Practical Action Publishing Ltd. Prag, E. 2010. ‘Women Leaders and the Sense of Power: clientalism and citizenship at the Dantokpa market in Cotonou, Benin’, in I. Lindell (ed.) Africa’s Informal Workers: collective agency, alliances and transnational organizing in urban Africa. London: Zed Books. Simone, A.M. 2010. ‘Linking Irregular Economies: remaking trans-urban commercial networks through new forms of social collaboration’, in D. Fahy Bryceson (ed.) How Africa Works: occupational change, identity and morality. Rugby: Practical Action Publishing Ltd. Yarrow, T. and S. Jones 2014. ‘‘Stone is Stone’: engagement and detachment in the craft of conservation masonry’, in Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 20(2):256–75.

Chapter 9

Feeling a Way Through: Affective Problem Solving in Dressmaking Rebecca Prentice

Introduction: ‘Feeling a Way Through’ This chapter contributes to our understanding of craftwork as a multifarious process of production that creates interdependent affectivities between people and objects. Drawing on long-term anthropological research with dressmakers in Trinidad, West Indies, I explore the craft of garment production as a form of problem solving that exemplifies the ingenuity and creative intelligence of dressmakers. Dressmaking requires the orchestration of relationships between people and the artefacts of production, as well as the careful management of the dressmaker’s own social performance, interiority, and techniques of making. Calling upon recent theories of affect in anthropology and sociology (Stewart, 2007; Moore, 2011; Navaro-Yashin, 2009), this chapter argues for the relevance of ‘feeling’ as a mode of diagnosis, problem solving, and action. Recognising the relevance of feeling helps us to appreciate dressmakers’ practical expertise without drawing a dichotomy between the social and the technical. The material is organised into three themes. First, I examine micro-interactions between dressmakers and clients in their negotiations over the making of bespoke garments. A dressmaker’s livelihood depends upon her ability to satisfy her client’s needs, but a client’s needs are also malleable and subject to the dressmaker’s influence. The everyday artefacts of production (e.g. sketched designs, cloth, thread, measuring tape) mediate these negotiations, but they also pose a variety of problems for the dressmaker. Successful negotiations require the alignment of the material properties and potentialities of objects, such as cloth, with a dressmaker’s technical abilities and a client’s desires. Next, I describe how dressmakers contend with dressmaking dilemmas that appear prima facie to be technical problems of construction. Instead, I show how these problems are enmeshed within a number of social demands, the management of which is vital to the practice of dressmaking itself. The inextricability of the technical from the social explains why a dressmaker’s habitus requires the embodiment of technical prowess as well as sociality and flair. By ‘feeling a way through’, the dressmaker is able to satisfy the competing obligations of her craft. Finally, I deconstruct the dressmaker’s ‘illusion of effortlessness’ as she goes about her work, showing how this illusion actually requires a careful and

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intentional presentation of self (Elyachar, 2005: 116). Because clients have an affective response both to the dressmaker’s comportment and to the garments themselves, I argue that dressmakers must coordinate and make productive the relations between people and things. Affect management is a means of enhancing the dressmaker’s status and managing the client’s expectations. Throughout this chapter, I argue for an expansive definition of craftwork in order to capture both the everyday technical acts of making and their social meaning and structuring. My approach supports the view that narrow definitions of craftwork as technique or outcome neglect both the affectivities that link human beings to objects and the socialities that are embedded in the production of such objects. As she goes about her work, a Trinidadian dressmaker manages various imperatives – social, technical, economic, and embodied – that are indivisible from her perspective as an acting subject. A focus on problem solving begins with this actor-centric view. For the Trinidadian dressmaker, responding to these imperatives requires what I call ‘feeling a way through’, which encompasses her moment-to-moment sensory and phenomenological engagements in practices of making, and the social considerations that influence decision-making over design and construction. From Rags to Riches The popular Jamaican feature film Dancehall Queen (1997) tells the rags-toriches story of a single mother named Marcia who manages to improve her life by transforming herself from an impoverished street vendor into a glamorous dancehall queen. As the film opens, Marcia’s circumstances are dire. Unable to make ends meet by selling snacks on the streets of Kingston, Marcia relies on cash assistance from a dangerous local don named Larry, who has begun making sexual advances on her teenaged daughter, Tanya. A petty thug named Priest kills one of Marcia’s friends and begins stalking Marcia to prevent her from snitching to the police. Faced with Larry’s predations and Priest’s threats of violence, Marcia decides to pursue an alternative avenue for money and social prestige by reinventing herself as a dancehall queen. Marcia swaps her workaday dungarees and cap for an elaborate wig and the scanty, hyper-sexualised attire that is popular in the dancehall. Unrecognisable to those who know her from the streets, Marcia soon becomes known as ‘The Mystery Lady’, in whose guise she is able to win the admiration of Larry and fool Priest. She successfully manages to pit them against one another and get them out of her life. When the reigning dancehall queen, Olivine, challenges The Mystery Lady to a dance competition, Marcia’s style and performance earn her the adulation of the dancehall, even after the spectators learn that The Mystery Lady is in fact a lowly street vendor. Walking away with the cash prize, the film closes with Marcia back in her comfortable clothes, guiding her snack cart through admiring crowds, as she reclaims her street vendor identity

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and ‘now transfers to her “real” life the embodied power that her fantasy had bestowed’ (Cooper, 2004: 129). With its appeal to emotion and spectacular contrasts between good and evil, Dancehall Queen is a theatrical melodrama capturing ‘the power of costume to enable … transformation’ (Cooper, 2004: 127). This theme resonates in West Indian societies, where dress is used to articulate identity, especially the autonomous social self that slavery so utterly denied (Buckridge, 2004; Mintz and Price, 1992). The dancehall style that Marcia masters requires the use of colourful wigs, stiletto heels, dramatic makeup, and revealing attire as ‘tools for self-aggrandizement’ that accentuate the body (Stanley-Niaah, 2010: 172). With exaggerated eroticism and cheeky playfulness, Marcia’s dance performance achieves acclaim through her commitment to the disguise. Marcia could not accomplish her transformation from street vendor to dancehall queen without the aid of a local dressmaker, Miss Garden, who helps create the one-of-a-kind outfits that send Marcia to the heights of the dancehall. Working from the front room of her home, in a workspace piled high with halfcompleted garments, spools of thread, tattered fashion magazines, and scraps of fabric, Miss Garden embodies the stereotype of the hard-working and unflappable West Indian dressmaker (Prentice, 2012; Reddock, 1984). If Dancehall Queen is a narrative of creative reinvention, the neglected story is that of the dressmaker as an agent of change. Although Miss Garden plays an essential role in realising Marcia’s dancehall persona, little attention is paid to her actions or even her personal relationship with Marcia. The only dramatic tension between them is when Marcia first visits the dressmaker’s home and Miss Garden decides whether she will help her; never in question is Miss Garden’s capacity to do so. The neglect of Miss Garden’s skill, labour, and subjectivity in Dancehall Queen reflects the ubiquitous and therefore unremarkable social presence of the dressmaker in West Indian life. Working out of their own homes or a rented commercial space, independent dressmakers and tailors operate at all levels of the economic hierarchy, making bespoke garments for clients in exchange for cash payment. The design of the garment is usually based on a client’s own design ideas and selection of fabric. Although factory-made garments have been manufactured in the West Indies since at least the early twentieth century, and despite an expansion of the market in foreign ready-made goods during the past 30 years of trade liberalisation, dressmakers and tailors maintain an enduring role in the production of formal and semi-formal attire for weddings, fetes, and professional employment (Prentice, 2012). Visiting a dressmaker is a stylistic choice, guaranteeing an original look that is suited to the aesthetic sensibility and social identity of the individual wearer (Miller, 1994). I have conducted anthropological research on Trinidad’s garment industry since 2003. My ethnographic fieldwork includes participant observation in factories, homes, dressmaking shops, and sewing schools, and I have undertaken a nine-month apprenticeship with a local tailor. In so doing, I have observed and catalogued the lived worlds of garment makers, and traced how these have been

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reshaped by recent changes in the political economy of the region, including trade liberalisation and the rise of global mass consumption. Focusing here on my research with independent dressmakers who serve working- and middleclass women in and around Port of Spain, my aim is to explore dressmakers’ work practices. An analysis of problem solving is presented here as a corrective to the neglect of the dressmaker as an acting subject. By investigating how she manages some of the challenges of her craft, we see the dressmaker not only as an active agent, but also an affective one: someone who must manage emotions and expectations in herself and others. Craftwork here is comprised not of limited and routinised actions with cloth, scissors, measuring tape, and sewing machines, but also encompasses the social relations and negotiations that stimulate these activities, as well as the skills, physical infrastructure, tools, and social networks that are required to successfully make a living producing bespoke garments. I will argue that the craftwork of the dressmaker includes the careful management of her social presentation, performed identity, and the objects of her making. Recent theories of affect in anthropology and sociology help us understand the connections between these interior emotional states and embodied, performed, and productive identities. Clients as Problems: Sketches, Fabric, and Social Negotiations When Marcia first visits Miss Garden’s home, she offers her a hand-drawn sketch of the sexy dancehall outfit she wants made. Miss Garden asks her, ‘This? Who you making this for?’ When Marcia tells Miss Garden that it is for herself, Miss Garden replies, ‘Me don’t know about that. You sure you don’t want something more conservative?’ When Marcia, visibly upset, shouts, ‘What happen! Something wrong with me, mum?’ Miss Garden relents in the face of Marcia’s determination and agrees to make her the outfit. Negotiations over the garment that will be made are central to the dressmaker-client relationship. The bespoke dressmaker is not a free agent, engaging in acts of pure creation. Instead, she is always making something in consultation with its user. Most clients who visit a Trinidadian dressmaker bring with them some fabric and an image (e.g. a sketched design, or a picture torn from a magazine, printed from the internet, or displayed on a smartphone). When the client shares an image with the dressmaker, she intends it as a form of communication: to represent the garment that is desired. But for the dressmaker, a sketched design is a tool for managing a number of the problems inherent in bespoke garment production. While observing one such interaction between a dressmaker named Lisa and a client requiring a ‘skirt suit’ for her job as a civil servant, I noticed how Lisa put on her glasses and studied the sketched design presented by the client. As the client pulled a metre and a half of navy blue polyester suiting from a plastic bag emblazoned with the logo of a local fabric merchant, Lisa took out a pencil and altered the client’s sketch, drawing a pocket flap above each hip and a small

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circle indicating a button on each one. Reaching into a dish of buttons of various colours, shapes, and sizes, Lisa produced a large gold button and held it to the cloth, showing the client how it could be attached to the pocket flap in order to add some interest to the waist of the suit’s top without requiring the purchase of additional fabric. A sketched design is an artefact of production that coordinates the needs, desires, and activities of both client and dressmaker. As Lisa explained to me later, she anticipates when a client will be disappointed by what she has produced, even when it fulfils the client’s request. In this case, the navy-blue fabric was too plain for the client’s simple design. ‘Boring’, Lisa said. By adding the pockets and buttons, Lisa predicted a problem with the garment and devised a response that would satisfy her client. These changes are made in the first instance by ‘managing’ the sketch: making alterations to the design by modifying the client’s drawing. Even in cases when a client shows the dressmaker an image on a smartphone or from a magazine (or merely describes what she wants), the dressmaker will sketch the image on paper for the client to see.1 Sketches are not only instructional, communicative, and representational; they also establish power relations between the dressmaker and client. When a dressmaker draws across a client’s sketch, she makes a claim of ownership over the design that can be difficult for the client to challenge. A dressmaker might try to steer the design towards styles and forms that she can most easily accomplish (e.g. an elastic waist under a skirt suit rather than a structured one), and by sketching while talking about the design, she tests the acceptability of her amendments by listening for words of protest from the client. Transformed in the process of negotiation, the sketch shapes expectations and re-inscribes the separate roles of dressmaker and client. The dressmaker’s authority is symbolised by her drawing upon the image that the client has produced; it is always the dressmaker who maintains possession of the sketched design as documentation of what has been agreed. Trinidadian dressmakers recognise what Karen Tranberg Hansen has called ‘the efficacy of surfaces’: the power of clothing to communicate a social self (2004: 372). Like Miss Garden, a Trinidadian dressmaker will seek to understand how the client wishes to craft her appearance, usually by studying the image she has presented while asking about what the garment is for and how the client wants it to look. As Vanessa Maher noted about mid-century Italy, clients seek from a dressmaker not the seamless execution of their pre-formed requirements, but instead to have a confederate who can help develop styles to suit their social class and occasion (1987: 139). To be a successful dressmaker in Trinidad requires knowledge of the social importance and expectations of events such as weddings, graduations, and carnival fetes, as well as the social mores of dressing for the workplace. 1 The only instance in which a sketch might not be made is when the client brings to the dressmaker a garment that she wants copied.

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Not only must the dressmaker interpret the client’s aesthetic desires and social self in designing the garment, but she must also coordinate these desires with the needs of the purchased fabric, which has fixed properties (e.g. thickness, drape, slipperiness, quantity). Dressmakers prefer that clients wait until they have received instructions on the appropriate type and required quantity of cloth before shopping for it. Regardless, it is often the case that it is a client’s purchase of cloth that motivates a visit to the dressmaker. Problems arise when customers request a particular style, and then show the dressmaker cloth that is entirely unsuitable. As one dressmaker told me, ‘People ask for impossible things’. The recent popularity of ‘peach skin’ fabric (made from 100% polyester micro-fibres) has led some clients to request office attire in the soft, supple cloth. Because peach skin can cling to the body in ways that they deem unflattering and unprofessional, dressmakers like Lisa will steer an ‘executive’ client towards a blouse made from peach skin, but insist it be paired with a structured skirt made out of suiting material. Rather than challenging a client’s request outright, the dressmaker might enact this change by using a pencil to add straight, shaded lines to the sketch of a gossamer skirt. By uttering, ‘Like this. You’ll need polyester suiting for this’, as she draws, the dressmaker implies not that the client’s design was flawed but that she has enhanced it, and that only with the purchase of more cloth can the client’s vision be fulfilled. The quantity of the cloth purchased can also present a problem for the dressmaker. When clients do not buy enough cloth, as a dressmaker named Christiana told me, they hope that she can work her ‘magic’ to ‘make it stretch’. Equally, it is also a problem when a client purchases too much cloth. As Lisa said, ‘Then they feeling, how I buy so much of this fabric and now it’s all scraps to take home?’ Because fabric left as scraps is a testament to wasted money, and seemingly indicts the dressmaker for lack of foresight, dressmakers may alter the sketch to make use of the fabric purchased. A good example is when the tailor2 with whom I studied subtly altered the sketch of a V-neck dress to indicate a foldover that would make better use of the copious quantity of fabric purchased by the client. With a fold-over design, two large pieces of cloth (instead of just one) would be used to construct the front of the dress. He drew a line of dark piping to enclose the self-edge. ‘I have piping’, he said, meaning that the client would not have to pay for it. Costs for most kinds of garments are fixed according to the dressmaker (Lisa, for example, charges TT$70 for a skirt, or TT$125 for a skirt suit), so negotiations with clients focus primarily on style, cut, fit, and suitability for a particular event. Although a more complicated design might compel a dressmaker to raise the 2 Although dressmakers only make clothing for women, some tailors produce for both male and female clients. A woman with an office job may seek either a dressmaker or a tailor to make business suits for her. The tailor with whom I studied in Trinidad produced clothing for both men and women, and taught me how to make dresses, blouses, skirts, and trousers for women and shirts for men.

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price, she will often absorb these costs for a loyal client or one who is notoriously difficult to please.3 A microanalysis of the interactions between dressmaker and client shows that these negotiations over what will be made are not prior to craftwork, but instead are part of craftwork itself. This challenges narrow conceptions of craft as a purely technical activity. In discussing the item to be made, the dressmaker must anticipate problems and align the material properties of fixed inputs, such as cloth, with her own technical abilities and the client’s desires. In order to interpret and satisfy the client’s desires, the dressmaker must be able to ‘read’ the social context for which the garment is required. This is not a one-time action, but rather an evolving process of making. The sketched design is a tool for achieving provisional agreement. The sketch is therefore less a blueprint than a palimpsest, an instrument for working towards understanding that testifies to the collaborative nature of the garment produced. Trevor Marchand described how crafting a minaret ‘is not about producing an a priori idea or image “in the mind’s eye”, but rather creativity centrally involves engagement in the physical “making” itself’ (2008: 257). The finished object emerges from the interplay between skilled knowledge and practices of making, which are immanent within each other. Similarly, the dressmaker does not simply ‘execute’ the sketched design that she has negotiated with the client, but constantly makes small alterations to the design in response to the tactile and aesthetic exigencies of the production process. For this reason, the centrality of the sketch during negotiations between dressmaker and client is later displaced by the finished object; when the client comes to collect it, she rarely glances at the sketch, if it is anywhere to be seen at all. The Problems of Construction Turning from the negotiations over a garment’s design to the activities involved in its construction might appear to be a shift in focus from the ‘social’ to the ‘technical;’ or from transactions with clients to craftwork itself. But sociality is woven into the entire process of making garments. The skill of dressmaking is socially imparted, meaning that accessing these skills requires involvement in a ‘community of practice’ as a recognised social actor (Lave and Wegner, 1991). Solving dressmaking dilemmas (i.e. technical problems with construction) often involves either directly activating these social relations in seeking advice, or enacting the self-reliance which has been inculcated in the dressmaker through 3 Although the prices of garments are fixed and subject to less negotiation than I had expected, dressmakers do vary the prices they charge for various reasons. As Lisa explained, ‘Within my own reasoning, if someone makes [i.e. buys] a lot of clothes I give them a little discount. And sometimes there are people who are not as financially capable as others, and I would on my own charge them a lesser amount … but I don’t like bartering!’

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her socialisation as a woman who is ‘into the sewing’. The following examples demonstrate this. When asked how they acquired their skills in garment production (i.e. measuring a client, drafting a pattern, cutting cloth, stitching a garment together, and finishing the garment by pressing and trimming it) most dressmakers recount a biography that includes several means of skill acquisition over many years. These vary from early exposure to sewing by female kin and attempting to sew on one’s own, to taking a formal course in dressmaking at a local trade school or being sent as a teenager ‘by a lady who sews’ (i.e. to a lady who sews) in the neighbourhood to learn how to draft, cut, and assemble garments. Dressmakers’ biographies are always ‘agentive’ (Froerer and Portisch, 2012: 338), encompassing individual initiative and experimentation, such as ‘ripping’ (taking apart) a piece of clothing and attempting to sew it back together, or practicing garment construction with newspaper instead of costly fabric. Dressmakers may also describe employment in factories as a means of learning fast and efficient stitching. Watching factory co-workers or kin sewing at home and surreptitiously trying out machines without permission, also figure into biographies of self-skilling (Prentice, 2012). Skills in sewing, then, do not have a single source, but are accumulated throughout the dressmaker’s career. As one dressmaker told me, ‘The garment industry is a changing one, constantly changing. Because the [high street] designers keep designing new things, and you have to figure it out. So, I learn by trial and error’. Capturing new skills and incorporating them into her dressmaking repertoire is part of an embodied process of self-making for a woman who is ‘into the sewing’. The necessity of this continuous self-skilling reflects the kinds of opportunism required to succeed in an economically volatile industry with seasonal shifts in fashion and demand. Most dressmakers have some experience of formal instruction in how to draft and construct a garment. When Lisa, who had taught herself to sew with the help of her mother, decided to take a formal dressmaking course in order to gain the confidence to set up her own business, she decided, ‘I’m going to forget everything I used to do, and do it [my teacher’s] way. Even when it seemed long and hard’. The painful undoing of her experiential knowledge required that she ‘put all [the] little tricks out of [her] head’, and that she commit herself to observing, imitating, and practicing the new approaches taught at a local technical institute. Lisa was delighted by the results of her new training; the quality of her production, she said, ‘spoke for itself’. Her commitment to the dressmaking course not only achieved her credentialing as a ‘trained’ dressmaker, but also provided social linkages with her instructors, upon whom she could rely in solving dressmaking dilemmas. When she first began working as an independent dressmaker, Lisa lost sleep over the first wedding dress she had to make: ‘I couldn’t estimate the amount of fabric, nothing’. She went back to one of her teachers who helped her to work out the type and amount of fabric needed, and how to begin the project. Whether in a sewing school, on a government-sponsored vocational course, or learning ‘by a lady who sews’, formal instruction generally focuses on core

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competencies that can then be adapted to achieve different stylistic effects. A simple garment like a skirt with a side zipper, once mastered, can be endlessly transformed with pleats, piping, ruffles, a ‘hobble’ hem, a fishtail, and so on. Because style comes from the adaptation of core competencies, instruction focuses not on mechanical adherence to the teacher’s instruction, but on cultivating the novice dressmaker’s personality and flair in its execution. In observing sewing teachers, and during my own apprenticeship with a tailor, I noticed that a student will be instructed about what to do (e.g. ‘press the pedal gently’), while also being told to ‘take your time’ and ‘do it your own way’. This dual message points to the need for improvisation and creativity within a standard framework of execution. A dressmaker cannot mechanically produce a garment, but rather she must develop and learn to trust in her own way. An emphasis on the dressmaker developing her own ‘style’ of production encourages her to take pleasure in her craft. As Jamie Cross noted, the deft execution of technique is a ‘public display of skill and technical prowess’, which is simultaneously social and intimately embodied (Cross, 2012: 37). Inhabiting the integrated mind-body of the successful and stylish dressmaker becomes a means of problem solving by acquiring a ‘feel’ for the solution. Lisa had been taught never to stitch over the metal base of zipper, but discovered that she could ‘feel’ a way to do it in order to create the shorter fly that she wanted: ‘I sew it right at the silver tab, and it’s shorter. [My instructor] says that the needle could bounce on the silver thing and break. But I know how to feel it, and that’s how I do it’. In Trinidadian English, the phrase ‘You getting through?’ is a way of inquiring whether someone has achieved something. Developing the confidence and kinaesthetic mastery to ‘feel a way through’ is the ethos of improvisation that is central to a dressmaker’s ability to adapt with changing fashions, and discover short-cuts as she goes about her work. The process through which the dressmaker learns to ‘fine-tune [her] own movements’ is what Tim Ingold described as ‘a “feel” of things’ (Ingold, 2001: 22). No longer having to return to her former instructor to ask for help, the confident dressmaker discovers efficiencies on her own. If negotiating with clients is inimitably social, the more private and independent act of constructing the garment may appear at first to be wholly technical. But constructing a garment is intermingled with social considerations, imperatives, and demands, as well as the socialities present in acts of skill acquisition. Being a dressmaker in Trinidad is a status conferred not by possessing narrow technical ability in designing garments, drafting patterns, and assembling cloth, but rather by the convincing performance of an entire habitus that includes not only these activities but also the social engagements that motivate and shape them. Acquiring this habitus requires access to tools, objects, infrastructure, and the performance of skill, each of which is embedded in social worlds, the access to which must be navigated by the enterprising dressmaker. ‘Feeling a way through’ is a complex mode of problem solving that suits the competing imperatives of bespoke dressmaking, which are variously and inextricably social, material, and technical.

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Affect, Performance, and the ‘Illusion of Effortlessness’ To make a living as a dressmaker, one has to be a socially successful person. Clients are drawn in the first instance from among friends and kin. As Jackie told me, ‘Friends coming [to get clothes made by me] who know people, and they telling people about me, and I start to charge [money]’. Lisa launched her dressmaking business while working part-time as a receptionist at a doctor’s office. She made certain that the female medical reps who frequented the office knew that she had made her own skirt suits, and handed them each a letter informing them of her dressmaking business after she had given notice. Like Miss Garden in Dancehall Queen, a Trinidadian dressmaker builds her reputation not only through the evidence of her handiwork and by word-of-mouth recommendations, but also through her poise and personal demeanour. If successful negotiations with the client sometimes require a firm but imperceptible guidance towards the dressmaker’s favoured outcomes, then the dressmaker’s bodily comportment has to inspire confidence. As Julia Elyachar described in her study of craftsmen in Cairo: ‘For the master, the craft has been practiced so many times since childhood that it is engraved in the nerves and muscles of his body and, as with the dancer, can be performed in the illusion of effortlessness’ (Elyachar, 2005: 116, emphasis mine). An illusion of effortlessness is a performance, but not a farce. It relies upon an ingrained ability to execute the role with skill and composure. To gain credibility and esteem from clients and the community, a dressmaker must engage in what Arlie Hochschild (1983) called the ‘emotional labour’ of self-control. Displaying a demeanour of calm certitude can require that the dressmaker keep her own emotions in check. But while Hochschild described emotional labour as usually being a performance of caring solicitude, for the dressmaker, emotional labour can equally be about ‘performing’ displeasure. As Lisa described, ‘If a customer comes and they say, “Oh, I just wrote my last cheque, I forgot and I’ll drop you the cheque tomorrow”, I say, “Well, okay”, and I just start to put the clothes back on the rack. I don’t mix matters’. She then laughed and added, ‘Then they don’t take very long to come and pay! So I just have to play hardball with them. So give me my money when I give you my clothes!’ By performing a no-nonsense demeanour in returning the garments to the rack, Lisa communicates her insistence that the goods cannot be taken until paid for, but without causing embarrassment for the client. The amusement that she later displayed about the scene indicates that her strictness was, at least partially, an act. If affect can be defined as ‘the powerful charge of emotions’ (Rew and Campbell, 1999: 11), then anthropologists have privileged its exteriorisation and social effects. Drawing particularly on the work of Gilles Deleuze, the focus has been on how bodies affect others and become affected by them (1992: 625). Affect has communicative power, but by its nature these communications exceed the actor’s intentions. So it is part of the dressmaker’s job to manage, to the extent that she can, how her social performance affects her clients in order to achieve the desired outcome. For example, when a client comes to collect a finished

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garment (which nearly always involves trying it on), the dressmaker’s confident comportment, along with her repeated insistence that the fit must be ‘just right’, is part of her attempt to orchestrate an affective response in the client. She wants the client either to be satisfied with the garment, and to submit to small alterations on the spot to make it ‘perfect’, or be content to return later if more extensive alterations are needed. Recent moves within anthropological and sociological theory have focused on affective relationships between people and things. Yael Navaro-Yashin, for example, exposed the ways in which affect becomes generated by the materialities of the environment in which we live, as objects bring with them past histories into new purposes and uses (2009). Indeed, as mentioned earlier in this chapter, objects can generate affective responses, such as beautiful fabric that invites purchase and is later taken to a dressmaker to be made into something nice. The dressmaker’s endeavour is to orchestrate and manage not only her relationship with her client, but also her own and her client’s relationship with these affective objects over the lifespan of production. As the dressmaker works on the garment, she always tweaks the design because her ‘knowledge is constantly made and re-made, responsive to a constant flow of new, competing and sometimes contradictory information’ (Marchand, 2008: 257). In so doing, the dressmaker must keep in mind the early negotiations with the client, the event for which the garment is intended, and what the client said she wants. While she is free to take pleasure in the making of the garment (i.e. her phenomenological engagement with the cloth as she assembles the pieces together, watching the garment take form, and experiencing the flow of a unified mind-body at work), the dressmaker must maintain enough distance to remember that the finished garment must, in the first instance, gratify the client, not herself. Her delight in making something beautiful must not ensnare the dressmaker, causing her to be driven by her own aesthetic sensibilities if they do not converge with those of the client. The dressmaker’s livelihood depends upon it. Conclusion By focusing on everyday problem solving in dressmaking, I have argued for a processual and expansive understanding of craftwork that encompasses the technical and the social. The sketched design a client brings to the dressmaker, for example, is a tool in decision-making that is simultaneously a social artefact that makes visible the negotiations between client and dressmaker. The sketch symbolises power relations between the two individuals as they vie for authorship and voice over the garment to be made. My emphasis on problem solving demonstrates the imperative for the dressmaker to seize control of the process of negotiation through subtle tactics that gently align the material properties of fixed inputs (e.g. fabric) with the client’s desires and the dressmaker’s skills.

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From the perspective of the dressmaker as an acting subject, the technical and social imperatives of her craft are inseparable, and the need to ‘feel a way through’ involves material as well as social relations. At times, feeling a way through requires an expert ‘reading’ of the client’s needs and desires, whereas at other times ‘feeling’ as she works defines the dressmaker’s phenomenological engagement with the materials and tools of production. In both instances, the dressmaker enacts practical expertise that she likely has acquired over a long career biography as an opportunistic learner. The dressmaker must ceaselessly manage human relationships. This involves not only the face-to-face relationships with clients, but also her personal comportment in the community, and the sense of poise that the dressmaker necessarily conveys. A social being in a social world, the dressmaker must orchestrate the relationships between people and objects, including the relationship between herself and the garments, and the relationship between clients and the garments that she produces for them. Analytical attention to affect provides an aperture through which we can see how the dressmaker contends with the affective responses generated by the clothing she makes, and how to manage them. These are intelligent practices that are often disguised by the dressmaker’s projection of knowingness and control. Bibliography Buckridge, S.O. 2004. Language of Dress: resistance and accommodation in Jamaica, 1760–1890. Mona: University of the West Indies Press. Cooper, C. 2004. Sound Clash: Jamaican dancehall culture at large. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Cross, J. 2012. ‘Technological Intimacy: re-engaging with gender and technology in the global factory’, in Ethnography 13(3):119–43. Deleuze, G. 1992. ‘Ethnology: Spinoza and us’, in J. Crary and S. Kwinter (eds) Incorporations. New York: Zone, pp. 625–32. Elgood, R. and D. Letts (directors) 1997. Dancehall Queen. New York: Palm Pictures. Elyachar, J. 2005. Markets of Dispossession: NGOs, economic development, and the State in Cairo. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Froerer, P. and A. Portisch 2012. ‘Introduction to the Special Issue: Learning, Livelihoods, and Social Mobility’, in Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 43(4): 332–43. Hansen, K. Tranberg 2004. ‘The World in Dress: anthropological perspectives on clothing, fashion and culture’, in Annual Review of Anthropology, 33:369–92. Hochschild, A. Russell 1983. The Managed Heart: commercialization of human feeling. Los Angeles: University of California Press. Ingold, T. 2001. ‘Beyond Art and Technology: the anthropology of skill’, in M.B. Schiffer (ed.) Anthropological Perspectives on Technology. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, pp. 17–31.

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Lave, J. and E. Wenger 1991. Situated Learning: legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Maher, V. 1987. ‘Sewing the Seams of Society: dressmakers and seamstresses in Turin between the Wars’, in J. Fishburne Collier and S. Junko Yanagisako (eds) Gender and Kinship: essays toward a unified analysis. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, pp. 132–59. Marchand, T.H.J. 2008. ‘Muscles, Morals and Mind: craft apprenticeship and the formation of person’, in British Journal of Educational Studies, 56(3):245–71. Miller, D. 1994. ‘Style and Ontology’, in J. Friedman (ed.) Consumption and Identity. Chur, Switzerland: Harwood Academic Publishers, pp. 71–96. Mintz, S.W. and R. Price 1992. The Birth of African-American Culture: an anthropological perspective. Boston: Beacon Press. Moore, H. 2011. Still Life: hopes, desires and satisfactions. London: Polity. Navaro-Yashin, Y. 2009. ‘Affective Spaces, Melancholic Objects: ruination and the production of anthropological knowledge’, in Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 15(1):1–18. Prentice, R. 2012. ‘“No One Ever Showed Me Nothing”: skill and self-making among Trinidadian garment workers’, in Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 43(4):400–14. Reddock, R.E. 1984. ‘Women and Garment Production in Trinidad and Tobago 1900–1960’, in Working Paper No. 2, Sub-Series on Women’s History and Development. The Hague: Institute of Social Studies. Rew, A. and J.R. Campbell 1999. ‘The Political Economy of Identity and Affect’, in J.R. Campbell and A. Rew (eds) Identity and Affect: experiences of identity in a globalising world. London: Pluto, pp. 1–36. Stanley-Niaah, S.N. 2010. Dancehall: from slave ship to ghetto. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press. Stewart, K. 2007. Ordinary Affects. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

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Chapter 10

Thinking through Materials: Embodied Problem Solving and the Values of Work in Taiwanese Ceramics Geoffrey Gowlland

Introduction: Collaborative Prototyping During my fieldwork in the town of Yingge, the main ceramics production centre of Taiwan, I spent time as an informal apprentice in the workshop of a master potter, Master Chan.1 During the three months of learning, I became accustomed to the comings and goings of a number of individuals to the workshop, including friends, family, customers, and fellow artisans. One day, one of these regular visitors, a Mr Hsu, walked into the workshop. After greeting him, I returned to my own wheel, leaving the two men to chat. Chan was sitting at his wheel making a vase. He often gave demonstrations to visitors, and I had initially thought that this was the case. I noted, however, that Chan and Hsu were discussing the shape of the vase, and Hsu was giving Chan instructions. I soon realised that something interesting was happening. I managed to wipe my hands on a clay-caked towel and then took out my smartphone to discreetly film the interaction between the two men. The few minutes of footage that I captured of this moment show the vase being made, adjusted, and transformed in response to the interactions between the two individuals, until the point where they appear to be satisfied with the results. I soon understood that Hsu wanted to commission a number of unfired vases from Chan, and they were collaborating on creating ‘prototypes’ of these objects. Hsu, an artisan himself who specialises in glazes, would later glaze, fire, and sell these products. My smartphone footage reveals the complex interactions between the two men, and the relationship between the ideas being expressed in both words and gestures, and their ‘translation’ into clay form by the potter. Perhaps the most interesting sequence in the footage is of Hsu pointing out that he would like to see an element added to the first prototype of the vase that Chan has just completed. 1 This chapter is based on data collected during two periods of fieldwork in Taiwan funded by two British Academy Small Grants. Fieldwork was carried out in 2010 (March–August) and 2011 (September–December). Some of the names that appear in this chapter are pseudonyms.

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With a combination of words and gestures, Hsu indicated that he would like a simple convex rim added between the body of the pot and the base of its neck. In order to create that rim, the potter had to undo part of his work rather than (as an uninitiated observer might expect) simply push out the wall of the clay at the appropriate level on the neck. Chan first retraced his steps that led to the shaping of the neck of the vase. By opening up the neck and pushing down with his hands, he gathered the clay of the neck into a doughnut shape at the top of the vessel’s body. From that point, he resumed the normal processes, first adding the desired element and then continuing to form the neck as it was before. The resulting form was essentially the same vase, but with the addition of the desired element. The process of introducing this element, however, was somewhat more complicated than the lay reader might imagine. Throughout the process, Hsu issued directives for his vision of the final pot design (at one point, he even made a quick sketch of the pot on a piece of paper), whilst Chan worked without interruption, rarely lifting his gaze from the vase, and transforming the clay to match Hsu’s imagined design. When I was invited to contribute a conference paper-cum-chapter on problem solving in craftwork, I immediately thought that these few minutes of film would supply interesting data for deliberating upon this topic. Chan was solving a problem that was – at least for him – a relatively simple one: namely, to introduce a previously unplanned detail in a pot that he had already shaped. The parameters of the problem arose through his interactions with the visiting Mr Hsu who had

Figure 10.1 Chan at the wheel modifying the vase according to Hsu’s instructions. Still photograph from smartphone recording. Photo by Geoffrey Gowlland.

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changed his idea of what the pot should look like. Hsu literally pointed out this desired addition by extending his finger to the area where he thought the rim should be, and spoke about what he wanted to appear there. In an uninterrupted ‘performance’, the potter proceeded with the steps to introduce the detail, all the while keeping his gaze fixed on the work in progress. Thus, while Hsu thought about what he wanted added and gave instructions accordingly, Chan was directly engaged with the clay, adapting his gestures in order to introduce that element within his own practices of throwing a pot. Chan’s potting movements changed in response to the material being formed under his fingers, and in response to his interpretation of the words and gestures expressed by the visitor. The work of problem solving is part and parcel of the skilled work of the artisan. It cannot be dissociated from the fluid, continuous performance of the potter who follows the same procedures that he or she exercises many times a day while working at the wheel; yet he or she also adapts these procedures in order to introduce small innovations and variations. The process of introducing an element in a pot might not strike the lay reader as a particularly compelling example of problem solving, and some may doubt whether this is an issue of problem solving at all. But that is precisely why this particular event is interesting. In this chapter, I will develop two arguments: firstly, that problem solving is not an exceptional moment in the work of an artisan, but rather it is a part of daily practice; and secondly, that problem solving does not necessarily involve abstract thought detached from practice, but rather it can be an integral part of that practice. After developing a theoretical approach to problem solving as integral to embodied practice, I will reflect on the ways that different kinds of work in ceramics, involving different kinds of problem-solving approaches, lead to discourses about the division of labour and the values locally ascribed to different activities and materials in ceramics work. I conclude by suggesting that the perspective of ‘embodied problem solving’ can serve scholars to better characterise, and thereby valorise, skilled practice. Embodied Problem Solving In the book’s introduction, Trevor Marchand presents problem solving as an alternative way of thinking about craftwork, too-often conceptualised in terms of fixed sets of practices or finished objects. In the popular imagination, crafts tend to be viewed as sets of practices that involve mindless repetition and the reproduction of identical objects. In academia, too, craft is often conceptualised as lacking creativity, and therefore as being in opposition to art or design. The skills that are learnt as part of a craft apprenticeship, and eventually mastered, are imagined to be reproduced throughout the artisan’s career in a relatively unchanging way. Shifting to a focus on problem solving, however, allows us to reconsider such preconceptions: Is the work of the artisan the creative work of a problem-solver?

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From this perspective, creativity should not be understood as the making of unique forms and images. Instead, the artisan’s creativity is an open-ended process of continuous negotiation with materials as an integral part of practice. Investigations into the creative dimensions of craftwork can bring greater value to the work of the artisan. One must be cautious, however, about using the term ‘problem solving’ in relation to craft. Once again, in the popular imagination, problem solving is associated primarily with intellectual work. It is understood as a process carried out ‘mentally’, in the realm of the abstract, but not the practical. It is supposed that, on encountering a problem, one must first interrupt the work at hand, reflect on the issue, formulate a possible solution, and return to engaging with practical work to test the solution. Problem solving is therefore imagined to be the task of mathematicians or scientists, or of designers who ‘think’ through problems and formulate solutions in drawings or text that they pass on to others to realise in material forms. David Pye (1968) drew a distinction between design and workmanship. The first he defined in terms of imagination and conceptualisation of form, whilst the latter he defined in terms of work that is dependent on practice, and cannot be communicated on paper or by words. Pye did note that the designer and workman might be the same person, but, nevertheless, the contrast and separation that he formulated between the two activities produced a problematic dichotomy between one kind of work being primarily ‘intellectual’ and a second that is essentially ‘pragmatic’. The division of labour and resulting dichotomy between designer and workman is exacerbated by contemporary capitalist economics where the incentive is for designers to cut costs of production by optimising design solutions, and these are passed on to be executed by underpaid, overworked, and ‘unskilled’ factory workers in countries where labour is cheap. The division of labour and associated differences in pay between designer and factory worker are justified and maintained by the perceived amount of intellectual work that they respectively provide to the production. The input of the ‘unskilled’ worker is considered to be purely manual, not intellectual. The first point I wish to develop is that problem solving is not exclusive to the work of designers. Obviously, it is recognised that artisans encounter problems and have to devise solutions in order to continue their work. For example, when a tool is broken or unavailable, the artisan must find alternative ways of working (c.f. Sennett, 2008: 194); or, after realising that a mistake has been made in previous steps, the artisan must solve how to best salvage the work. These types of problems are usually identified negatively; in other words, they are undesirable obstacles to the usual, and otherwise ‘uncreative’, work of the artisan. But, rather than focusing on such apparent moments of problem solving, I propose instead a complementary way of thinking about problem solving as an activity inherent in craft procedures. From this perspective, craft is recognised to be a process of working with tools and materials toward a desired outcome; but, at the same time, the process itself is not fully in the control of the artisan, nor is the outcome fully

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known at the start. Arguably, this applies equally to cases of creating an innovative piece of work that demands particular reflection as it does to producing an object that the artisan has made many times before. At times, tools and materials resist the intentions of workers: both are inert, create friction, and at times break, collapse, tear, etcetera. The process of craft is therefore one of constant problem solving in the face of materials and tools that are never fully under the artisan’s control. In the video footage of the interaction between the two artisans, Chan does not interrupt his physical work to mentally reflect on the problem of introducing an element to the pot. Instead, the process of arriving at the solution was part and parcel of his embodied work. This is not to say that no mental work was involved, but rather that it cannot be dissociated from the work of the hands. The film footage reveals that the process of thinking through the procedures of changing the shape of the pot unfolds with its actual re-shaping. The process is one of exploration and discovery whereby the artisan ‘makes his way through’ the form of the pot and the texture of the clay. Similar to Tim Ingold’s description of wayfaring (2009), the pot comes about through the embodied, perambulatory movements of the artisan’s hands on clay surfaces. Craftwork is not the reproduction of stereotypical gestures, of a blueprint that the artisan holds in his head; it is the outcome of a process of improvisation and engagement with tools and materials that form the crafted object (Ingold, 2000: 349–61). The video footage of the interaction between the two artisans may have revealed a particular instance of problem solving, but Chan’s work in creating the new form was, in fact, no different to his daily work of reproducing a number of items of a given design. As I described earlier, in creating the new form, the artisan merely needed to integrate its production into the habitual and skilled gestures that he already possessed for shaping pots and vessels on a wheel. I offer a second illustration to reinforce this point. On another day in Chan’s workshop, I was working at the wheel by his side. Chan was working on a design that he claimed to be the most difficult in his repertoire. The pot was squat with a mouth that was relatively small in comparison to the body. Given the angle of the pot walls and the scant support they received from the lower part of the pot, there was a risk that the walls could cave in. At one point, Chan urgently called me over and asked me to stand on the opposite side of his wheel and to place my hands inside the mouth of the pot that he was shaping. The pot was indeed caving in, and my task was to keep the walls supported while he continued working to salvage it. After two or three minutes, Chan concluded that this was not working, and he abandoned his efforts. This example may be readily identified as a ‘problem’, and Chan was problem solving on the fly, improvising and putting my pair of hands to use as a prop in an attempt to salvage his work. Since Chan’s hands were busy, he needed to verbally explain to me how to place and move my hands, and how to coordinate my movements with his. Chan was working though a solution, but this process of problem solving was an integral part of the uninterrupted (and uninterruptible,

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lest the pot collapse immediately) performance of shaping the pot. There was no opportunity for reflection detached from the performance. In addition to revealing how Chan addressed a specific problem, the above example conveys much about the nature of an artisan’s daily work. Artisans regularly work at the edge between success and failure. While watching a highlyskilled artisan, the casual observer might be tricked into thinking that the work is effortless and mechanical. It is in the moments where something goes wrong that the illusion comes undone, revealing that this work is not simply a mindless repetition of gestures, but a constant negotiation with materials in the performance of making. Problem solving is inherent in craftwork, and takes place in the moment-by-moment operations of making. In qualifying problem solving as inherent in craft, I echo David Pye’s definition of ‘workmanship of risk’ in which there is constant risk that the object being produced can be ruined (1968). According to Pye, most forms of craftwork may be categorised as such. By contrast, mass production constitutes a ‘workmanship of certainty’, whereby mechanisation minimises the risk of failure. Throwing a pot on the wheel is a workmanship of risk because even the most highly skilled potter can make a mistake resulting in a collapsed pot. When starting out, a potter might have a certain kind of pot in mind, but the processes for achieving the desired form are, to some extent, always open-ended: the artisan needs to respond to the constantly changing form under her fingers and, moment-by-moment, she has to resolve how to bring the clay towards the desired shape. This moment-by-moment work of responding and decision-making represents a kind of problem solving; a string of decisions taken by the artisan that are informed by her performative knowledge (Marchand, 2003), and that respond to the feel of the clay under her fingers, to observed changes in the shape of the pot, and to unanticipated events (e.g. impurities in the clay that need to be removed, technical failure of the wheel, an interruption from a colleague, or a telephone ringing, etcetera). Skills and Intentions When Chan called me over to help that day, he knew that his pot was about to collapse. Chan anticipated failure, and this anticipation prompted him to change his course of action. Problem solving demands intentionality: in other words, one needs to have intention to overcome a problem, and to be capable of imagining an outcome and formulating a corresponding solution. Yet, by introducing intentionality to the matrix, there is the danger of reinforcing the commonly-held assumption that processes of problem solving are carried out in abstract mental thought. I therefore need to revise what I mean by ‘intentions’. Ingold suggested that intentionality for the skilled practitioner is part of, rather than dissociated from, action: ‘intentionality … is launched and carried forward in the action itself, and corresponds to the attentive quality of that action. It is the intentionality not of an isolated mind, of the cogitating subject confronting an exterior world of

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things, but rather that of a being wholly immersed in the relational nexus of its instrumental “coping” in the world’ (2000: 415). Correspondingly, Elizabeth Hallam and Tim Ingold emphasised the continuously improvised nature of skilled practice (2007). I suggest, however, that defining intentionality in these terms is limiting, and it risks reproducing the dichotomy between designer and workman to which I alluded earlier. I argue instead that the intentionality of the artisan is both situated in action, and beyond that action. Art theorist Peter Betjemann wrote about a paradox in the theories of the nineteenth-century Arts and Crafts movement that I believe can serve as a critique to Ingold’s definition of intentionality (Betjemann, 2008). The most prominent theorists of the movement, namely John Ruskin and William Morris, were intent on valorising the work of the hands, which they perceived to be threatened by industrialisation. Yet, as Betjemann pointed out, Ruskin and Morris were selective in what they considered to be ‘work of the hands’. Indeed, they looked to the work of sixteenth-century craftsmen rather than to eighteenthcentury forms of craft that existed on the eve of the Industrial Revolution. Wood veneering, for instance, was one of the most highly valued crafts in the eighteenth century. But for Arts and Crafts theorists, the products of veneering too closely resembled the mass-produced commodities of the Industrial Age. Veneer craftsmen strove for perfection and their art concealed the rough surfaces and imperfections of timber under smooth and glossy strips of wood. By contrast, Arts and Crafts theorists were intent on celebrating the open-ended processes of craft, epitomised, for example, by woodworkers who responded to, and worked with, the knots in wood to achieve a unique end-product that had not been fully conceived from the start. Betjemann reminded his readers of Ruskin’s comment in his Stones of Venice that artisans care little about getting their curves true or their edges perfectly sharp (2008: 190). This can be interpreted as a moral judgement addressed to certain forms of craft and ways of working, and in no way relates to an artisan’s level of skill. Betjemann has argued that Arts and Crafts’ praise for open-ended processes and responsiveness to materials resulted in an unintended consequence, namely what he terms an ‘aesthetic of irregularity’ (ibid.: 188). Indeed, although leading thinkers of the time were intent on valorising the skills of artisans, their strong reactions against the mechanised work of machines ‘ended up placing skill in a peculiar position: … the better and more reproducible the artisan’s skill, the more mechanical – and hence less identifiably crafted – looked the result’ (ibid.: 184). In countering this troublesome position, Betjemann turned to nineteenthcentury economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen, who argued that the work of artisans is teleological in that it is directed towards an end result. Thus, although recognising the relative open-ended nature of processes in craftwork (whereby the artisan responds to materials and changing form), this perspective also recognises the skills of the artisan in realising intended form. Chan’s work illustrates this statement. Upon receiving an order for a quantity of pots, Chan strove to create them one identical to the other. On several occasions,

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I saw him destroy pots that he said were not shaped exactly like the rest. His work was directed towards an intended result, and his skills enabled him to reach his goals more often than not. Although the process of realising identical form was always open-ended, as illustrated above with the case of the collapsing pot, Chan’s work was also directed by a ‘telos’ (as described by Veblen and Betjemann), and driven by the goal to produce regular and near-identical pots. An anecdote can further illustrate Chan’s attitude toward his work. I was once invited to dine with Chan and a Belgian visitor who was a potter-in-residence at Yingge’s Ceramics Museum. During the evening, I translated their conversation between Chinese and French. The discussion turned to the nature of the potter’s work, and in that exchange, both potters agreed that the clay was like a child. They nodded approvingly, in turn, as I translated the metaphor from Chinese to French and back again. There were, however, some elements of the conversation that were lost in translation, due, in part, to my limitations as an interpreter, and to differing beliefs and understandings of their work. For the Belgian potter, the meaning behind ‘clay is like a child’ was that it is the potter’s responsibility to care for the clay, to nurture it, and to avoid being brusque with it, otherwise cracks might appear on the surface of the pot at the time of firing. But for the Taiwanese potter, ‘clay is like a child’ because it is necessary to discipline it, and to be stern with it, so that it obeys his commands. Interestingly, I heard very similar statements during my research with potters in mainland China regarding the resemblances between clay and children and the need to discipline both. The Belgian’s thinking shared similarities with the Arts and Crafts notion that the artisan must be responsive to the specificities and characteristics of the materials that are being shaped by one’s hands. The Taiwanese potter, by contrast, imagined his work as one in which the artisan needs to make the clay adapt to his intentions. By drawing out these distinctions in attitude to the clay, I do not wish to imply that the two potters necessarily worked, or experienced their work, in very different ways. Rather, the two different meanings behind the shared metaphor represented two ways of imagining ceramics work and relationships to the materials. Although I did not ask Chan directly, I understood from other conversations that we had that Chan did not emphasise the open-ended process of pottery. A pot might have collapsed due to lack of discipline over the clay (in other words, it behaved differently to what the artisan had anticipated). But Chan did not ‘follow’ the clay to achieve an unanticipated shape. He had an intended outcome in mind, and he therefore carried out a process that was most likely to result in that outcome. Working with Clay, Working with Glazes Following the above theoretical reflection on problem solving, practice, and intentionality in craft, I now return to a more detailed analysis of the social context of the two illustrations I provided. I do so in order to examine the widely-presumed

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division of labour between designer and workman (to retain the two terms used by Pye) that is based, at least in part, on differences in their responsibilities to solve problems. In the ceramics industry of Yingge, a version of this division of labour is prevalent. A ceramic pot-in-the making will typically pass through the hands of at least two, if not more, persons. These are the worker who makes the clay body and another who typically fires and glazes the pot. This division of labour is a carryover from Yingge’s industrial past, but it also has a long history in China’s ceramic-production centres, such as Jingdezhen where porcelain was produced in factory-like settings long before Europe’s Industrial Revolution. Hsu, the visitor to Chan’s shop whom I described in the opening passages of the chapter, was the owner of a ceramics workshop in which he and his wife specialised in quality celadon ceramics. Hsu developed his own glaze formulas, and made small objects such as teacups on the wheel; but he commissioned larger pieces from other potters, like Chan, who specialised in work on the wheel. Chan only produced unfired clay bodies: he neither fired nor glazed his pots. He was renowned as one of the few in Yingge who could make especially-large pots (e.g. with diameters of 80 cm), and produce wares with more complex profiles, such as vases with long, thin necks. For these reasons, Chan’s expertise was in high demand. He typically received orders for between 10 and 20 pieces from those whom he called laoban, or ‘bosses’. The ‘boss’ would later fire and glaze the pieces Chan made, and then sell them either in their own shop or to dealers. Chan occasionally developed new designs that he would propose to clients, but, for the most part, he took commissions for a particular design. As in any context where tasks are divided among workers, discourses develop around the respective specialisations. During interviews, glaze artisans told me that working with glazes is particularly difficult, and stressed the need for knowledge of chemistry which they had to acquire through formal schooling or additional training. In many cases, the artisans I spoke with were former ceramics-factory workers who had either quit their factory job or had been laid off during the 1990s when the industry was experiencing increasing competition from China. With a view to setting up independent businesses, these former workers had strived to increase the limited knowledge of ceramics they had acquired in factories. Some of the artisans had interrupted their working careers in order to study fine arts, including ceramics, at the local college; others had attended evening courses in ceramics; and some were self-taught with the aid of technical publications and website postings on glazing techniques and formulas, and they sought advice and knowledge from successful, established artisans. Acquiring such theoretical and technical knowledge required a spirit of initiative. Given the origins of their knowledge of chemistry and glazing techniques, the glaze artisans typically spoke of their work primarily in terms of intellectual work, downplaying the more applied and practice-based dimensions of their craft. It might be noted that at first glance, glaze work involves processes that fit popular definitions of ‘problem solving’: the glaze artisan begins by developing a glaze recipe, then tests it out on pieces of clay fired in the kiln, and when the

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test pieces come out of the kiln, the artisan evaluates the result and adapts the recipe or kiln temperature to bring the result closer to a desired effect. There is a distance between the moment of realisation of the test piece or glazed pot, and the moment when the recipe or kiln temperature is adjusted for the next batch. Glazing does indeed involve practical knowledge related to the handling of the chemicals, mixing, and application, but these dimensions of the work were downplayed in conversations I had with artisans. Reference to a specific interview might clarify this point. Mr Hong had gained a reputation for his ‘crystal glazes’, which develop striking irregular oily spots during firing. During an exchange, Hong attempted to convey the differences between the work of the potter and his own work. He told me that working at the wheel was relatively ‘easy’; it was a matter of practice until one got it right. He claimed that he had learned work at the wheel as a necessary component of his training, and had later specialised in developing formulas for glazes. In fact, he also taught glaze chemistry at the local vocational school as a side-line job. In Yingge pottery, the surface is the most highly valued aspect of a pot. The shapes of pots are typically inspired by classical Chinese ceramics, and vary relatively little. The glazed surfaces, by contrast, present a diversity of textures, colours, and effects. There is considerable innovation in glazes, and artisans often claimed patents for their glaze formulas. That surfaces are more valuable than the clay body is attested by the fact that the name-seal stamped on the base of pots will almost invariably be that of the glaze artisan, and not the artisan who formed the pot on the wheel. This is the case regardless of how complex and unique that form might be. Thus, Chan, who made only the body of the pot, used the seal of the commissioning ‘boss’ to sign the pot while the clay was still soft. Taiwanese and Chinese customers are paying for what appears on the surface of a pot, not its clay form. Clay artisans in Yingge produced another kind of discourse relating to the division of labour between clay and glaze artisans. It will become clear, however, that their discourse retained the basic idea of the glaze artisans who claimed that working with glazes is an intellectual activity. Chan, for example, would say that although he had not been educated beyond primary school, he was working from the heart rather than the head. According to him, working with glazes does not involve the same hard work and dedication that is demanded by work at the wheel. As proof, he pointed out that the younger generation of artisans who played with computers and mobile phones were only interested in learning about glaze formulas because potting is too difficult and involved long hours of working with wet hands in humid environments; and because it demanded years of training before attaining proficiency. In the discourses of potters and glazers, the division of labour between them is largely imagined as one between intellectual and manual work. This contrast, and the respective values assigned to the work of the hands and the work of the mind, has strong resonances with familiar stereotypes in Europe and North America. I do not wish to suggest that these ideas are universal. Scholars have demonstrated

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that the distinction made in Europe and North America between manual work and intellectual work is the product of a particular history (Coleman, 1988). In Chinese culture, the distinction is arguably grounded in a different history and set of values. Following Yen (2005), I have argued elsewhere that, in the Chinese case, this distinction is grounded in ideas of the person: more particularly, the idea that learning and self-development cloaks a ‘raw’ and natural self with the ‘glaze’ of culture (Gowlland, 2016). The glaze artisans emphasised the learning and higher levels of education required for their activity, and the clay artisans countered by promoting values relating to heart and hard work. Shifting to a focus on the problem-solving work of artisans has allowed me to cast a critical eye on these discourses. In the perspectives elucidated in this chapter, the difference between the potter’s and the glazer’s work is not about levels of enculturation or intellect. Rather, it is a difference in kinds of work and the kinds of problem solving associated with each, which fit certain types of discourses and stereotypes about intellectual and manual work. Significantly, the creative work of the potter and the glazer develop in different time frames, which further reinforces the contrast between their respective kinds of work. For the glaze artisan, problems are identified and solved over a more extended period: it takes several days to prepare the test pieces with glaze, fire them in the kiln, and evaluate the results with a view to adjusting the formula and kiln temperature. By contrast, the problem-solving activities of the clay artisan are immediate and integral to the performance of making. Given this immediacy and intimate relation between work of the mind and work of the hand, the potter’s work is not usually thought to involve problem solving. Things happen too quickly for the casual observer to realise that the potter’s mind is indeed engaged in processes of problem solving. Importantly, the problem-solving activities at the wheel exist below the threshold of articulate reflection or verbal explanation, and as such are not acknowledged as intellectual. In reality, the differences between the problemsolving activities of the potter and those of the glaze artisan are not substantial. Mind and body are equally involved in the creative processes of both. But, the differences become substantial in discourses that entrench a dichotomous relation between the work of the hands and that of the intellect. In the Yingge case, the different valuations of different kinds of work are translated into monetary values. Good potters are in high demand in Yingge, and commissioning-artists pay fairly for their work. But the added value of covering a clay body with glaze and/or paint commands greater remuneration than the work of shaping the pot. Exchange between glaze and clay artisans is local: the sale of unfired wares takes place between people who know each other and, in many cases, have long-term exchange relations. By contrast, the glaze artisans sell the final glazed and fired product to people from outside the community, and often to foreign markets, notably in mainland China. One might wonder why clay artisans do not simply give up their work and devote their efforts to glazes. The barriers to doing so are, to some extent, lack of formal education, or more generally access to knowledge. Indeed, clay artisans who are able to produce the larger and more

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complex designs are few in number and, I was told repeatedly, they are usually aged 50 and over. At the Making Futures conference, where I presented an earlier version of this chapter and showed a two-minute clip from the video discussed here, members of the audience commented on the relationship that they perceived between the two artisans. Several audience members viewed the artisan, Mr Hsu, who gave instructions, as controlling and bossy, and one said that he wanted to ‘punch him in the face’. Another workshop participant found it unacceptable that Chan did not have the freedom to decide for himself the kinds of pots he wanted to create. I suggest that these readings of the relationship were motivated by values inherited from the ethos of the Arts and Crafts: creativity, freedom of the artisan, and suspicion of divisions of labour that are associated with industry and massproduction. Unlike these interpretations, however, I know that the nature of the relationship between the two artisans was far from tense. Chan was providing a service, and taking pride in the fact that his ‘boss’ trusted him to produce pots of the highest quality. Nor was Chan being exploited. To the eyes of Western artisans, the relationship between glaze and clay artisans might appear to be unequal, but Chan was in a position to be selective about the commissions he received, and it was his choices to restrict his work to the wheel and to not learn about glazes. In fact, two of his brothers had taken the alternative path into glaze work. The division between the two kinds of work were therefore based on individual choices and life paths – not on social class. Conclusion This chapter has been concerned with the practices of ceramics production and the characteristics of the different kinds of work involved, and with the values that come to be attached to these kinds of work. These two dimensions – namely practice and values – tend to be treated separately in the literature on craft. Significantly, for instance, the strand of anthropological writing on craft that has been inspired by phenomenology (e.g. Ingold, 2000; O’Connor, 2006), and that has in part informed the reflections in this chapter, distinguishes itself from earlier Marxist-inspired writings on craft (e.g. Cooper, 1980) by focusing on the embodied engagement in craftwork rather than the politics of work. A notable recent attempt at bringing together theories of embodiment and of politics of work is Michael Herzfeld’s study of artisans in Crete (2004). In my brief discussion of the ceramics of Yingge and problem solving in craftwork, I have offered another perspective on the relationship between experiences of work and values attached to work activities. I have revealed that the difference in the ways that different kinds of artisans work serves to support discourses that impute hierarchies of value and status by claiming that certain activities are superior to others. By addressing this relationship through the prism of problem solving, I have shifted understanding of different types

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of work away from the problematic ‘manual versus intellectual’ dichotomy toward an understanding of different kinds of engagements with work. Notably, I have offered a glimpse into the complexity that is involved in the work of the potter by recasting work at the wheel in terms of moment-to-moment problem solving. It is striking that the discourse in Yingge resembles so closely the distinctions made in Europe and North America concerning the dichotomy between the work of the mind and that of the hands. It is important for scholars (and artisans) to deconstruct such discourses to reveal the relations of power concealed within. Thinking about craftwork as problem solving usefully challenges mainstream thinking about problem solving as an activity that exclusively involves abstract and higher-order intellectual effort. The exercise has also been important for critically thinking about the alleged differences between the work of the designer and that of the workman. Bibliography Betjemann, P. 2008. ‘Craft and the Limits of Skill: handicrafts revivalism and the problem of technique’, in Journal of Design History 21:183–93. Coleman, R. 1988. The Art of Work: an epitaph to skill. London: Pluto. Cooper, E. 1980. The Wood-Carvers of Hong Kong: craft production in the world capitalist periphery. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gowlland, G. 2016. ‘Materials, the Nation and the Self: Division of Labor in a Taiwanese Craft’, in C. Weber-Wilkinson and A. DeNicola (eds) Critical Craft: technology, globalization, and capitalism. London: Bloomsbury. Hallam, E. and T. Ingold 2007. ‘Creativity and cultural improvisation: an introduction’, in E. Hallam and T. Ingold (eds) Creativity and Cultural Improvisation. Oxford: Berg, pp. 1–24. Herzfeld, M. 2004. The Body Impolitic: artisans and artifice in the global hierarchy of value. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ingold, T. 2000. The Perception of the Environment: essays on livelihood, dwelling and skill. London: Routledge. ——— 2009. ‘Against Space: place, movement, knowledge’, in P. Wynn Kirby (ed.) Boundless Worlds: an anthropological approach to movement. Oxford: Berghahn, pp. 29–43. Marchand, T. 2003. ‘A Possible Explanation for the Lack of Explanation; Or “Why the Master Builder Can’t Explain What He Knows”: introducing informational atomism against a “definitional” definition of concepts’, in A. Bicker, J. Pottier and P. Sillitoe (eds) Negotiating Local Knowledge: power and identity in development . London: Pluto Press, pp. 30–50. O’Connor, E. 2006. ‘Glassblowing Tools: extending the body towards practical knowledge and informing a social world’, in Qualitative Sociology, 29:177–93.

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Pye, D. 1968. The Nature and Art of Workmanship. London: Cambridge University Press. Sennett, R. 2008. The Craftsman. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. Yen, Y. 2005. Calligraphy and Power in Contemporary Chinese Society. London: RoutledgeCurzon.

Chapter 11

The Problem of the Unknown Craftsman Malcolm Martin

The Unknown Craftsman The book The Unknown Craftsman is a collection of essays by Japanese philosopher and critic Sōetsu Yanagi in which he outlined an idea of craft that is perhaps more radical than any before, or since.1 Yanagi stood our normal hierarchy of values on its head by arguing that the anonymous ‘crafts of the people’ (which he termed ‘Mingei’) are the healthiest and most vitally-alive products of a culture, and that such crafts provide a benchmark for other art and design.2 By contrast, he regarded the idea of the ‘fine artist’ as dangerously self-conscious, and the search for individuality and self-expression in art and craft as being totally misconceived. But, how can it be that the work of uneducated, often illiterate peasants and artisans could come to be seen as superior to that of the educated, professional artists of court or academy? How can this be read as anything but a challenge to all our ideas about the value of art and design? I first encountered The Unknown Craftsman in the early 1990s when I was defecting from fine art to craft. Yanagi’s philosophy and the work of the Mingei makers spoke to me because they promoted the values of making and crafting in itself, as opposed to the intellectual positioning that characterises fine art. As a maker of studio craft, however, I create refined and unique objects that command high prices in an elite marketplace. So, how might my activities as a craftsman possibly relate to the everyday pottery, woodwork, or peasant baskets of premodern Asia? How can I produce work that is neither a pale imitation of Mingei, nor a second-rate fine art? The past 20 years of my career have been marked by my efforts to make sense of this paradox. In this chapter, I set out to further explore the nature of the problem, as well as my trajectories of experience and learning that have taken me toward a solution. Although the term Mingei can be applied specifically to the craft movement that grew up around Yanagi and his colleagues in the 1920s, its intended use 1 Yanagi’s essays were written between 1921 and 1953 and translated and edited by Bernard Leach. See especially the essay titled ‘The Buddhist Idea of Beauty’. 2 I have used ‘our’ rather than ‘Western’ hierarchy of values here because the term ‘Western’ implies that Yanagi’s ideas are ‘Eastern’, which arguably they in some measure, but not normatively so. I therefore felt that the ambiguity of ‘our’ was appropriate in this context.

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includes objects made in any place and at any time that have the qualities of the ‘crafts of the people’. Mingei describes those things made by ordinary people, for ordinary people. Mingei objects were made to be useful, and they were made in the most straightforward and cost-effective ways, using the tools and the materialsto-hand. Yanagi had no illusions about the actual makers of Mingei: he recognised that most were illiterate and uneducated, and they were regularly exploited by masters, merchants, or landowners, and worked under conditions that were often physically very demanding. He did not romanticise their lives to be a bucolic idyll. In describing the painters of the ceramics produced in Tz’u-chou in Sung China, Yanagi pointed out that these were boys of around ten years of age, from poor families, ‘who no doubt disliked the work, and had to be forced by their parents to do it. Occasionally as they worked their eyes would have been blinded by tears … The repetitive monotony would today be regarded with horror’ (1989: 134–5). The materials with which Mingei makers worked were usually limited to what could be found locally. For the potters, these included clay from the fields and a small range of glazes that could be produced at home. Carpenters relied on the varieties of timber that grew locally and could be had cheap. A tradition of basketry might have grown up around a plentiful source of a local plant. Fastenings and bindings were often of the simplest design and material. Any materials – especially fabrics – might have been re-used, and, in some instances, several times. Tools were few, and on the whole crudely made, but often multipurpose in function. In the making, there was little room for self-expression or personal worldviews of the kind that one would expect to find in the work of the fine artist. Likewise, there were no opportunities for opulent displays of skill or the relentless search for novelty. The makers would not have had great expectations for either their work or themselves. How then, Yanagi asked, could they have regularly produced work that had a health and vitality that was apparent (at least, to those with eyes to see), and that was stronger than most courtly work produced by contemporary fine artists? Yanagi suggested that Mingei craftspeople were capable of creating objects of a universally high standard, independent of individual talent, because they surrendered wholeheartedly to the tradition within which they worked. According to him, it was their very lack of personal expectation and need to make a name for themselves that gave Mingei craftspeople this freedom. Working within constraints imposed by limited tools, material, and training restricted the possibilities for selfexpression, and hence contributed to their willingness to surrender to tradition. While ‘tradition’ may be conceived as static, it is in reality what makes the new possible. All traditions need to evolve continuously, or else die. Most craft traditions are highly local; they are not often pursued primarily for status; they may operate informally within families or practiced as a part-time occupation, and they may have little or no organised structure. These factors contribute plurality, flexibility, and contingency to tradition, thereby keeping it dynamic. Tradition is also the womb from which we, as makers, are born. Individual makers work in particular places, with particular tools and materials, and they have specific kinds

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of training and experience. Together, these things constitute the tradition in which we work. Yanagi likened the way that Mingei makers surrendered to tradition to Shin Buddhist practice. Although Shin practices are little known in the West, it remains the most widespread school of Buddhism in Japan. From its foundation in the thirteenth century, Shin Buddhism became the practice of peasants and the urban poor. Rather than seeking insight through individual cultivation and attainment, the Shin followers surrender to a power altogether greater than themselves. They strive to recognise their own limitations and endless fallibility, and entrust themselves to the power personified as the Buddha Amida. This is a tradition that values self-honesty above education and personal striving. Within Shin Buddhism stands the figure of the myokonin: the poor, ill-educated, and naïve follower whose steadfast faith eventually endows him or her with deeper spiritual understanding than the trained priests who are their teachers. In his published lectures on Shin, Buddhist scholar Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki discussed a myokonin named Saichi who was also a maker of Mingei.3 Saichi was a clog-maker, and he kept a record of his thoughts by writing on the long wooden shavings produced in his workshop. He did so until he was confirmed in his faith at around the age of 50. For Suzuki, the surrender of ‘Saichi the Mingei-maker’ to tradition is identical to the surrender of ‘Saichi the Shin practitioner’. He wrote, ‘Footgear is joy, Saichi’s joy, Namu-Amida-Butsu. This is quite significant. … The result of his work shares and participates in his feeling of joy. The geta-footgear is a symbol of joy’ (1998: 83). In both cases, the individual has faith in the power of tradition to overcome personal limitations. Surrender involves full confidence in the tradition within which one operates, and it demands humility about one’s own ability as opposed to pride in one’s ‘self’. This kind of surrender might seem alien to a Western reader. Our unquestioning belief in individual intention and achievement is so strong that it can be difficult to imagine that an alternative view is possible, let alone desirable. All My Own Work? In view of the above, let us consider my own practices as a full-time professional maker. I carve sculptural vessels and other forms that have simple shapes and strong surfaces, and that retain the marks made by the traditional gouges, chisels, axes, and saws that I use. Some are for gallery exhibition, others are commissioned. It is slow but often joyful work. Within the oeuvre that I have created, I have the freedom and the luxury of making what I please. But, to what extent are my actions truly ‘free’? And to what extent are they my own?

3 Suzuki’s book is a collection of his late lectures on Shin Buddhism. He was a teacher and a friend of Yanagi.

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My livelihood as a sculptor in wood is dependent upon my developing an oeuvre: a body of work distinguishable from those of other makers, but at the same time with a clear relationship to them. The work that I produce always needs to be ‘new’ while remaining identifiably mine in order to be understood and appreciated by my audience. The ‘artist’ or ‘maker’ who creates this body of work is constructed in part through my relationships with gallery owners, exhibition curators, journalists, collectors, and other makers, as well as through my relations to the materials, tools, techniques, procedures, and approaches that I use in making. I may imagine that I choose the outward ‘persona’ though which I am experienced by the world, or that I am aware of an inner ‘self’. For Buddhist thought, as with some contemporary thinking in psychology, however, this distinction is possibly misleading. Persona and self can instead be seen as different aspects of the same continuous process of creation and re-creation, referred to as ‘selfing’ in some contemporary Buddhist writing. It is important to realise that this process does not simply affect how we are seen by others, but also how we see ourselves; and, most importantly, how what we make actually comes into being, through the conscious or unconscious parameters that we set and the choices that we make about the work. So I will use ‘self’ in this active sense, not as the limited interior experience that it is conventionally understood to be in the West. That my artistic self is constructed through my relationships with other makers is exemplified by my having spent the past 17 years as a full-time collaborator with my partner Gaynor Dowling. Are we one artist or two? The work that we produce together quickly acquired an individuality of its own. In its making, it presents a logic which, usually, the two of us have simply to follow. Many of our decisions are straightforward because we make work in series, and within a limited vocabulary of forms and marks that evolve slowly from one piece to the next. But, in doing so, it also raises the question of how something truly unexpected can arise. How can Gaynor and I ‘let go’ of those things that may seem axiomatic to us? In other words, our assumptions about how we make, what materials we use, and how our work needs to look in order to be ‘ours’? Nevertheless, working together is always necessarily a challenge to my judgements about the work, and the sense in which it is both ‘mine’ and ‘ours’. So, in our collaboration, are Gaynor and I one, or are we two? The answer, in good Zen terms, is always ‘not one, not two’. In 2013, Gaynor and I spent the summer in Philadelphia as Resident Fellows at The Center for Art in Wood. We had successfully applied for this residency several years earlier, but, at that time, we had been unable to take up the offer. We nearly had to forgo our second chance in 2013 as well. In retrospect, this uncertainty had a highly positive effect by frustrating our temptation to work in our usual ways, and instead directing us to be open to what presented itself. It allowed us to let go of our ‘selves’, both as mental constructs and as habitual action. We arrived at the Center for Art in Wood with a couple of carving mallets, a roll of gouges, and a personal challenge. Until that point in time, all of our work had been characterised by solid forms, created by exploiting the mass of the block

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Figure 11.1 Grooved Disc. Oak, 60 cm, 2012. Private Collection. Photo by Malcolm Martin and Gaynor Dowling.

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of timber from which they were carved. Could we make genuinely hollow vessels, using our own form-language? We would have to make the vessels in sections that would be joined together. Gaynor’s original training was in textiles, and, for some time, she had been searching for a way to directly integrate fibre with our work. Stitching and binding sections of wood together seemed the obvious method to investigate. For my part, I have enjoyed exploring Japanese stab bookbinding methods, the simplicity and elegance of which suggested an obvious starting point: sheets of wood are not so very different from sheets of paper. What follows is a working diary that provides a sense of how we and our work evolved. There was no single flash of inspiration or great idea during our residency. Instead, each apparently simple step was influenced by a multitude of factors. The processes of making, themselves, generated the questions and the solutions, thereby leaving little room for self-expression and ego. Paradoxically, this allowed the work that we produced to develop much further than either of us could have previously imagined. Our making proceeded so quickly and, on the whole, so productively, that we spent most of our time at the Center being ‘in the zone’; in other words, being fully focused and experiencing a ‘high’ that was generated by our active engagement in making. Nevertheless, many of the things that we tried made us struggle, and some of the results left us feeling indifferent or disappointed. Diary Excerpts and Reflections Start of June, 2013: We have two months of free play in a fully-equipped, modern wood-shop, with a full-time technician for support. There are lots of machines that we don’t have at home. We can’t get access to the large sections of seasoned hardwood that we normally work with, but there are lots of smaller boards in a variety of species that we’ve never used, plus manufactured ply and other boards. So, where to begin? We raided the scrap box in the wood-shop – mostly other people’s discards, no investment of money or aspiration. They are there, ready to use, with no need to buy them or to decide on shape or size. No projection of a specific idea, but a response to what is given. Add in a process: stitching. It requires drilling out holes. Initial scale determined by what is available: a variety of off-cuts, in different kinds of wood. How do they respond in terms of cleanness of cut, ragging, or pull-out? And how does this differ when either working with or across the grain of the wood?

Early June, 2013: We are working in parallel with paper maquettes. It’s impossible to know how particular proportions of body or of style and scale will look when stitched, so

The Problem of the Unknown Craftsman we trial them on a small scale in paper. We look at possible applications for joining separate sections of wood with stitch … jewellery, and other functional and sculptural possibilities. There are other factors, too, working to open-up our practice. John Kelsey, former editor of Fine Woodworking Magazine is here to record what happens. Like us, he’s a fan of hand tools, but also has much experience in the machine shop. So, he’s a vital link in helping us to re-orient toward new possibilities by suggesting a tool here, a strategy there. And then there are the visits to museums, collectors, and makers. We are seeing more wooden objects than it seems there can ever have been trees: wood that has been caressed, finessed, and tortured into forms utterly alien to our own. We see and hear about the ‘how and why’, the place that these objects have in the discourse of wood art, and why they are loved and purchased. It is intensive and exhausting, and you can’t help but ask, ‘Why do I make in the way that I do?’ So we question, and we learn.

Mid June, 2013: We have been looking at the store of boards in the workshop – not at all our usual material. These are high-tech, manufactured materials: thin layers of tree that are cut on specialist machines and glued together. We make experiments. We conduct a trial-bending of sections using heat and steam. Then, in pretty much every collection we visit, we find birch bark baskets by Wisconsin-based basket-maker Dona Look. These are beautiful, faceted vessels stitched together from flat sections of bark. A lot suddenly connects together. The thinness of the paper we have been using to make the maquettes is like the thinness of the man-made boards. We could potentially bend these into simple forms, just as we work with paper. We trial complex, pieced forms, and very simple ones, using a single sheet of paper. We want to try these boards from the wood-store as a bendable carving material. We are lucky to find one particular sheet of board that is a cherry veneer laminated onto a thick sheet of some kind of pale hardwood. By carving the ‘wrong’ side of the board, we can get a good depth of line in this relatively soft wood. But every board has its own possibilities and its own potential. Defects can become design features.

Mid July, 2013: Again, paper will model possibilities. Taped or stitched together, we are working with the tensile property of the paper to create the form. Working out how to make this at full size: the ‘Bend’ vessels will be between 60 cm and a metre tall. The board will only bend to a limited degree, and the more deeply we carve into it, the tighter curve we can get. First two ‘Bend’ pieces like this, veneer outside, compressing carved inner surface. On first vessel, we use a classic bookbinding stitch from Japan. The second vessel has the edges deliberately misaligned, so

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we use a simple double running stitch. The third vessel (‘Big Bend’) has carved surface facing outwards, so the veneer side, the ‘right’ side, is actually used as the inside face. Bending across the grain, the board will only just bend to the needed curve. The danger is cracking the carved sheet. Actually, it does very lightly crack over its entire surface – but so lightly that the cracks stay moreor-less invisible. This third one has a more decorative stitch (again, traditional bookbinding), which seems to work well with the busy surface, and it has three times as many stitches to spread the high tension in the board. These three experiments have used up all of the single sheet of cherryveneered board that was in the wood-store (and our efforts to get more have been unsuccessful; no-one knows where this board came from!). The sizes of the vessels we made related to getting three of them out of the one sheet. We are offered some sheets of thin veneer – their colour and weight like watercolour paper. They can even be painted on like paper, and we try some Chinese ink painting, making simple repeated decorative surfaces. Had used ink painting in the past as a generator for carving patterns for the solid vessels. Scale-up to using the birch plywood as a support for ink painting. Also find that when using a roughing plane supplied by our friend John, we can carve patterns lightly into the board, and then ink-up like a relief printing block. This isn’t what the plane was designed for, but it performs well. We have re-purposed it. Insufficient time to do any more than trial this, but we now have a practical way of using thin ‘normal’ ply for the Bend series.

Once we returned home to the UK, we did find some super-thin ply that worked well for the painted Bends, but we were unable to source anything that carved in a similar way to that ‘magical’ sheet of cherry-veneered board. Using conventional cherry-veneered ply, we could make a vessel with a front and back that were sewn together in the same way, with its curves maintained by the tension of the board held against carved spacers. By deeply gouging parallel lines into the cherry veneer of the inside face, we achieved a decorative inner surface that would allow the board to be bent into the required curve. Our making explored limits: How deep could we make the gouges? And, how much of a curve could we get? Would this let us get a complete bend by using a single sheet of ply for a single vessel? Each of these individual, practical decisions influenced and depended upon on every other. Interestingly, these two-faced pieces came much closer to the flattened forms of our carved solid work. I return here to our time in Philadelphia, and back to the veneers: Early July, 2013: Different thicknesses have different possibilities. Thick ones (i.e. 2–3 mm) are only just carve-able. We carve and stitch together multi-panel vessels. Thin veneers (around 0.6 mm) bend well when dry, but when soaked in water they become even more flexible, allowing for tighter curves. More than this, they

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Figure 11.2 Big Bend. Cherry-veneered ply, 90 cm, July 2013. Museum of Fine Art, Philadelphia. Photo by Malcolm Martin and Gaynor Dowling.

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Craftwork as Problem Solving warp as they dry due to the internal tension of the sheet equalizing out – again, rather like watercolour paper. The resulting vessels are more fluid in form, more subtle. Using ‘decorative’ veneers in this way, we can play with the figure of the wood as it curves and flows. These vessels weigh only a few grams each. The veneer can be cut with scissors, and the cuts refined with a scalpel. It’s a kind of drawing. But these pieces are so light that they seem to need some kind of a bottom. It feels like the bottoms will need to be much stiffer and heavier than the veneer. We try carving their surfaces, gilding, stitching with silver into a knot. But, how to attach them? We pass pegs – a bit like traditional clothes peg – through the veneer that hold the bottom in the pressure of their fork. John turns-up trumps again, arriving with some boxwood that will let us cut pegs that are only 3 or 4 mm wide and less than a centimetre long. These are perfect for working on this small scale. A Japanese handsaw with its narrow kerf is ideal for the task. The fastening stitching, too, can be lighter. Three holes (like the classic minimal bookbinding stitch) are enough to hold sides together. We play with weight, colour, and texture of thread … Contrast or blend? Silver wire works well too – it’s pliable enough and picks up colour from the wood that it’s laid onto. No problem getting a tight curve, but we play anyway with two and threesided forms …

It is now a year since we returned from Philadelphia. Most of the new work that we began there has borne fruit back home in the UK, and there are more avenues of exploration that we want to return to and develop. We have had a year of ‘normal’ working, away from the hothouse atmosphere and excitement. We have had time to get bogged-down and to then extricate ourselves, over and over again. As individuals, we now work differently, and more flexibly. The ways in which Gaynor and I work together have also changed subtly. As our joint-work became more flexible, so, too, did our attitudes and responses to it, and to each other. We learned to engage differently with our tradition, which perhaps means just allowing ourselves to be carried along by it. This may sound like a passive engagement, but in fact it was the exact opposite. We allowed our skills and experience to lead us through the available and limited possibilities of material and process, and in doing so we discovered tools and materials that were new to us, and we let them do very different things. We used new materials not by active ‘choice’, but because they presented themselves and, in a way, chose us. We learned not to worry, and instead to step back a little and to follow where things led. We learned that a limitation is also always a reframing of possibilities, whether it is in terms of material or physical movement. We learned that a new tool brings with it new possibilities, whether it is used ‘properly’ or re-purposed. The option of working with templates and making simple jigs has been a revelation. Very small planes can offer greater accuracy than a chisel when needed. These things may sound foolishly simple, but they are in fact the kinds of practical decision that have the potential for dramatic change.

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Figure 11.3 Can. Maple-veneer, 30 cm, March 2014. Photo by Malcolm Martin and Gaynor Dowling.

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Gaynor and I have changed our relationship to ‘woodwork’ and to the discipline of ‘wood’, and we have benefited greatly from it. The surprising conclusion of the residency was realising how easy it is to produce radically different work by changing the working conditions and the context. Reconstructing the work that Gaynor and I make has had the result that it engages differently with the world of galleries, museums, collectors, and makers. That change in engagement has redefined ‘us’, both for ourselves and for these others. So, we returned from Philadelphia with different, and perhaps more fluid, ‘selves’ and a different way of working within our tradition. I see now that my relationship to Mingei is both simpler and more subtle than I had thought. It is not invested in nostalgia or in a style or look; and it is not even constituted by a set of concerns. It is not about specific materials or tools, or about the socio-economic conditions in which I make. My relationship with Mingei is simply the acknowledgement that tradition – with both its infinite possibilities and very real limitations – supports and maintains me as a maker. It carries me along, and is the source from which my creativity springs. Mingei is the source of a real freedom that, paradoxically, is born of constraint. And, in this sense, it is nothing special. ‘Have a Cup of Tea’ Tea-drinking has a long association with Buddhism, originally used as a gentle stimulant to ward-off drowsiness during long periods of meditation in the monasteries. Ironically, tea-drinking also became an important element of courtly and aristocratic life in mediaeval Japan. Among the nobility, taking tea became a lavish and ostentatious formal ceremony and an opportunity for connoisseurship and display. Both Buddhism and tea had come to Japan from China (China being the embodiment of secular, cultural, and religious power), and it was from China that tea-bowls and other rare, exotic, and costly equipment were sought out. The giving or receiving of such items became significant political acts and displays of favour.4 Such displays, however, were the very opposite of the Zen Buddhist spirit. The intention of Zen, in a way, is simply ‘seeing the world as it is’, and ‘acting appropriately’: to see the world without the layers of conceptualisation, categorisation, and judgment through which we construct our identity and sense of self. It is to step outside of the box that we label ‘I’. A useful image for understanding the nature of meditation is of muddy sediment settling out of still water and falling to the bottom of the glass. When the water is disturbed, the

4 Sadako Ohki’s exhibition catalogue (2009) offers a good practical and historical introduction to the tea culture of Japan. Dennis Hirota’s book (1995) takes this exploration much further, and well beyond the scope of this chapter.

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sediment clouds our vision; but when it is still and the sediment settles, you can see clearly through it. For those wishing to turn the ‘taking of tea’ into a way of practice, there was an inherent paradox. In one sense, the exotic Chinese utensils used were the material embodiment of the formal tea ceremony, thereby lending the taking of tea a ceremonial context. But these same utensils were also distractions from directly seeing the world ‘as it is’, here and now. The significance of their Chinese origins and history could not help but direct the mind of the tea drinker to an imagined elsewhere and ‘else-when’, thereby inhibiting the possibility of seeing and using them ‘just as they are’. The response of the Japanese Buddhist tea-masters was therefore to progressively incorporate new utensils that lacked such associations. These new utensils were variably Japanese items; cheap, insignificant Korean imports; and ready-to-hand self-made or re-purposed objects. For example, commonplace Korean rice-bowls became tea-bowls; ivory tea-scoops were replaced with bamboo ones that were carved by the tea-master; and a fishing weight may have been re-purposed as a kettle stand. There were no longer display shelves in the tea room, and there was no decoration other than a flower vase and hanging scroll. The tea room became a small and intimate structure, with a low doorway that required a nobleman to bend as low as a monk or a commoner to enter. The aesthetic qualities of the new kinds of tea-drinking objects were explored. Aesthetics in this context was concerned not with the formal beauty of objects to be admired, but rather it was concerned with objects in use: the feel of a teacup’s rim on the lips, the sound produced when water is poured into a vessel, or the lightness of a plain bamboo tea-scoop in the hand. The aesthetics were concerned with direct experience of reality; the uniqueness of each moment truly lived. The tea masters found in these objects (bowls, caddies, water jars, spoons, flower vases) a beauty that could not be categorised; a beauty that was independent of the costliness or rarity of the materials, of the age or newness of the item, or of the maker’s virtuosity, their hours of labour, or their reputation. Such a beauty was beyond the conventional distinctions made between ‘beauty’ and ‘ugliness’. A bowl or a vase of this sort could therefore become a part of the active meditation that the tea ceremony was meant to be. By looking at the world in this way, the tea-masters came to see a truer and deeper beauty in their found and re-purposed objects. I must emphasise that this sense of aesthetics was developed through a direct encounter with the object. The identity of its maker (or makers), and his or her real or assumed intentions did not figure in the object’s aesthetic evaluation. Its provenance was equally irrelevant. Although connoisseurship would inevitably reassert itself in the use and making of tea-drinking objects in Japan, in the Zen act of radical seeing that I have described, connoisseurship and other categories that are so central to the study of art in the West were absent. It was this kind of beauty that Yanagi found in the objects that he qualified as Mingei.

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The unnamed men and women who created these ‘beautiful’ things were by and large uneducated and ill-rewarded. But, like Yanagi, the tea-masters who had appreciated their work were educated sophisticates with the necessary intellectual and spiritual resources to recognise the beauty. By using these objects, they refined their senses to see the world more clearly, as it is, through direct perception. This ability demands challenging and interminable practice. It is a never-ending process; a sophisticated movement toward simplicity. Yanagi believed that the position of the contemporary fine artist is similar to that of the tea master or Zen student. In other words, they need to get ‘out of the box’ and away from the need to display their taste, opinion, career, identity, and self-expression, and to move closer to the position of the Mingei makers. An essential difference between fine artists and Zen Buddhists, however, is that relatively few of the former realise they are ‘in the box’ to begin with. But, if fine artists do realise it, like the diligent Zen student who strives to transcend their personal perspective in order to see reality ‘as it is’, they too can choose to question their identity and their sense of self. It is only by recognising one’s own limitations, and ultimately one’s own finitude, that one escapes – however partially – the ‘boxes’ of one’s own making. To start with, the limits of the body need to be acknowledged. Eyesight, physical strength, and muscular co-ordination all deteriorate as we age. I recognise that, in the future, I will not, and will not be able to, make in the ways that I do now; and, eventually, I will not be making anything at all. Eihei Dogen, a great thirteenthcentury Zen teacher, gave perfect expression to this: ‘Therefore flowers fall even though we love them, weeds grow even though we dislike them’ (in Okamura, 2010: 1). This expression encapsulates the Zen Buddhist approach to life and death, and to the inherent paradox in what it is to be human. There is no point in denying change and limitations, but rather we need to embrace them as the basis of our actions. Nature is a model that affirms the inevitability of change and, ultimately, of death; and of a finitude that is both universal and human. In Japan this understanding evolved into the aesthetic of wabi-sabi, a full discussion of which is beyond the scope of the present chapter. But, of direct relevance to my enquiry, wabi-sabi makes room for the old, the broken, the fleeting, and the flawed to have a place of value. Likewise, the emotions evoked by such things (namely sadness, loneliness and melancholy) gained positive value because they involve the positive acceptance of limitation, as opposed to simply resigning oneself to it. The Limits of Tradition It is in this attitude that the deeper significance of Mingei becomes clear. In embracing the limited and contingent, Mingei allows us closer to the heart of things and of life. By contrast, does courtly and fine art not strive for the fantasy of immortality, and deny the inevitability of change and death? Together, the genius or skill of the artist, the magnificence of the patron or ruler, and the costliness of

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the materials contribute to masking the absurdity of such striving and denial. But, by choosing the commonplace, the disregarded, and the discarded, tea-masters challenged not only their patrons’ aesthetic tastes, but also their aspirations for power and control. This was the case of Sen No Rikyu who was the most celebrated and innovative of all the tea-masters, and tea-master of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the de facto ruler of all Japan. It is therefore not surprising that Toyotomi Hideyoshi eventually ordered Sen No Rikyu to commit suicide. By accepting that I am ultimately reliant on the benevolence of a world that I do not control, but of which I am wholly a part, I recognise the need to be grateful for what is offered, and to work in a manner that makes best use of it. As a practical, contemporary example: when asked why he was constructing his multichambered hillside kiln on such a large scale, the potter Shoji Hamada answered that he wanted it to be harder to control the firing process, trusting that this would produce more interesting results. The varying conditions of heat and atmosphere within the different areas of the many chambers would allow the body to fire and the glazes to mature in less predictable and unintended ways, thereby escaping the limitations imposed by Hamada’s own intentions. Hamada was highly educated and a close friend of Yanagi. By using the same clay bodies and glazes produced by rural potters, he created a unique personal style that, at the same time, was firmly rooted in folk traditions. Yanagi included Hamada’s work in his collection for the Mingeikan museum that he founded, and Hamada became one of the most celebrated potters of the twentieth century. The printmaker Shiko Munakata was another example of a contemporary artist whose work, while showing a high degree of originality and individuality, was judged by Yanagi to be made in the Mingei spirit. For Western critics who conceive of Mingei as a purely socio-economic or historical category, Hamada and Munakata are not ‘true’ Mingei makers. Nevertheless, Yanagi revealed that there is a specific quality in making that connects not only Hamada and Munakata to Mingei, but equally makers like Gaynor and me. If this were not the case, then the work of those anonymous craftspeople of Japan’s past could only be either a measure of a way of working forever lost, or else simply a ‘style’ to be admired or imitated for its aesthetic qualities. The conditions within which we work today are very different, and they present new problems and opportunities, but the challenge that Yanagi posed to makers remains valid. Yanagi has argued that craft is capable of being much more than the making of useful things, or things that are nice to look at. Craft is capable of being (and has been for much of its history) a spiritual practice. By ‘spiritual’, he did not mean otherworldly, but rather he was referring to a way of being and acting in the world, in the here and now. This kind of spirituality takes us closer to an authentic realisation of our own limitations and finitude, whether of the body, the mind, or the resources available to us. To my mind, this philosophy needs to be stated and repeated in the world today. Making within a craft tradition holds the potential for realising a spiritual, human depth. As makers of objects, or as members of the

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public who view and use objects, craft can assist us, as humans, to ‘get out of the box’ of preconceptions and fixed thinking, and to see and feel in new ways. There is no set prescription for achieving this state of being. It is an endless and cyclical process. The tea-masters who came after Se No Rikyu, for example, sought to codify the character and qualities that made the commonplace and the disregarded beautiful. In doing so, they instituted the dynasties of ‘approved’ makers, such as the Raku family. Rikyu had anticipated that his innovations would inevitably be translated into a new orthodoxy. For Yanagi, the attempts to codify beauty introduced artificiality and self-consciousness, and therefore contradicted the original intentions of chanoyu (i.e. the Japanese tea ceremony). As a maker, I have to accept that, like the myokonin, I am deluded through and through. I like to believe that there is an ‘I’ who is in control of my work. The reality, however, is somewhat different. Whether I am aware of it or not, I have to rely on a world that is not of my making to provide me with all that I need. The tools I use have been developed over thousands of years by human hands that have evolved over millions. The raw material that I use is wood, a material that has evolved over aeons, on a small rock in a backwater of a minor galaxy. All of this is limiting, but without all of this I am nothing. The myokonin’s answer to this is gratitude for what is given, and openness in accepting what is offered. It turned out that my problem, my paradox, did not need a solution at all. Sometimes the work goes step-wise, one logical move at a time; at other times what is needed is to bring awareness to the leap that can be made into something new and unimagined. But either way, I find that I work within tradition, whether I intend to or not. And, the more that I embrace the limitations of tradition (that are also my own), the better and more smoothly the work proceeds. In this lies a real resonance with the spirit and practice of the Mingei makers. The full meditation instructions of one well-known Zen teacher are, ‘Shut up and sit down!’ Perhaps I should say to myself, ‘Shut up and get back to the bench!’ Yet, learning to ‘shut up’ takes years of patient practice. The only real restrictions are the ideas or habits that I myself bring to my work. Tradition is so much wider and richer than I can possibly imagine. My task, it seems, is to pay attention to these possibilities, as they present themselves at this moment. Acknowledgements Thanks to Zen teacher Barry Magid of the Ordinary Mind School for his generosity of time and thought. Barry also put me in touch with the Australian potter and Zennist Milton Moon, who made helpful suggestions to this chapter. Finally, my deepest and heartfelt thanks go to my harshest critic and greatest supporter, my co-creator for these many years, Gaynor Dowling.

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Bibliography Hirota, D. 1995. Wind in the Pines: classic writings on the way of tea as a Buddhist path. Asian Humanities Press. Okumura, S. 2010. Realizing Genjokoan. Boston: Wisdom. Sadako, O. 2009. Tea Culture of Japan. New Haven: Yale University Press. Suzuki, D.T. 1998. Buddha of Infinite Light. Boston and London: Shambala. Yanagi, S. 1989 (1972). The Unknown Craftsman. Translated and edited by Bernard Leach. Tokyo: Kodansha. Web resources Barry Magid talks at: www.ordinarymind.com/talks The Center for Art in Wood: www.centerforartinwood.org/ The blog for the Philadelphia Residency at http://internationalturningexchange. wordpress.com

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Chapter 12

The Place of Craft in Building Conservation: The Craftsperson as Problem-Solver and Builder Giovanni Diodati

Introduction: The Role of Craft in Preserving Heritage Buildings Canada has an extensive building stock of aging architecture that ranges from vernacular to monumental, and that is of exceptional quality. These often richlyappointed buildings were the product of the combined efforts of skilled, autonomous craftsmen who transformed materials into the architectural compositions that we appreciate today. The transformations in building practice from ‘traditional’ building (i.e. pre-1900) to ‘hybrid’ building (circa 1890s–1950s) to contemporary building were accompanied by an important paradigm shift: the paradigm of ‘create, maintain, restore’ was supplanted by ‘manufacture, consume, discard’. This change was motivated, in part, by rapid growth in population, industrialisation, changes in stylistic preferences, and a growing demand for machine-made building systems. As a consequence, the tradition of the autonomous craftsman for the most part disappeared, and was replaced by contracting or sub-contracting companies. Notably, the majority of the building stock that has been subject to conservation in Canada has been traditional building construction and more recently some hybrid building construction. Ambitions in Canada to preserve the nation’s architectural heritage are challenged by the current economic, regulatory, and contracting contexts in which architectural and conservation practices operate. In addition, the ongoing trend toward individual specialisations in the field of building construction (i.e. increasing division of labour between architect, engineer, building scientist, manufacturer, contractor, and labourer) has produced other concerns: Who determines the scope of work? Who is ultimately responsible for the result? How are ‘trade standards’ and the ‘rules of the trade’ defined? The combined trends of specialisation and reliance on standards and building codes have also created need for onerous processes of communication, coordination, and documentation, which often frustrate progress and add to project costs. Where the craftsman had the knowledge and experience to fully exercise his trade, none of the individual participants in the contemporary contracting structure possesses the necessary resources or authority to act in the way that

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the independent craftsman once did. The chain of decision-making has become long; the cost of construction, including restoration, has become prohibitive. It is naive to suggest that reviving the craftsman tradition would be the solution to our current challenges in heritage conservation. The ideals that William Morris and others espoused but failed to realise are no more plausible today than they were in the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, the participation and contribution of craftspeople throughout the entire building conservation process is essential for overcoming the fragmentation of roles and responsibilities, and for grounding a project in success. By understanding the traditional craftsperson as both problem-solver and builder, and as an individual with intimate knowledge of the materials, methods, and tools of their trade, contemporary building conservationists can better accommodate craftspeople within their multidisciplinary team. The role of craftspeople includes interpreting the past, determining the cultural value inherent in the work, diagnosing the issues and pathologies, developing solutions, producing mock-ups, conducting trials, and planning the work. Although the craftsperson will execute only the most critical tasks (leaving the remainder to be carried out by lesser-skilled workers), their inclusion in the diagnosing, planning, and construction better assures that all work is conducted properly. This chapter begins by distinguishing between the craftsperson and the tradesperson, and explores the former’s role in different kinds of building construction as construction methods changed over time. For each kind of building construction, I discuss the materials and construction techniques employed, the architectural and constructional language, the dominant paradigm in the industry, the knowledge brokers who oversaw the process, the nature of construction problems, and the capacity to learn and to develop the construction type. I next move to a discussion of the craftspeople with whom I have worked, and I offer examples of problem solving in craftwork that I have carried out with Octavio, a carpenter-joiner. The main challenges facing contemporary craftspeople working in the construction industry are also outlined. The chapter concludes with a brief overview of conservation practice in which craftspeople may continue to thrive, and some broad observations of contemporary construction practices. Comparing Craftspeople and Tradespeople Throughout my career as a conservation architect I have had the privilege of working with a number of craftspeople on a wide range of building conservation projects. Some have been long-time collaborators in my conservation work, and to a lesser extent in my new construction projects where traditional building materials and techniques are employed. The majority of the work that we have conducted has been related to building envelope (i.e. the outer elements that maintain a conditioned interior climate), including the remediation or replacement of traditional roofs, walls, windows, doors, and foundations. It became evident to

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me early on that conservation practice requires a substantially different approach and skill set than new building. Research into traditional building techniques is instrumental in developing a baseline understanding of the original constructions. Contemporary building practice consists primarily of selecting prefabricated elements and systems that are readily available from industry and assembling them in (what will hopefully be) an interesting and aesthetically-pleasing manner while abiding by regulations and building codes. More complex and creative constructions call upon industry to devise new kinds of manufactured elements and systems. The finished building is the result of several separate subcontractors assembling these prefabricated systems under the supervision and coordination of a general contractor. Conspicuously, the craftsperson is absent from the process. In my professional work, I have observed a marked difference between the qualities of the craftspeople and those of modern tradespeople or labourers who assemble contemporary constructions. This difference is rooted in their respective training, experience, approach, and construction practices. Construction associations offer their members instruction in theory, and they monitor apprenticeships and issue certification for each modern trade. The tradesperson and labourer excels at understanding and correctly installing products (supplied by manufacturers) and they tend to remain within the boundaries defined by industry and contemporary construction practice. Through the course of their careers, they are inclined to develop their experience and specialise their knowledge around the products that they commonly use. They do not enjoy the same autonomy, broad experiences, and resources of the craftsperson. By contrast, certification for craftspeople is not so straightforward, and methods of craft training can range from autodidacticism to traditional apprentice-style formation, the latter of which continues to be offered in some European countries (e.g. Les compagnons du devoir du tour de France). The self-motivated nature of the skilled craftsperson appears to be universal: the ability to autonomously seek and identify problems, understand underlying constraints or causes, draw from previous experience, develop and test possible solutions, and directly implement the most appropriate one(s). Good conservation practice promotes such qualities and problem solving processes with a view to protecting, rehabilitating, and ensuring the long-term survival of heritage buildings. Before further exploring the qualities of a craftsperson, it is important to review the construction types and the craftsperson’s role within them. Existing building stock can be categorised into three main building types, as I enumerated above. It is noteworthy that traditional and hybrid building constructions that were erected by craftspeople embody greater potential for conservation than their contemporary counterparts.

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Types of Building Construction Traditional Building Construction (pre-1900) So-called ‘traditional building construction’ is derived from a tradition of building practice that was developed over centuries of experimentation with a limited palette of materials and techniques. Construction materials, including timber, brick, stone, lime-based mortars, and iron (either cast or wrought), were typically harvested or extracted from local sources. The materials were selected, shaped, and finished by hand and incorporated with the construction by craftsmen. Construction assemblies (e.g. walls, roofs, etc.) comprised a limited number of materials and served multiple functions. For example, masonry walls were generally thick and served simultaneously as the building structure, weather barrier, exterior finish, and support for interior finishes. A clear vision and an architectural and constructional language guided the production of building components and the overall building process. This language was shared by architects and craftsmen and was rooted in the qualities of the materials and the methods of shaping and bonding or joining them together in an effective and enduring manner. This resulted in meaningful compositions that were at once functional and aesthetic. For example, masonry facades were designed with cornices and band courses that were not only decorative features in the architectural expression but they also played an important role in ensuring the stability of the wall and protecting wall surfaces from the detrimental effects of excessive water run-off. Judging from historical construction drawings and documentation of traditional building construction, the process of design and construction appears to have been an additive one. The architect, it seems, would capture the vision in a few drawings or model, and the craftsman would build upon and develop the constructional language in coordination with the architect throughout the construction process. Fortunately, this has been my experience working with contemporary craftspeople. My drawings have often served to initiate discussion that, through the course of several exchanges (i.e. conversations, sketches, mock-ups, and adjustments during construction), results in a collaborative and creative solution – a solution that is greater than what we would have achieved by working independently. Traditional building construction was guided by the paradigm of create, maintain, and restore. Building components were designed for long-term performance through regular maintenance and they were amenable to localised repairs for remediating deficient or deteriorated elements. For example, traditional wooden sash windows comprised a frame built into the wall with fixed or operating glazed sashes held within the frame. They were constructed using a sophisticated system of joinery (i.e. mortise-and-tenon with wedges) that could be disassembled and reassembled with relative ease, thereby allowing for the repair or replacement of damaged or deteriorated parts. The ‘create, maintain, restore’ paradigm

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promoted long-term retention of building components as well as craft learning that could be applied directly to remedial actions and to inform new constructions. Regulations, industry standards, and the rules of the trade were embedded in craftwork through instruction, apprenticeship, and practice. The craftsperson was relatively autonomous: they sourced their materials; shaped, finished and set them, and later maintained and repaired them. Problems typically encountered in this type of construction were concerned with the quality of the materials and how they performed either as stand-alone elements or when integrated into architectural compositions. The knowledge and skill required to remedy such problems was embodied in the craftsman’s long experience and practice. In the case of more complex architectural compositions, the knowledge and skill needed was shared with the architect. Hybrid Building Construction (circa 1890s–1950s) Hybrid building construction was the result of rapid technological developments and industrialisation. Advances in engineering, materials science, mechanisation, and manufacturing resulted in more efficient and cost-effective building processes that, in turn, allowed for the construction of larger, taller, and more complex buildings. These buildings are composed of many repetitive elements and they relied heavily on shop-manufactured components that could be assembled on site. Unlike traditional building construction in which the walls are structural, hybrid buildings comprise an independent steel or concrete frame structure that fully supports the floors. Exterior masonry walls tend to be lighter in weight and shallower in depth with the wall-backing being borne on the structural frame and the exterior cladding bonded to the backing and bearing directly on the building foundations. Columns replaced interior masonry load-bearing walls, thereby creating more useable floor space and greater freedom in planning. A panoply of new materials and methods of assembly resulted in new, often experimental building systems. Building materials consisted of a combination of traditional building materials (e.g. timber, brick, stone) that were shaped and finished by machine and newlymanufactured materials such as concrete and steel. The laying of the rail network across North America and the development of shipping trade with Europe reduced reliance on locally available materials by making imported materials more affordable and more accessible. While mechanical ferrous fasteners and anchors were used sparingly in traditional building construction, they were used systematically in hybrid construction. Traditional shop methods for shaping, detailing, joining, and finishing were rapidly replaced with industrialised manufacturing processes. The shapes of individual pieces and the joinery to assemble them into building components were often simplified such that they could be more easily machined and assembled with minimal handwork. The materials and building components were set in place or assembled by craftsmen, tradesmen and site labourers. The scale and repetitive nature

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of the assembly work did not necessarily require the skills of craftsmen. It is likely that craftsmen focused more on developing the work procedures and prototypes that could be executed by less-skilled workers while they themselves only executed the more complex details, as they do today for large conservation projects. Although the language of traditional building construction inspired that of hybrid building, there are important differences between the two. As mentioned above, the language of traditional building was developed over many centuries of hands-on experience, whereas that of hybrid building evolved very rapidly, was experimental in nature, and was short-lived. The language of the latter was no longer one exclusively shared between architects and craftsmen; but rather the structural engineer and the general contractor responsible for the complex organisation of sub-contractors, production, and management of the project became increasingly important participants. In the context of traditional building construction, the master builder was typically a craftsman with contracting authority who would execute his discipline of work and sub-contract the other kinds of building work to craftsmen of relevant disciplines. Nevertheless, hybrid building construction was also guided by the paradigm of create, maintain and restore. Building components were designed for longterm performance that would be achieved through regular maintenance. Repairs, however, are more complex than in traditional building construction. Given the scale and systemic nature of hybrid construction, problems in these buildings tend to be ubiquitous, requiring large-scale repair campaigns. The dominant paradigm in hybrid building construction supports the long-term retention of building elements, but, in this context, maintenance and remediation are no longer the exclusive domains of craftspeople. These processes require the efforts of a multidisciplinary team that is often lead by an architect or engineer. The learning in this type of construction is not as straightforward and comprehensive as it is in the case of traditional building. To repeat, the language for hybrid building construction was developed quickly over a relatively short period, and constant experimentation with, and improvement of, materials and assemblies resulted in considerable variations with each new building. Therefore, although general lessons can be drawn from the procedures of disassembly and reassembly, each building must be treated as a one-of-a-kind. In conserving these buildings, craftspeople are called upon to be part of the multidisciplinary conservation team and furnish the artisanal skills required to produce the replacement elements or to carry out treatments in situ. Regulations, industry standards, and rules of the trade that were previously embodied in the practices of craftspeople and safeguarded by their training regimes became an externalised published body of information that could be consulted, modified, managed, and adopted by others. This information was grounded in consensus reached by a multidisciplinary group of architects, engineers, scientists, craftspeople, manufacturers, builders, and others. Building science and the need for consistent quality in manufacturing were key drivers behind this

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change. Standard terminology, detailed written specifications for production and assembly, and standardised test methods to establish quality were created in order to ensure effective communication within the multidisciplinary group and provide a baseline for quality and consistency in the manufacture and assembly of building components. The American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) was founded in 1898 by a group of scientists in order to address frequent rail breaks along railway lines. They developed a standard for the quality of steel used in the manufacture of rails. Today, they provide an impressive number of voluntary consensus-based technical standards that cover almost every aspect of building construction. These standards are widely referenced in building codes and adopted by local authorities in their regulations. The rules of the trade, therefore, are neither embedded in any one craft, nor are they embodied by any one of the construction specialists. Rather, they have become a body of information to which all specialists contribute and which they must respect. This has allowed for construction knowledge to be widely communicated through publications. A seminal building construction publication is Architectural Graphic Standards, first published in 1932. This publication is regularly updated and remains an important source of information about design and construction. Problems in hybrid construction shared similarities with those encountered in traditional construction, but they also came increasingly to be about issues of ‘architecture’, engineering, materials science, standardisation, mechanisation, manufacturing, and the effective management of assembly and installation procedures. The knowledge and skill required to solve these problems gave rise to a multidisciplinary team of construction specialists in which the craftsperson took part but was not necessarily included in the global understanding of the project. Publication and dissemination of construction information in the form of standards, drawings, and specifications made the theoretical aspects of construction available to all. Curtain-Wall Construction (circa post-1950s) As the terminology suggests, curtain-wall construction consists of hanging or supporting a relatively thin exterior cladding of masonry, metal, glass, or other materials on an independent structural building frame. Curtain-wall construction can be viewed as the culmination of the rapid transition and refinement of industrialised building processes that took place during the period of hybrid building construction. The movement toward this culmination was largely driven by science, technology, industrialisation, and socioeconomic concerns. Building science sought to reveal the physical, mechanical, chemical, structural, hygrothermal (i.e. concerning moisture and temperature), and other properties of materials and material assemblies in order to better understand and predict their performance. This revolutionised how we design and build today.

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In curtain-wall construction, several different materials are assembled to compose a wall. An optimisation process is at work to identify and create the best possible material to serve each function of the wall effectively and efficiently within the overall assembly. In a northern climate, such as Canada’s, the optimisation process has culminated in the rain-screen system of exterior wall construction. Freed by an independent building structure from its structural role, the exterior wall consists of a cladding material, a vented cavity, a weather-tight membrane, sheathing (i.e. membrane support), insulation, vapour retarder, and interior finish. New manufactured and composite materials have been developed and their performance can be predicted to some degree based on laboratory testing and in comparison with the results for materials with an established field performance. If the laboratory performance of a new manufactured concrete masonry unit meets or exceeds that of a natural stone that has performed well over centuries, then we would expect the concrete masonry unit to perform just as well, or better. Metallic anchors, supports, and lintels were developed to ensure proper support and attachment of the wall to the building’s structural frame; and many devices, such as through-wall waterproofing elements, were developed to keep water from penetrating beyond the air cavity. The invention of high performance adhesives and sealant compounds (i.e. caulking) facilitated the development of this construction type. Other concerns that inform this construction type are energy conservation, occupant comfort, and environmental issues related to the manufacture, handling, and disposal of materials. The development of adhesives, sealants, membranes, and insulating materials has made possible the construction of more energyefficient, airtight, and dryer buildings. At the same time, some traditional materials with longstanding, proven performance, such as lead, are being phased out due to environmental concerns. Although the manufacture of each building component is carefully controlled and the installation and assembly are exacting, this work is highly repetitive and does not require the skillset of a craftsperson. Failures tend to result from poor workmanship, incompatibilities between the various wall materials used, and failures in the materials themselves. The ruling paradigm for curtain-wall and contemporary building construction is ‘manufacture, consume, discard’. In more recent times, however, some materials have been recycled rather than discarded. The promise of continual technological advancement propagates the belief that a new and better material or assembly will be available by the time that either a major repair campaign is required or one of the component materials has reached the end of its lifecycle. Building components are no longer designed to be easily disassembled and reassembled for maintaining and retaining elements over the long term. Curtain-wall construction freed buildings from the traditional and hybrid languages and gave rise to a seemingly unlimited number of possibilities and aesthetics that could be created by designing, engineering, and manufacturing a custom cladding or assembly and a corresponding system of attachment to the

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building structure. The language of this construction type continues to evolve and is shared mainly between the architect, engineer, and manufacturer. Making a case for repairing or restoring claddings and assemblies poses a challenge because the production-runs of these manufactured products are limited, and because constant technological improvements and increasingly restrictive regulations quickly render them obsolete. In the end, replacement with a more current version rather than repair is usually the chosen course of action. There is neither single authority nor a place for the craftsperson in this construction type. In this context of dismantling without intention of reusing the same materials or systems, on-site learning opportunities are somewhat limited. Any learning to be had is restricted to the architect, engineer, and manufacturer, and information is communicated in the form of updated standards, codes, regulations, and industry publications. Learning about curtain-wall construction is therefore concerned much less with repair than with how to better design the next building. Regulations, building codes, and standards are numerous, highly specialised, and constantly evolving in contemporary building practice, thus quickly rendering the use of some materials and techniques obsolete. Each construction specialist is responsible for the regulations that pertain to their respective discipline and thus no single one has command of their totality. The communication, control, and management of information in contemporary construction have taken on great importance, whereas the knowledge of actual building practices (from manufacture to assembly) is fragmented between increasingly specialised sub-fields. The kind of knowledge that is vital for operating within the current paradigm of ‘manufacture, consume, discard’ is not so much one about the physical materials and the manner in which they go together, but rather a knowledge of how to effectively communicate and efficiently manage information. Actual ‘information’ concerning materials or codes is almost irrelevant because it is constantly changing. Therefore, ‘managerial’ knowledge has replaced ‘factual’ knowledge in the pecking order. Managerial knowledge is not shared across, but is more-or-less the exclusive domain of the architect, engineer, or general contractor who leads the project. It appears that the governing knowledge of contemporary building practice has shifted historically from one invested in materiality to a more abstract kind of discourse of managerial and communication practices. The value placed on management and documentation has grown. As a result, construction drawings and specifications now need to be highly detailed, and they have essentially become a comprehensive list of instructions that can be executed by a site tradesperson or labourer. These drawing and specification packages can reach dizzying complexity, and so each construction specialist must dedicate significant resources to producing documentation and to communicating and managing it. Every change during the construction itself must be documented and accounted for. Gone are the days when a simple drawing produced by the architect was sufficient to communicate intent, thereby allowing the craftsman, through his embodied experience and knowhow, to progress and realise the architect’s vision throughout the construction process.

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The nature of engagement in problem solving in contemporary construction therefore differs from that in traditional and hybrid construction. It resides in being well-informed, adopting the most current and pertinent systems and methods, and communicating and managing information related to the actual construction. This responsibility resides with the individual specialists and is gathered and coordinated by the project leader (architect, engineer, or general contractor) who maintains a global model and understanding of the construction project. The Craftsperson Although the training and career paths of craftspeople are varied, I have observed that all those with whom I have collaborated share distinct qualities and attitudes to their work. I have established enduring working relations with several craftsmen.1 Together, we have matured in our careers and have had the pleasure of working on stimulating and challenging ventures, many of which were award-winning projects for the conservation of historic landmark buildings. In this section, I introduce one of my close collaborators, Octavio Salcedo, and some of the problem solving that we have undertaken together on building sites. Octavio Salcedo is a Columbian-born master carpenter and joiner. He completed architectural training at the Universidad de La Salle before studying carpentry at the Servicio Nacional de Aprendizaje (SENA) in Bogotà. After working as a carpenter in his native country, Octavio moved to Montreal in 1996 where he began working on conservation projects. His specialty at the time was the restoration and rehabilitation of heritage doors, windows, and interior wood finishes. He pursued further studies at the Université de Montréal, obtaining a Master’s degree in applied sciences in the field of conservation. Octavio’s architectural training and strong academic background have enabled him to also work as a wood conservator. In 2003, he was awarded Le prix de l’artisan by the City of Montreal. Like Octavio, all the craftsmen with whom I have worked closely acquired their knowledge through their vocational training and historical research, and even more so through their direct working experience with the materials and tools in the workshop and on site. Their knowledge is also enriched through their collaboration with experts in related fields. They carefully source and select raw materials (e.g. stone, wood, metals), and scrutinise them visually, acoustically, and with touch for faults or weaknesses. In this way, different grades of qualities are identified and used appropriately. The meticulous processes of selection are ongoing as the raw materials are cut or shaped into smaller pieces that reveal hidden faults within. The response of the material subject to the force of the cutting or shaping 1 I use the term craftsman/men (rather than craftsperson/craftspeople) when discussing my own work experience because, to date, my close collaborations have been exclusively with male craftsmen.

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instruments also provides valuable information to craftspeople about its quality. This enables them to evaluate each element for its intended purpose and exposure, and to predict its performance. The craftsperson’s knowledge is essential for resolving two significant contemporary challenges related to the procurement of quality natural materials: the unavailability of many replacement materials in the quantity, dimensions, or quality needed; and the shortfalls in current standards when selecting natural materials for construction. For example, when Octavio is commissioned to reproduce components for historic sash windows and doors, he often discovers that the species of timber originally used is no longer available in the dimensions or quality required; or, if it is, it is often prohibitively expensive. The original window or door components were likely shaped from timber issuing from oldgrowth forest that was once abundant, available in large planks, and possessed good weather-resistant qualities. Today, high-quality lumber tends to be available only in smaller sizes. Therefore, when Octavio needs to produce components with large cross sections or ones that will be highly exposed to weather, he laminates smaller pieces of high-quality timber to achieve the required dimensions and to prevent cupping or warping. Laminating, which has been made possible largely by the advent of high-performance adhesives, balances the stresses within the finished element to ensure its long-term stability. Current standards and regulations contain both subjective and objective criteria for the selection of natural construction materials. In other words, the experiences of suppliers and installers and the material’s field performance are taken into consideration alongside the results of laboratory testing on the material’s mechanical and physical properties. The subjective dimension is important because, unlike manufactured materials that are homogenous in composition, natural ones tend to be more varied and variable. For example, quarried stone that contains inclusions (e.g. iron) may pass objective testing criteria, but only an experienced mason with firsthand knowledge of the behaviour and weathering patterns of such stone can judge whether it is appropriate for use on a given project. The absence in contemporary construction practices of craftspeople and their working knowledge of the material has meant greater reliance on ‘objective’ criteria rather than subjective, experiential-based ones. This increases the possibility of poor quality materials being delivered to site and used in construction. A craftsperson’s ability to subjectively evaluate the quality of materials and predict how they will perform over time derives in part from their training but mostly from their firsthand experience of manipulating, repairing, and maintaining the material, and resolving material problems in existing buildings. Disassembling, repairing, and reassembling components or areas of building fabric allows them to perform quality assessments of the material as well as of the execution of the original design and the intentions and skill of the original creators. Whether it is the bonding pattern of a masonry wall, joinery in a sash window, or the seaming in copper roof panels, carefully practiced disassembly and documentation reveals a great deal about the quality of the construction and the long-term performance of

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the materials. Octavio noted, ‘It is sometimes amazing when I am taking apart a window sash and I can realize what was going on in the craftsman’s mind when he was making it one hundred years ago … [and] how he made the most of a situation’. This architectural and constructional language of making and conserving is at the centre of the building-crafts tradition. It is a highly developed language, refined over centuries of practice and resulting in a significant number of important and enduring architectural and constructional compositions. The contemporary craftsperson, through maintaining and repairing these building components, learns to read the intentions of their makers, interpret their methods, and evaluate their results. In reassembling the components, they add their own experience and expertise to the design and incorporate new understanding learned from building and materials science that better responds to current functional or regulatory requirements. The craftsmen I have worked with share a pride in their professional autonomy and a steadfast confidence in their practice. There is seemingly no problem that is too great to undertake. Unlike the modern tradesperson or labourer who must rely on off-the-shelf solutions supplied by industry, or the construction specialists who rely almost exclusively on technical knowledge to resolve construction problems, craftspeople have the ability to develop novel and accurate solutions to a problem. This is due to their intimate knowledge of materials and techniques and their knowhow for transforming raw materials to any level of sophistication. They possess the specialised tools and machinery required to do so; and, when needed, they create bespoke tools for the task at hand. For example, making the case to building owners to conserve their traditional wood sash windows has been a major challenge throughout my career. The problem is in dealing with the exterior storm and screen sashes. The decision to retain and conserve these windows is contingent on a strategy that improves thermal performance of the overall window, accommodates an insect screen, and requires no specialised labour, maintenance, or storage space. Traditionally, the glazed storm sash was exchanged for a screen sash during the warm summer season to protect the interior against an invasion of insects. That procedure demanded labour twice per year; clear access for the removal and installation of the screen and the storm sashes, and space to store either one when not in use. In the 1960s, storm window sashes made from sheet metal and with integrated screens became available, thereby eliminating the onerous biannual ritual and freeing-up storage space. These metal storm windows were mass-produced, made of aluminium or pre-painted metal, and were sold with the promise of being maintenance-free. However, their relatively flimsy construction resulted in poor thermal performance and functional operation. In many cases, they also accelerated the rate of deterioration of the wood window by trapping and retaining moisture in the interstitial space. Both the traditional sash window and the metal storm window were gradually abandoned after window manufacturers adopted ‘insulated glass units’ (i.e. double or triple panes of glass sealed together and housed in a single window sash) with thin, removable insect screens.

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When I approached Octavio with the challenge to find a novel solution for conserving traditional wood sash windows in a way that would improve their thermal performance, protect against insects, and require no special maintenance or storage space, he replied ‘Sure … we can do anything … let’s just try’. As with all our projects together, the solution was grounded in a collaborative and additive process that began by carefully surveying the existing conditions, appreciating the value of the existing windows, assessing the work required to restore them, speculating about their original condition, and producing sketches to explore potential solutions for the screen and storm sash. In the case of the Beaconsfield Yacht Club (BYC) built on the island of Montreal circa 1812, the existing original in-swing wood casement windows were intact, in relatively good condition, and with the majority of their original hardware still in place. As with many traditional wood windows, the screen and storm sashes had been discarded and replaced with sheet metal storm windows. Over time, their functional operation declined and they contributed to the deterioration of the wood windows, as described above. Finding an appropriate solution required close collaboration with Octavio. Our research together began with a combination of archival research and walks through historic Montreal neighbourhoods in search of surviving windows from the early nineteenth century. Octavio also produced numerous sketches for potential storm sash and custom hardware options. The path to our solution was guided by the fact that many nineteenth-century storm sashes in Montreal were face-mounted on the masonry wall. The presence of the iron hooks on either side of the window openings at the BYC led us to believe that wooden window shutters once existed on that building. Our final solution, therefore, was the design for a face-mounted storm window unit that comprised two out-swing casements fitted with hardware that would allow them to be locked into place like shutters or temporarily removed during the summer months. The storm window unit frame was grooved on its inner face to receive a removable insect screen. The light-weight metal-framed screen was commercially available. The BYC owners now have the option of either leaving the storm window unit components in place year round or removing them seasonally as was done traditionally, and without compromising window function or operation. Octavio fully restored the original windows and improved their performance by adding contemporary weather stripping and adjusting the sash fit; and he produced the storm windows by using the same traditional joinery techniques. The result is a highly-functional and contemporary solution that draws from and interprets the past and embodies the same qualities as the original building and its windows. Octavio and I have regular informal meetings in his shop and on worksites. We continually share our experience of the problems we encounter and the ways we try to resolve them. We communicate verbally and through sketches, and Octavio frequently produces mock-ups of details to test and to present to me for comment. This exchange unfolds sometimes in relation to a specific project, but more often in our shared pursuit of an idea. One point of contention between us (and there are

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Figure 12.1 Beaconsfield Yacht Club, Beaconsfield, Quebec. Pre-restoration condition illustrating metal storm windows and iron hooks in masonry on either side of the window openings. Photo courtesy of FGMDa Architects.

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Figure 12.2 Milton Park Neighbourhood, Montreal, Quebec. Facemounted nineteenth-century wooden storm window. Photo by Giovanni Diodati.

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Figure 12.3 Beaconsfield Yacht Club, Beaconsfield, Quebec. Postrestoration condition with new storm sashes. Photo courtesy of FGMDa Architects. many) is Octavio’s practice of laminating wood to produce larger cross sections. I argue that the adhesives will block the normal path of moisture migration through the wood, producing possibly adverse effects over the long term. Nonetheless, he maintains that this is a preferable option to using poorer quality wood that will surely warp, and will do so quickly. I submit that he is correct! Craftspeople face significant challenges within the contemporary construction context and many may not survive as sole traders. Craftwork normally involves the use of quality materials and substantial input of time and effort. These corresponding costs are invariably high when compared to manufactured components, and few building owners are prepared to make that extra investment. Craftspeople are also ill-equipped to navigate the dense bureaucracy of documentation and building regulations or the complex processes of information management described earlier. The majority operate small businesses that generate slim profit margins, thus the fulltime administrative assistance that would be required to carry out those tasks is simply unaffordable. Tendering and bonding requirements also tend to exclude craftspeople from projects. Larger trade subcontractors will normally include a craftsperson on their teams for carrying out the more complex handwork, but the craftsperson’s relatively limited role curtails the influence they might otherwise have on the overall project.

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Regardless, a craftsperson’s ability to respond to unique situations and varied problems make them an invaluable member of any multidisciplinary conservation team. This applies not only for conserving heritage-building fabric but also for developing and implementing improvements that are both respectful of the context and responsive to current regulations, as exemplified in the BYC storm window case described above. Building Conservation and the Craftsperson Building conservation practice engages processes that help to retain the heritage and cultural value of a given building and ensure its continued physical life. In Canada, conservation is carried out in a ‘values-based context’ that employs a system designed to identify and manage historic places and buildings. Values are established by a community through an evaluation process and can be formally recognised by a governing authority. Some or all of the comprising site or building elements may be identified as ‘character-defining’ and worthy of conservation. The Standards and Guidelines for the Conservation of Historic Places (SGC) (2010) serves as a guide to building owners and conservation specialists alike for making informed decisions about conserving historic sites and buildings. I often consult the SGC when solving conservation problems, and it informed the exterior rehabilitation of the Beaconsfield Yacht Club, including its existing windows as discussed earlier. The process consists of ‘understanding’ through extensive research and investigations, ‘planning’ through identifying and testing compatible options, ‘intervening’ through the implementation of the most appropriate option, and ‘regular maintenance’ to ensure good performance and continued existence. Every step in the process is carefully documented, from the conditions found, through the subsequent interventions performed, and the results achieved. The documentation process is additive and serves to communicate and coordinate information among the various conservation specialists. The full and final project documentation becomes an important record that can be further updated as future interventions are made. Conservation work is guided by the paradigm ‘create, maintain, restore’ and by principles that invariably promote minimal intervention, maximum retention of existing elements, and discernibility and reversibility of new interventions. Despite the fact that contemporary construction processes are frequently used in conservation projects, the work itself must be grounded in materiality. This is because the work is about conserving edifices (traditional or hybrid) that were originally built in part or in whole by craftspeople who used materials and techniques that have performed well over long periods of time. When materials are the starting point, craftspeople are required for the job, and at all stages of intervention. In the case of large-scale conservation projects, it is important to note that materials conservators (whose training is similar to that of a craftsperson, but

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is highly specialised, more scientific, and specifically focused on conservation) fulfil a similar role to that of a craftsperson, and the two often work together. In the current climate of rapid and constant change and a multitude of specialists, defining responsibility and attributing fault in the construction industry can be extremely complicated and costly when there is building failure either during or after a warranty period. Arguments regularly centre upon notions about the rules of the trade, standard practice, and reasonable expectation of results or performance – all notions that were easier to define in the context of traditional building construction. When asked about warranty, Octavio’s response captured the essence of what it is to be a craftsperson: ‘The warranty is in the quality of my work and my ability to maintain and repair it when required … that’s it!’ Conclusion In exploring how the role of the traditional craftsperson as builder and problemsolver has evolved in response to developments in building construction, several observations have been made. Although there appears to be no place for the craftsperson in building new contemporary construction, their qualities and abilities are fully compatible with current building conservation practice of traditional and hybrid building constructions, and therefore the craftsperson survives as a valuable contributor to building conservation efforts. Their aptitude, training, experience, self-determination, and resources (shop, specialised tools, materials, etc.) allow them to address nearly any construction problem with novel and appropriate solutions. In reviewing traditional, hybrid, and contemporary curtain-wall construction practices, and the corresponding paradigms of those eras, it was observed that the nature of problem solving has changed in relation to changing technologies, construction methods, and building assemblies. It was equally observed that the cast of players responsible for solving problems, and who in effect had greatest access to learning and who therefore possessed critical knowledge of the global building process, has also changed over time. Initially starting with craftspeople, control has gradually shifted to architect, engineer, general contractor, and manufacturer. Strikingly, and in contrast to the craftsperson, the current cast of controlling players are removed from the actual hands-on activity of making and building. There has been a progressive change from knowledge about the materials to one about assembly and, eventually, to one concerned with producing, managing, and communicating documentation and information. Evidently, both the materiality of buildings, materials, and assemblies and the social relations between those who create them have always co-existed, and each has historically presented its own kinds of challenges and problems that needed solving. The balance between the two, however, has clearly shifted, suggesting a movement away from forms of knowledge and problem solving invested in ‘materiality’ to knowledge and problem

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solving located in a more abstract realm of social, professional, and managerial relations. It will be important to monitor the ever-changing role of the craftsperson as these larger structural changes in the construction industry continue to evolve, and to question the sustainability of contemporary construction practice. Bibliography A Federal, Provincial and Territorial Collaboration, 2010 (second edition). Standards and Guidelines for the Conservation of Historic Places. Published by Canada’s Historic Places. Ramsey, C.G. and H.R. Sleeper 1998 (1932). Architectural Graphic Standards for Architects, Engineers, Decorators, Builders and Draftsmen. John Wiley and Sons.

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Chapter 13

‘Textile Thinking’: A Flexible, Connective Strategy for Concept Generation and Problem Solving in Interdisciplinary Contexts Rachel Philpott and Faith Kane

Introduction In this chapter, we aim to demonstrate how ‘textile thinking’ can be used as an effective strategy for generating novel concepts, problem solving, and creatively overcoming challenges in interdisciplinary research contexts. Refining the concept of ‘design thinking’ as defined by Nigel Cross (2007), and building on work by David Wang and Ali Ilhan (2009), we argue that different design disciplines use distinct modes of thinking, filtering, and organising information in ways that reflect their cultural values. We explore the particular characteristics of ‘textile thinking’ and propose its use as a tool or approach to collaborative design research that aims to address design for sustainability. By reporting on an interdisciplinary networking project titled Textile Thinking for Sustainable Materials (TTSM), we reflect upon evolving practical methods of employing textile thinking and identify the inherent materiality and material related knowledge that is central to textile thinking as a defining and advantageous characteristic of this approach. Before discussing the notion of textile thinking and its application, we first explore the ‘problem’ under consideration (i.e. design for sustainability) and the context in which it is being considered (i.e. interdisciplinary research practice) alongside the broader notion of design thinking. Part One: Design for Sustainability Present understanding of sustainability is largely based upon a wide acceptance that development should ‘meet our present needs without compromising future generations’ ability to meet their own needs’ (Bruntland, 1987: 15). Perceptions of what this means are continually evolving towards a deeper consideration of ‘development’. The assumption that economic growth, in particular, is maintainable or indeed desirable is under scrutiny. Whilst sustainable production and consumption remain an important part of sustainability agendas, development

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is more broadly perceived as the cultivation of environmental and social conditions that will support human well-being indefinitely (Thorpe, 2007: 7). Within this context, ‘design for sustainability’ can be understood as the intention to design products, the built environment, and services in line with the widely accepted three-pillars framework of sustainable development in which social, economic, and environmental concerns are considered equally in addressing sustainability agendas. A greater focus on well-being, however, has highlighted the need to consider ‘culture’ as a potential fourth pillar (Hawkes, 2001). Understood as the means by which society forms and communicates its values, meaning, and purpose, culture can be seen as fundamental to sustainability as a determinant of patterns of human activity (ibid.). Design has a ripple effect in each of these four spheres, impacting upon natural, human, social, financial, and manufactured spheres; and, in addition, as Alastair Fuad-Luke pointed out, on material and symbolic spheres (2009: 8). As such, design can be seen as being crucial to sustainable change. As mapped out by Paul Micklethwaite and Anne Chick (2011), design strategies reflect an evolving understanding of sustainability. They have evolved from single-issue approaches such as ‘green design’, to the life-cycle thinking of ‘ecodesign’, to consideration of ‘corporate social responsibility’, and onward, towards approaches that consider design as integral to, and a facilitator of, sustainable life-styles and behaviours. Critiques of ‘design for sustainability’ point out that a new paradigm for design, or the ‘re-directing’ of design (Fry, 2009), has not yet been established, but that developments in this field have put into question existing paradigms of design, production, and consumption (Bonsiepe in Madge, 2009: 58). In this expanded view, ‘design thinking’ is perceived as a critical tool with which to consider the multi-faceted challenges of sustainability and to evolve a new design paradigm for this purpose (Micklethwaite and Chick, 2011: 6–7). Here, we consider ‘textile thinking’ as both a distinct strand of design thinking and a strategy for concept generation and problem solving within this context. Many aspects of ‘textile thinking’ revolve around an embodied knowledge of materials, suggesting the ‘material’ component of design, in its broadest sense, as a convenient starting point. We expand upon this idea later in the chapter. Materials, and more broadly materiality, need to be considered in relation to the nature of the product and the need for which it is being designed. As John Thackara pointed out, ‘environmentally friendly materials do not exist; environmentally design approaches do’ (2005: 14). However, materials are a central component in the conceptualisation and realisation of physical products. As such, materials are an important factor in sustainable design strategies, impacting upon lifecycle (i.e. raw materials, manufacture, use, and end of life), cost, quality, appearance, and social implications across all product sectors, and potentially service sectors as well. The selection, development, design and use of materials within various design scenarios therefore requires multiple perspectives, suggesting the need for an interdisciplinary approach. By considering materials within an interdisciplinary and collaborative context, we aim to develop a deep understanding in this field

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of exploration in order to identify and uncover assumptions about perceived problems, and to explore different ways of thinking about them. In doing so, we moved away from an approach of problem solving toward one of problem setting in which different perspectives have the freedom to entwine and overlap, thereby allowing problems to be re-framed and new concepts and models of practice to be identified. Interdisciplinarity Ethan Schoolman et al. (2011) highlighted that notions of interconnectedness between natural and socio-economic systems are fundamental to our present understanding of sustainability. When considering design for sustainability, this interconnectedness is seen clearly. Cultural systems, too, come into focus. This demands consideration of meaning and value, as well as function, in regard to products, services and systems (Engage By Design, 2014). As such, Schoolman et al. (2011) asserted that interdisciplinarity – defined as being based upon the integration of theories, concepts, techniques and data from two or more bodies of knowledge or research practice (Porter and Rafols, 2009) – is crucial to the study of sustainability. In relation to materials, textiles constitute a natural site for interdisciplinarity. Defined as flexible materials consisting of networks of interlacing natural or synthetic fibres, textiles are produced using various processes, including felting, weaving, knitting, crocheting, knotting, or bonding. Their production encompasses the fields of design, art, craft, and technology, indicating that textile practitioners (i.e. those who design and make textiles) possess ‘both a personal and collective tacit understanding of a specific blend of knowledge’ (Igoe, 2010: 3). Until recently this knowledge, or way of thinking (i.e. ‘textile thinking’), has remained largely unarticulated. The unique intelligence of textile thinking and the material culture it informs are often overlooked due to the tacit nature of the knowledge involved. This knowledge is often ‘stored’ in the hands of the practitioner or ‘embodied’ in the resulting textile artefacts. In response to evolving articulation of ‘textile thinking’ and recognition of its tacit nature, textile design research has seen rapid developments in methodology and perspectives over recent years and has moved towards research practices that are interdisciplinary and collaborative. For example, this has included constructing bridges between concepts of beauty and utility, and marrying aesthetics and function (Philpott, 2012a). This interlacing of scientific and poetic approaches can ‘illuminate different perspectives, allowing for investigation of the metaphysical, the emotional and the imaginative alongside the technical’ (ibid.). The validity of the experiential and embodied knowledge gained is largely subjective. From a scientific perspective, this may be perceived as a weakness, but this is not necessarily so (ibid.). As Stefan Collini pointed out, ‘it has become more widely accepted that different forms of intellectual enquiry quite properly furnish us with

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a variety of kinds of knowledge and understanding, no one of which constitutes the model to which all the others should seek to conform’ (1993: xlvi). Conscious conceptualisation and explication of embodied and experiential knowledge can uncover meanings that contain a degree of universality. By noting, analysing, and articulating habitual and idiosyncratic ways of working, the practitioner is able to transcend subjective experience to generate transferrable knowledge (Philpott, 2012a). The pervasiveness of textiles on the body (e.g. clothing), in the body (e.g. medical implants), and around the body (e.g. in vehicles, architecture, interiors and landscapes) makes them a key component of contemporary material culture. Emerging research discourses, such as Elaine Igoe (2010) and Lars Spuybroek (2005), affirm that textile designers have the capacity to originate new materials, forms, and material systems, and to express and enhance the sensory pleasure of existing materials. As such, textile thinking could prove to be influential in considering materials within the framework of design for sustainability. But, what exactly is ‘textile thinking’? Design Thinking Before exploring further, it is necessary to consider current notions of ‘design thinking’. Despite the existence of a significant body of research on the subject, there is no definitive demarcation of what constitutes ‘design thinking’. It is widely accepted, however, that designers work with ill-defined problems. Even if the problem is well-defined, designers tend to restructure the problem within personally-set parameters. As Ӧmer Akin observed, ‘One of the unique aspects of design behaviour is the constant generation of new task goals and redefinition of task constraints’ (in Cross, 2006: 17). This redefining of problem goals and constraints takes place concurrently with solution-generation activities, using a process strategy that involves switching frequently between different types of activity and opportunistically deviating from set plans in order to explore promising and interesting issues and solutions (Cross, 2006). Robert Curedale (2012) set out a practical structure to which design-thinking methods could be applied. His proposed structure focuses on such underlying principles as people, team diversity, collaboration, physicality, change, empathy, tacit knowledge, and balance (2012: 5–6 and 12–32). These foci echo the three key strategic aspects of design thinking identified by Cross: namely, a broad systems approach; framing problems in distinctive and personal ways; and designing from ‘first principles’ (Goldschmidt and Rodgers 2012: 55). ‘Design thinking’ is considered by some as a new way for describing a set of practices that are long-established elements of design disciplines (Bruer et al., 2012: 171). However, there is a broadening perception of the contexts, problems, and challenges to which these practices can be appropriately applied. Design thinking can be understood as ‘embodying a set of principles that can be applied

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by a diverse range of people to a wide range of challenges’ (Micklethwaite and Chick, 2011: 36). The holistic perspective of design thinking, in which unexpected outcomes are opportunistically prioritised to evolve and resolve problems simultaneously, is already seen to be of particular value to the development of innovation and creative change in business and management strategies (Brown, 2009; Martin, 2009; and Mootee, 2013). By going beyond traditional perceptions of the design profession, design thinking implicates a broader remit for design in addressing current societal challenges. Through its capacity to reframe and redefine ill-defined and undefined problems, whilst simultaneously generating creative solutions, design thinking has the potential to unearth new concepts and models of practice in a wide range of disciplines. As such, design (thinking) for sustainability has the potential to make a distinct contribution within the research field of sustainability, which has traditionally focused on problem solving (Jerneck et al. and Wiek et al. in Schoolman et al., 2012). Within this framework, a ‘design outcome’ might not always be a physical, tangible product, but instead could be simply a new way of doing things (Micklethwaite and Chick, 2011: 34). Nevertheless, we perceive two key areas of weakness in current models of ‘design thinking’ that we hope to redress through our proposed model for ‘textile thinking’. The first area of weakness is the problematic tendency to homogenise the diverse practices of the different design disciplines. Secondly, we perceive a lack of recognition of the significance that materiality and making have in shaping the cognitive processes in certain design disciplines. In arguing that, like other professions, the field of design possesses a distinct body of knowledge, much of the literature on design thinking fails to recognise the diversity of practices that exist in different design disciplines (Wang and Ilhan, 2009). Lucy Kimbell observed that ‘attending to the diversity of designers’ practices and the institutions in which they work makes it questionable to generalize about a unified design thinking exhibited across all of them’ (2011: 289). Peter Rowe argued that because problem-solving processes vary from one design discipline to the next, the process of designing and the resultant ways of thinking will be dependent upon the specific nature of the discipline in question (in Kimbell, 2011: 291). This suggests that an analysis of the specific discipline in question must precede an understanding of its design processes. Wang and Ilhan (2009) proposed that design is distinct from other professions in a sociological rather than an epistemological sense. They suggested that design is differentiated from other activities not through possession of a domain-specific body of knowledge, but rather by the ways that designers within different design disciplines variously manage, organise, and synthesise knowledge from a number of domains relevant to their field. This perspective acknowledges disciplinary difference while recognising the existence of common elements within design practice. It therefore provides a foundation for our approach. Significant research carried out on design thinking by scholars such as Cross (2007), Andrew Harrison (1978), and Curedale (2012) has highlighted a bias towards architectural, product, and industrial design practices. The methods,

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therefore, are dominated by cognitive and discursive activities that prioritise the identification and use of explicit forms of knowledge. Although several documented methods employ a more experiential and narrative approach (including ‘cultural immersion’, ‘storytelling’, and ‘day in a life of’ approaches), few methods are based on physical activities, such as making, that prioritise the identification and use of implicit/tacit and embodied forms of knowledge. Kimbell notes that ‘accounts of design thinking often rest on a dualism that makes a distinction between “thinking” and “doing”, and between designers and the worlds they do design in, rather than acknowledging the situated, embodied work of design thinking in practice’ (2011: 289). Emphasis of the term ‘design thinking’ has perhaps foregrounded the intangible, conceptual element of the design process. The embodied knowledge of the designer has been largely overlooked, and thus the considerable research into how knowledge is acquired through embodied processes of making has been disregarded. In the majority of literature that describes the methods involved in ‘design thinking’ (e.g. Goldschmidt and Rodger, 2012: 55–72), consideration of the materials and the making processes move little beyond traditional notions of prototyping. The emerging articulations of ‘textile thinking’ make a distinctive contribution by addressing this lack by considering the epistemological importance of the designer’s continual interactions with materials and processes. The addition of materiality and making to the model of ‘textile thinking’ might suggest alternative ways to re-frame and re-articulate problems, and thereby generate potentially novel solutions. Part Two: Textile Thinking Textiles practice encompasses elements from the fields of design, art, craft, and technology, providing a natural fulcrum for creative and scientific disciplines and a unique platform for interdisciplinary dialogue and innovation. Drawing on the theories of Wang and Ilhan (2009) and building on work first developed as a doctoral thesis (Philpott, unpublished), we will consider the particular blends of knowledge domains that constitute ‘textile’ practice and the ways that these combine to create a peculiarly ‘textile’ way of thinking. Knowledge Domains Domains of knowledge such as mathematics, physics, and chemistry are commonly employed at an instinctual level in textiles practice, and particularly in practical production. The mathematical foundations of textiles are widely recognised. Jane Graves (2003) considered pattern to be central to textiles, as evidenced in woven and knotted structure as well as in surface application. These patterns rely on the deft application of a number of mathematical principles including proportion,

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Figure 13.1 Hyperbolic barrier reef by Margaret and Christine Wertheim, South Bank Centre, London, 2008. Photo by Rachel Philpott. symmetry, and tessellation. Weaving is binary in nature: the punch-card operation of the Jacquard loom is a prime example of binary processing, and is a precursor of modern-day computing. Knitted and crocheted structures can physically model more complex, abstract mathematical configurations (e.g. the hyperbolic paraboloid, see Figure 13.1), and it is suggested that such physical manifestation assists in cultivating understanding of abstract mathematical principles (Kraft, 2004). Generally speaking, however, the textile practitioner does not explicitly calculate these algorithmic, geometric, and binary sequences. As Ian Stewart (2010) noted, numerous mathematically-based activities can be undertaken without the actor having a clear understanding of the mathematical coding that underpins them. Similarly, while chemistry underpins textile practice in that it governs the properties of the fibres that are used to create the substrate, as well as the behaviour of dyes and treatments used for surface application, it is common for textile designers to comprehend only the effects that particular chemical compositions will achieve rather than the chemical reactions at work at a molecular level. This lack of engagement with the underlying scientific ‘theory’ does not compromise proficient ‘practical’ applications of mathematics, chemistry, physics, and aesthetics; in fact, it cultivates an open, experimental approach to the real-world application of such fields of knowledge. As Jay Kappraff asserted, ‘In order to gain life, ideas must travel from their roots in abstraction to the sights, sounds, smells

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and textures of the world of experience. Here is where designers enter the picture as co-equals’ (2001: 453). In the realm of textiles, knowledge domains are applied practically, not theoretically. Thinking through Touch: Making and Embodied Knowledge As noted earlier, much literature on design thinking has chosen to disregard the significance that physically manipulating materials has on the formation of concepts. Historically, information gained through touch has been conceived as being inferior to that obtained through sight and sound. According to Clarence Classen, ‘In the academic world touch has often passed under the radar. Like the air that we breathe, it has been taken for granted as a fundamental fact of life, a medium for the production of meaningful acts, rather than a meaningful act in itself’ (2005: 2). Whereas sight and sound can be perceived at a distance from the source of the stimuli, touch is unmediated by light or sound waves, necessitating direct contact between the body touching and the touched (Tallis, 2003: 30). This unavoidable sensuality of touch is often regarded as primitive, unsophisticated, and irrational (Howes, 2004: 6). For philosophers like Aristotle, the immaterial, disembodied nature of knowledge gained through sight elevated vision above all other ways of knowing (Pallasmaa, 2007: 15). As a result of the damaging disjuncture between the hand and rational thought concocted by philosophers, ‘both understanding and expression are impaired’ (Sennett, 2009: 20). Yet Richard Sennett also noted, ‘The craftsman, engaged in a continual dialogue with materials does not suffer this divide’ (ibid.: 125). Raymond Tallis also substantiated this claim, citing a neurological study that demonstrated enlarged cortical representation for the fingers of subjects who routinely use their hands for skilled tasks (2003: 30). Although the sense of touch acquires knowledge in a serial fashion and at a slower pace than is possible through the use of vision, the information that can be processed by touch is considerable. Tallis observed, ‘Nothing could be wider of the mark than the image of the hand as a “dim groper” when it is deprived of visual support. It has exquisite knowledge of the size, shape, surface, texture, density, pliability, etcetera, of the object it manipulates’ (2003: 28). The designer’s hand explores the surfaces that it comes into contact with to comprehend and to control them. In the making process, the hand becomes intellectual, enabling the simultaneous creation and analysis of work (Philpott, 2012b). By continually manipulating the ‘stuff’ of textiles, and by persistently reiterating the procedures involved in making, the perceptual senses and abstract reasoning of the textile practitioner work together to construct a comprehensive embodied understanding of both materials and process. Sennett observed, ‘Every good craftsman conducts a dialogue between concrete practices and thinking; his dialogue evolves into sustaining habits, and these habits establish a rhythm between problem solving and problem finding’ (2009: 9).

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Although textiles is not the only discipline where making and embodied knowledge play a key role, the particular material properties of textiles are central to our suggestion that textile practitioners have a unique way of thinking. Textile Materiality and Microstructures A textile practitioner’s bond with the stuff of textiles is more profound than their merely having an understanding of its physical behaviours. Our intimate and ubiquitous daily bodily contact with textiles fosters a particularly close relationship between textile designers and the materiality of their discipline. Judith Attfield wrote, ‘Because clothes make direct contact with the body, and domestic furnishings define the personal spaces inhabited by the body, the material which forms a large part of the stuff from which they are made – cloth – is proposed as one of the most intimate of thing-types that materialises the connection between the body and the outer world’ (2000: 124). This gives the textile practitioner an immersive, intimate, and personal apprehension of textiles in addition to their knowledge gained through professional interaction with these materials. Our experience of textiles is sensory, lived as much as it is conceptualised: thus the significance of the textile artefact reaches beyond its physicality, also incorporating sensation, memory, and symbol into a single entity. To borrow from Henry Bergson (2005: 228–30), textiles segue from matter to feeling to concept, and the inverse. This embodied apprehension of textiles perhaps explains the intuitive practical application of theoretical domains of knowledge in the textile design process, as discussed above. Sensitivity to the materiality and the microstructure of textiles is fundamental to textile design. The inherent properties of textile fibres and their processes of manufacture are inextricably interwoven. In order to create textile substrates, yarns and fibres must be flexible enough to bend and twist around each other, and yet stable enough to maintain their individual form. The interconnected fibrous systems that make a textile can be made up of elements that are individually weak, but that become strong when incorporated into a single cohesive structure. As Eric Laithwaite noted, ‘The strength lies in the twist, not in the material’ (1994: 142). Variations in the patterns of construction produce different behaviours. Nonwoven fabrics bond un-spun filaments together, entangling the fibres mechanically, thermally, or chemically. This generally produces fabrics that are inelastic and less strong than woven or knitted substrates that twist or knot long, continuous threads to create the surface. In woven substrates, the repeated linear placement of warp and weft creates an interrelated system of undulating threads that becomes planar, juxtaposing rigid and non-rigid qualities. Claire Pajaczkowska noted that woven cloth is ‘as systematic as graph paper, and yet it is soft, curved and can drape itself into the three-dimensional fold’ (2005: 233). Using contrasting structure, but to similar effect, the knitted substrate systematically and symmetrically loops a

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single linear yarn to create a planar surface; and its meandering thread imparts an even greater degree of elasticity than the straight structure of a weave. Silk-screen printed textiles rely on a pliable mesh to ensure the even deposition of ink onto the stretched cloth beneath. This involves a transfer of the dyestuff from one textile surface to another. Sensitivity to these constantly changing tensions is essential for the successful production of textile artefacts. However, the ductile materials of textiles have a propensity to ‘creep’, resulting in uncertainty of the outcome, or, in the case of silk-screened fabrics, an imperfect alignment. This constant motion of the material creates a ‘nomadic relationship of points’ (Eisenman, 2004: 41), which perhaps contributes to an explanation of a particularly flexible ‘textile’ way of thinking that reflects the malleable, changeable materiality of textiles, where unintended or unforeseen consequences are almost certain. ‘Intelligent’ Materials: Dynamic Textile Systems However textiles are constructed, they achieve their form through the connection of multiple distinct parts to create a continuous whole that merges surface and structure. The separate fibres of non-woven textiles, the threads of weave, or the knots of knitted structures all join to create dynamic, interconnected systems that display emergent behaviour. These sometimes surprising behaviours are governed by the relationships and tensions between all the elements of the system rather than on any individual part. Materiality, structure, and scale all impact on these behaviours, and they cannot be predicted by modelling at alternative scales or in different materials. This ‘intelligent’, interconnected character of textile material systems is integral to the ways that form evolves in textile practice. It is also relevant to other disciplines. German architect and structural engineer Frei Otto has exploited the emergent behaviour of textiles as a dynamic organisational strategy in his design processes for solving city-planning problems. Firstly, he connected a circle of pins with taut threads that link every point to every other point in a series of straight lines. He then slackened the threads, creating a loose, chaotic structure. Finally, when he dipped the model in liquid soap, the yarns reorganised themselves into an optimised structure that delineated the most efficient way to move between all of the pins (Spuybroek, 2005: 7–9). The inherent properties of textile surfaces can also be exploited in similar ways. In her ‘Self Assembly’ collection (2008), textile practitioner and researcher Philippa Brock used high-twist yarns that contract once wetted to create self-folding pleated surfaces. Surface adjustments created by printing, bonding, and lamination also allow the substrate to function simultaneously as structure and self-organising system (see Figure 13.2). This material ‘intelligence’ allows for the creation of synergetic designs founded on cooperation between all elements of the system. Lars Spuybroek (2006) has abstracted these physical behaviours of textiles to develop a theory of ‘textile thinking’ that reflects the connectivity, inclusiveness,

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Figure 13.2 Self-folding printed and foiled polyester Lycra by Rachel Philpott. Photo by Rachel Philpott. and flexibility of physical textile systems. He describes ‘textile thinking’ as a continuously-linked thought process that is useful for creating the conceptual cohesion between disparate elements, processes, and behaviours. Spuybroek’s theory corresponds with the ideas of Gilles Deleuze (2006), Pannina Barnett (1999), Yve Lomax (2000), and Michel Serres (1991), all of whom explore how the ductile, emergent properties of textiles suggest conceptual strategies that employ connectivity and continuity to develop novel and innovative ideas. Folding, ‘Soft’ Logics, and the Matrix The concept of ‘sack thinking’ has been explored by Serres (1991), Barnett (1999), and Lomax (2000) as a ‘textile’ approach that is pertinent to conceptual development. Sack thinking is a system of thought that relies on the flexibility and folding of textiles. Serres has noted that due to its suppleness, a large sack can be folded and contained in a smaller sack, whereas this is not true of rigid boxes (1991: 236). He likens ‘box-thought’ to hard, rigorous, and rational thinking. By contrast, he proposes that ‘sack thinking’ is a promising, malleable alternative that can encompass many concepts and approaches within a larger matrix. Igoe, however, has identified a limitation to this comparison: ‘In soft logics such as sack-thinking, what is woven suddenly becomes a series of manageable bags – not the infinite soft matrix’ (unpublished: 97). The finished, constructed nature of

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the metaphorical sack is rather restrictive: a textile product with clearly defined parameters rather than a limitless, undifferentiated substrate. Deleuze’s theories of folding are more expansive, thereby better emulating the pliability of unconstructed cloth, and its ability to twist, bend, and fold over, onto, and into itself (2006). Deleuze posited a mode of thinking in which ideas can fold in on themselves or be folded together with those of another, thereby juxtaposing previously unrelated ideas and generating new meaning as a result of these unanticipated associations. Such conceptual folding is a search for the re-contextualisation of meaning rather than for unequivocal truth. Building on Deleuze’s theory of pliable thinking, Barnett asked, What if the poetics of cloth were composed of “soft logics”, modes of thought that twist and turn and stretch and fold? And in this movement new encounters were made, beyond the constraints of binaries? The binary offers two possibilities, “either/or”; “soft logics” offer multiple possibilities. They are the realm of the “and/or” where anything can happen. Binaries exclude: “soft logics” are to think without excluding (1999: 26).

Although ‘softness’ in thought is often taken to represent lack of logic and intellectual rigour at best, and stupidity at worst, ‘soft logics’ offer an alternative reading of meaning. Barnett reasoned, ‘… if “soft” suggests an elastic surface, a tensile quality that yields to pressure, this is not a weakness; for “an object that gives in is actually stronger than one that resists, because it also permits the opportunity to be oneself in a new way” …’ (1999: 26). This suggests that ‘textile thinking’ provides us with a valuable opportunity to generate new knowledge in interdisciplinary contexts. Bracha Ettinger’s matrixial theory represents a similarly inclusive (as opposed to oppositional or binary) mode of thinking. The matrix (a connected, grid-like construction) calls to mind nets, meshes, woven, and other textile structures. Elaine Igoe (unpublished) and Catherine Dormer (unpublished) have powerfully linked Ettinger’s writings on the matrix and associated concepts to particularly textile contexts. Ettinger’s matrixial theory evolved from the etymological root of the word ‘matrix’, which is ‘the maternal womb’. She wrote, ‘I took the intrauterine meeting as a model for human situations and processes in which non-I is not an intruder, but a partner in difference. The Matrix reflects multiple and/or partial joint strata of subjectivity whose elements recognize each other without knowing each other’ (in Igoe, unpublished: 37). ‘Matrixial metramorphosis’, as described by Ettinger, is a process of communication, exchange and transformation that occurs between several entities, extending beyond the confines of an individual: ‘Through this process the limits, borderlines, and thresholds conceived are continually transgressed or dissolved, thus allowing the creation of new ones’ (Ettinger cited in Pollock, 2009: 3). Unlike metamorphosis, matrixial metramorphosis is a generative process of expansion and development that retains and renegotiates the essential characteristics of all the diverse elements rather than a complete

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transformation that eliminates all traces of what has come before (Shread, 2007: 224). This conceptual framework promotes recognition, acceptance, and communication between non-similar partners to evolve new ways of being, and thereby appears to support interdisciplinary approaches to the development of new ideas and processes. Our model of ‘textile thinking’ builds upon philosophical thinking that is founded on textile behaviours and metaphors. When employed as a conceptual approach in interdisciplinary projects, we anticipate that participants will be able to reconceptualise the tensions and differences that exist between their disciplinary approaches as gradated divergences rather than absolute differences. In doing so, we also anticipate that the members of an interdisciplinary team will discover ways to encompass unfamiliar approaches and knowledge domains into their work, and, as a result, collectively generate new concepts and products. Part Three: Application of Textile Thinking In order to explore the ways in which textile thinking – as a distinctive strand of design thinking – might inform design for sustainability, the Textile Thinking for Sustainable Materials (TTSM) project was conceived. The project proposed textiles (including textile materials, processes, and modes of conceptualisation) as a site for interdisciplinary innovation, particularly in relation to materials. The project aims were to inform the conceptualisation of new materials; suggest alternative uses of materials technologies; propose novel applications of existing materials within re-framed design scenarios; capture and present emerging dialogues and concepts to create platforms for new research pathways; and to assess the application of ‘textile thinking’ within sustainable materials design as a means of advancing knowledge within this field. Funded jointly by Loughborough University and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council UK (EPSRC), TTSM has brought together textile designers, textile engineers, materials scientists, product designers, chemists, and electrical engineers to establish a number of creative dialogues via an interactive networking event. It was hoped that an interdisciplinary approach to developing new, innovative materials would surpass what could be achieved by either artistic or scientific approaches alone. It was also expected that capturing and presenting the emerging dialogues and concepts would create platforms for new research pathways that will ultimately lead to further interdisciplinary collaborative research projects. By tapping into the expertise of the individual participants, the event used what was known about textiles to consider the possibilities of new materials. Various perspectives were explored, including ones focused on process (which drew on traditional textile production methods, including weaving, knitting, printing, and embroidery), aesthetics (which drew on decorative traditions), and function (which drew on perceptions of use). Alongside these findings, participant expertise in fibres and composites, recycled materials, biodegradable materials,

World Café Discussion • World Café method, based on design principles, is a simple but flexible format for hosting group discussions (theworldcafe.org) • Used in TTSM to further initiate interdisciplinary discussion and cross fertilisation of ideas. • Participants moved between four tables, each based around one of the materials categories, to discuss ideas in ever changing groups. Each table had a host/facilitator and participants were encouraged to document key points of discussion, thoughts, notes and sketches on paper table clothes (Figure 1) • This activity took place on the first afternoon of the event and took place over a two-hour period.

Materials Presentations • Used in TTSM to introduce the four identified categories of materials for sustainable design, specialists gave presentations outlining the key thinking and principles, thinking and developments in each category. • Presentations were 30 minutes with time for questions and took place on the first day of the event.

Pecha Kucha • PechaKuch is a simple presentation format, usually based on 20 slides, each shown/discussed for 20 seconds, in order to communicate and share ideas in a concise and fast passed manner, allowing for multiple speakers (pechakucha.org) • Used in TTSM to enable delegates to gain an overview of the expertise and knowledge represented within the group • Presentations were limited to 10 slides and 5 minutes per person and were delivered in quick succession in the first morning of the networking event.

Method Overview

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Identifying disparate ideas, approaches and expertise to fold together to form interconnections that move towards problem evolution and cohesive solutions Interdisciplinary participation encourages conceptual ‘creep’ and the renegotiation of disciplinary boundaries. Working with constantly changing tensions between different knowledge bases reflects the physical materiality of textiles Embracing a ‘nomadic relationship’ between different knowledge bases and ideas Embracing uncertainty of outcome Drawing from design thinking methods more broadly Opportunity for problem evolution and framing through pattern finding

Traversing knowledge domains Providing some underpinning to further extend practical application of theoretical materials knowledge Encouraging identification of patterns and connections between key themes through adjacent placement of information

Traversing knowledge domains Acknowledging the ‘micro’ aspects of knowledge/expertise within the network A process of recognition of ‘partners-in-difference’. Identifying disparate ideas, approaches and expertise to fold together to form interconnections that move towards problem evolution and cohesive solutions Opportunity for embodied knowledge to be acquired through tactile exploration, as some participants showed physical material samples

Textile Thinking

Figure 13.3 Methods used within the TTSM networking event.

Dot Voting • Using the tablecloths from the world café activity participants reflected upon their content and added coloured dot stickers against content that they would like to investigate further through collaborative research projects. • This activity took place at the end of the event enabling any additional thoughts, ideas and evaluations to be added to the table cloths alongside the ‘dot’ voting activity.

Embedded Electronics Workshop • Participants worked in small groups to each make soft electronic circuits. • Used in TTSM to create a practical means of initiating discussion through hands on interaction with materials and processes. It was hoped that using both textiles and electronics in a unified way would enable all participants to engage, each with relevant contribution, providing a tangible meeting ground and focusing the interaction toward thinking through making. • Organised and led by Rose Sinclair from Goldsmiths University and took place on the afternoon of day two.

Workshop and Lab Tour • In order to increase the potential for the development of ideas that moved across disciplines participants were given a tour around a number of departments at Loughborough University and given an overview of certain key pieces of equipment that could be used to practically explore some of the emerging ideas. • This part of the event took place on the morning of day two.

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Drawing on design thinking methods to enable evaluation of ideas Evaluation of the results of this process allowed for problem framing activity to take place through pattern recognition and formation

Opportunity for thinking through making Affirming the role of an embodied approach in promoting dialogue. Traversing knowledge domains Deconstructing hierarchies of intellectual understanding between different knowledge domains. Creating a platform to develop a tangible, tactile process for problem solving and finding

Encouraging consideration of diverse practical making processes Encouraging a re-conceptualisation of the processes viewed Indicating the potential and opportunities for an embodied approach to exploration of emerging concepts

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and the material components of energy harvesting was brought together to form a framework and key starting points for future explorations of materials for sustainable design (Bhamra and Lofthouse, 2007: 41–3). Methods The networking event brought together 22 academics and practitioners from the UK, Ireland, and Denmark. The event was managed by the chapter authors, and supported by a project steering group that included Vicky Haines (Design School) and Houzheng Wu (Department of Materials), all of Loughborough University. The organising team met before the event to agree core themes and approaches, and met again afterwards to evaluate the possible research directions and strategies that emerged from the event (Kane and Philpott, 2014). The methods used during the event to explore how textile thinking might inform developments within the identified categories of materials for sustainable design are documented in Figure 13.3. The figure also maps aspects of textile thinking against these methods as a way to begin articulating and applying some of the theoretical ideas that were raised during the event.

Figure 13.4 TTSM event participants integrating textile processes and materials with electronic circuitry in a practical workshop session. Photo by Rachel Philpott.

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Part Four: Outcomes and Reflections Establishing an interdisciplinary context framed by ‘textile thinking’ resulted in ‘new’ concepts and the re-framing of strategies for developing materials for sustainable design. In addition, mapping the methods used in the TTSM event against theoretical ideas that emerged enabled us to identify distinct ways in which textile thinking was implicitly and explicitly used as a strategy for concept generation. This prompted further thinking about how this approach could be used to facilitate interdisciplinary research practices in the future. Several potential research topics emerged from each thematic starting point posed during the TTSM event. Pivotal to developing ideas was the ability of the participating textile designers to work, both practically and theoretically, with the natural transitions and tensions of textiles in different states (as noted in our earlier discussion of textile materiality and microstructures). In addition, connections between participants were made around areas of shared practice and knowledge such as colour and dyeing, as well as printing and construction processes. Textile Thinking Methods As documented in Figure 13.3, the methods used in the TTSM event drew on ‘design thinking’ methods such as problem finding alongside solution generation, and they included frequent switching of activity type in order to spark different modes of thinking about the complex topics being addressed. Notably, the event also investigated approaches that could evolve into ‘textile thinking’ methods. As previously discussed, the physical materiality of textiles and the ‘textile’ philosophies that have arisen from it together provided a robust conceptual foundation for experimentally juxtaposing practical expertise and abstract knowledge from diverse domains, and, in doing so, generating original, flexible connections and concepts. But, it was the implementation of methods that embraced materiality and making that produced the most dramatic and most promising results. When compared to other methods used during the event, we found that practical activity incorporating skill sets from two disciplines was particularly effective in opening up dialogue, breaking down barriers, and changing perceptions of different knowledge bases and expertise. A ‘smart’ textiles workshop brought together practical skills from both textiles (i.e. stitching, fabric painting, fabric manipulation) and electronics (i.e. making functional electronic circuits). Participants from both backgrounds were able to share their specialist knowledge whilst simultaneously developing new skills from an unfamiliar discipline. This shared activity was very successful in terms of making interdisciplinary connections and ice-breaking. It took participants beyond their habitual and cultural frameworks, enabling them to investigate styles of practice and thinking from another discipline, potentially offering new insight on routine practice.

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There is need for further exploration into the possible applications of ‘textile thinking’ in different design and interdisciplinary-research contexts. In particular, further development of means of employing textile processes and materials as tangible tools with which to facilitate interdisciplinary dialogue for developing new concepts through problem finding, reframing existing problems, and problem solving could prove to be fruitful. We hope that this chapter provides the framework for beginning that exploration into how ‘textile thinking’ can further evolve as a unique strand of design thinking, and make a significant contribution toward flexible and connective ways of problem solving. Acknowledgements We thank all those who gave their time and expertise to help organise and take part in the TTSM networking event, and those who have continued to work with us on the exploratory interdisciplinary research projects that have arisen from the event. Bibliography Attfield, J. 2000. Wild Things: the material culture of everyday life. Oxford: Berg Publishers. Barnett, P. 1999. ‘Folds, Fragments and Surfaces: towards a poetic cloth’, in P. Barnett (ed.) Textures of Memory: the poetics of cloth. Nottingham: Angel Row Gallery, pp. 25–34. Bergson, H. (1908) 2005. Matter and Memory. New York: Zone Books. Bhamra, T. and V. Lofthouse 2007. Design for Sustainability: a practical approach. Aldershot: Gower Publishing. Brock, P. (exhibition). Nobel Textiles: Marrying Scientific Discovery to Design. Exhibition at the ICA and St James’ Park, London, September 14–21, 2008. Brown, T. 2009. Change by Design: how design thinking transforms organizations and inspires innovation. New York: HarperBusiness. Bruer, O., A. Caglio, F. Gottlieb, S. Groskovs,, A. Hiltunen, M. Navarro Sanint, and B. Schewe 2012. ‘The Facets of Design Thinking’, in P. Rodgers (ed.) Articulating Design Thinking. Faringdon: Libri Publishing, pp. 171–88. Bruntland, G.H. 1987. World Commission on Environment and Development. Our common future (Vol. 383). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Classen, C. 2005. ‘Fingerprints: writing about touch’, in C. Classen (ed.) The Book of Touch. Oxford: Berg Publishers, pp. 1–9. Collini, S. 1993. ‘Introduction’, in C.P Snow, The Two Cultures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. vii–lxxiii. Cross, N. 2006. Designerly Ways of Knowing. London: Springer-Verlag Ltd. Curedale, R. 2012. Design Methods 1: 200 Ways to Apply Design Thinking. Topanga, CA: Design Community College Inc.

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Deleuze, G. 2006. The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque. London: Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd. Dormer, C. (unpublished PhD dissertation). Material Matrices: haptic, scopic and textile. PhD dissertation 2012, Norwich University College of Arts and the University of the Arts, London. Eisenman, P. 2004. ‘Folding in Time: The Singularity of Rebstock’, in G. Lynn (ed.) Folding in Architecture, Architectural Design, Chichester: Wiley-Academy, pp. 38–4. Engage By Design (website). http://engagebydesign.org/values/ (accessed 15th July 2014). Fry, T. 2009. Design Futuring: sustainability ethics and new practice. Oxford: Berg Publishers. Fuad-Luke, A. 2002. Eco Design: a source book. San Francisco: Chronicle Books. Goldschmidt, G. and P. Rodgers 2012. ‘The Design Thinking Approaches of Three Different Groups of Designers Based on Self-Reports’, in P. Rodgers (ed.) Articulating Design Thinking. Faringdon: Libri Publishing, pp. 55–72. Graves, J. 2003. ‘Symbol, Pattern and the Unconscious: the search for meaning’, in M. Schoeser and C. Boydell (eds) Disentangling Textiles. London: Middlesex University Press, pp. 45–55. Hawkes, J. 2001. The Fourth Pillar of Sustainability: culture’s essential role in public planning. Champaign, IL: Common Ground Publishing. Harrison, A. 1978. Making and Thinking: a study of intelligent activities. Hassocks: The Harvester Press. Howes, D. 2004. ‘Introduction’, in D. Howes (ed.) Empire of the Senses: the sensual cultural reader. Oxford: Berg Publishers. Igoe, E. 2010. ‘The Tacit Turn’, in DUCK Journal for Research in Textiles and Textile Design 1, http://www.lboro.ac.uk/microsites/sota/duck/1.%20The%20 Tacit-Turn%20-%20Elaine%20Igoe.pdf (accessed September 2014). Igoe, E. (unpublished PhD dissertation). In Textasis: Matrixial Narratives of Textile Design. PhD dissertation, 2013, Royal College of Art, London. Kane, F. and R. Philpott 2014. ‘Textile Thinking for Sustainable Materials’, in Making Futures, Proceedings of the Making Futures Conference 2013. Plymouth: Plymouth College of Art, Volume 3, http://www.plymouthart.ac.uk/ documents/Kane__Faith__Philpott_Rachel.pdf. Kappraff, J. 2001. Connections: the geometric bridge between art and science, 2nd edition. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co Pte Ltd. Kimbell, L. 2011. ‘Rethinking Design Thinking: Part 1’, in Design and Culture, 3(3): 285–306. Kraft, K. 2004. ‘Textile Patterns and Their Epistemological Functions’, in Textile: the Journal of Cloth and Culture, 2(3):274–89. Laithwaite, E. 1994. An Inventor in the Garden of Eden. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lomax, Y. 2000. Writing the Image. London: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd.

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Martin, R.L. 2009. Design of Business: why design thinking is the next competitive advantage. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Micklethwaite, P. and A. Chick 2011. Design for Sustainable Change: how design and designers can drive the sustainability agenda. Worthing: AVA Publishing SA. Mootee, I. 2013. Design Thinking for Strategic Innovation: what they can’t teach you at business or design school. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Pajaczkowska, C. 2005. ‘On Stuff and Nonsense: the complexity of cloth’, in Textile: the Journal of Cloth and Culture, 3(3):220–49. Pallasmaa, J. 2007. The Eyes of the Skin. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Pecha Kucha (website). http://www.pechakucha.org/faq (accessed 5th July 2014). Philpott, R. (unpublished PhD dissertation). Structural Textiles: Adaptable Form and Surface in Three Dimensions. PhD dissertation, 2011, Royal College of Art, London. Philpott, R. 2012a. ‘Entwined approaches: integrating design, art and science in design research-by-practice’, in DRS – Re:Search: uncertainty, contradiction and value, Chulalongkorn University Bangkok, 3rd July. Bangkok: Department of Industrial Design, Faculty of Architecture, Chulalongkorn University, pp. 1496–511. Philpott, R. 2012b. ‘Crafting Innovation: The intersection of craft and technology in the production of contemporary textiles’, in Craft Research 3:53–74. Pollock, G. 2009. ‘Mother trouble: the maternal-feminine in phallic and feminist theory in relation to Bracha Ettinger’s elaboration of matrixial ethics/aesthetics’, in Studies in the Maternal 1(1), http://www.mamsie.bbk.ac.uk/back_issues/ issue_one/griselda_pollock_abstract.html (accessed 1st August 2014). Porter A.L. and I. Rafols 2009. ‘Is Science Becoming More Interdisciplinary? Measuring and mapping six research fields over time’, in Scientometrics, 81 (3):719–45. Schoolman E.D, J.S. Guest, K.F. Bush and A.R. Bell 2011. ‘How Interdisciplinary is Sustainability Research? Analysing the structure of an emerging scientific field’, in Sustainability Science, 7(1):67–80. Sennett, R. 2009. The Craftsman. London: Penguin Books. Serres, M. (translated by F. McCarien) 1991. Rome: the book of foundations. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Shread, C. 2007. ‘Metamorphosis or Metramorphosis? Towards a feminist ethics of difference in translation’, in TTR: traduction, terminologie, rédaction, 20(2): 213–42. Spuybroek, L. 2005. ‘The Structure of Vagueness’, in Textile: the Journal of Cloth and Culture 3(1):6–19. Spuybroek, L. (unpublished public lecture). ‘Complexity without Contradiction’, at Goldsmiths, University of London, Ian Cuilland Lecture Theatre, November 11, 2006. Stewart, I. 2010. ‘Behind the Scenes: the hidden mathematics that rule our world’, in B. Bryson (ed.) Seeing Further: the story of science and the Royal Society:

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350 years of the Royal Society and scientific endeavour. London: Harper Press, pp. 341–59. Tallis, R. 2003. The Hand: A philosophical inquiry into the human being. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press Ltd. Textile Research Group TRG (website). http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/sota/ research/groups/Textiles/index.html (accessed August 2014). Textile Thinking for Sustainable Materials (website). http://ttsm.lboro.ac.uk/ (accessed August 2014). Thackara, J. 2005. In the Bubble: designing in a complex world. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Thorpe, A. 2007. The Designers Atlas of Sustainability. Washington, DC: Island Press. Wang, D. and A.O. Ilhan 2009. ‘Holding Creativity Together: a sociological theory of the design professions’, in Design Issues 25(1):5–21.

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Afterword Malcolm Ferris

It is a pleasure to accept Professor Marchand’s invitation to close this volume with an afterword, not least because, as he explains, the genesis of Craftwork as Problem Solving was connected with the Making Futures project at Plymouth College of Art where I teach. Now in its fourth edition (September 2015), Making Futures is a biennial international conference that seeks to reappraise craft and the renewed sense of possibility surrounding it. Moving between the individual and the social, the personal and the collective, it explores what it means to make: personally, artistically, economically, and politically. In doing so, Making Futures implicates craft in wider ecological, social, and cultural agendas; and it develops encounters with philosophical thought, sociology and anthropology, technology, economic and innovation theory, with students of consumer trends and behaviours, and with craft education. At the centre of this multifaceted agenda is a symmetrical figure of craft as a type of ‘thinking-making/making-thinking’ which Professor Marchand’s 2013 workshop on Craftwork as Problem Solving squarely addressed. The outcome of that workshop is, in many respects, this timely and important volume. The theme Craftwork as Problem Solving goes to the very heart of the craft enterprise, but there are many ways in which we might choose to interpret it, as the breadth and depth of the contributions to this volume make clear. What I offer is a series of brief overlapping reflections on problem solving in relation to craft based on my experience as the curator of Making Futures and on working in the UK art, craft, and design higher education system. More a short riff around the theme than systematic examination, I explore the ‘challenge’ of craft: in relation to self and others, to convention, to modern education, and to the making encounter itself. Identity in modern society is a notoriously problematic issue, formed as much through regimes of consumption and leisure as through income generating labour. Work of course remains, for most, a necessity, but also something of an abstraction – their efforts realised as components of value-producing chains that are often spatially and temporally coded according to global imperatives. In this context the decision to craft becomes, fundamentally, an ideological one, of trying to be more than mere labour or mere commodity: a mode of sense making and identity construction that translates what we do in the world into a reflective beingin (and for) the world. This posture is clearly evident in many facets of Westernbased craft production, from the realm of gallery-based studio craft, to design-tomake artisanal micro-production, to the DIY ethic behind much craft activism (or

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‘craftivism’). These diverse craftspeople partake of this outlook because, at its best, craft fosters autonomy and self-esteem through personally transformative engagements with media and materials. Agency is articulated in the deployment of (often hard-won) making skills, the feedback system between action and effect typically tight and emphatic, with the maker essentially shaping the way she is known to herself and others in an effort to address (we could say ‘problem solve’) the issue of the contemporary self in a globalised society. There is, of course, a significant history here that craft inescapably rubs against: one that can be traced back to the late-nineteenth-century nostalgia for a preindustrial craft past, and (especially) to Morris’s ideal of a more equitable social contract. But although many craft métiers retain strong connections to tradition, it would be a mistake to view contemporary craft as necessarily some melancholic remainder of the past. Since the 1970s there has been an equally strong ‘designermaker’ impulse towards a future-facing set of craft possibilities, which nonetheless still abjure the totalising formations of industrial commodity capitalism. Indeed, in terms of ‘making futures’, one of the most interesting aspects of the current situation is the potentially powerful conjunction arising in the search for alternative modus-operandi capable of supporting more autonomous and locallyrooted ways of producing and consuming. These include sharing and circular economies, alternative currencies, experiments in micro-energy production, the ‘slow’ and voluntary material simplicity movements, and, not least, the craft and maker movements. Together they point towards the appearance of new types of making and doing that are technologically enabled, socially engaged, small-scale, and locally sensitive. One of the difficulties facing craft education is how best to secure the production and transmission of these relatively new forms of craft knowledge as we move towards this uncertain future. Paralleling the disappearance of industrial apprenticeship systems in the post-war period, professional craft education in the UK became organised almost exclusively around Schools and Faculties of Art and Design in ways that differ significantly from the repetitive and incremental guild and traineeship models of the past. However, in the wake of the late 1980s ‘neoliberal’ shift from industrial to financial capital, the UK has seen a dramatic reduction in the provision of craft education at all levels, from school to higher education. (I am pleased to report that my own institution has decisively rejected this trend, having recently invested more than £8 million in new glass, metal, and ceramics workshops and studios.) The Government and sector response has been to try to revive apprenticeship models, alongside Continuing Professional Development in Higher Education, and other initiatives, such as ‘maker-space’ and Fab Lab academy schemes. As yet, it is uncertain whether these efforts will make significant inroads into what has essentially been a long turn away from the cultures of making in the West. Certainly, the fact that the contemporary craftsperson is likely to work not so much in a large-sized firm, but for a small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) or as a sole-trader, presents challenges (not

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insurmountable) to the revival of apprenticeships given that many craft enterprises simply do not possess the resources to adequately deal with trainees. What can be confidently stated, however, is that the (relatively) stable material, technical and commercial regimes of production and consumption associated with the craft past (if indeed they ever were as stable as is popularly imagined) no longer exist in many fields. Circumstances dictate a largely future-facing modus operandi in which craft too must innovate (‘problem solve’) around technology, form, function, aesthetic meaning, and social relevance. This means that alongside technical instruction, modern craft pedagogy must also impart the necessary independence of thought and action to enable the craftsperson to critically examine and, if necessary, to reformulate new practice-based norms and conventions. For her part, the modern craftsperson must take on unprecedented levels of responsibility with regards the chosen field and methods of practice. It calls for a type of individual resilience possibly not previously known in traditional craft regimes. It is a lot to ask of a young person in the early stages of adulthood, and is perhaps one reason why craft education tends to attract an older demographic. Modern craft pedagogy must therefore instil the ability to learn to learn, to continue to acquire new skills, and to develop and maintain the critical situational awareness through which one ‘interprets’ one’s position against the wider historically-sculpted situation. This is accomplished through a critical pedagogy in which tutor and students must examine both initial dispositions and interpretive prejudices, testing and constructively challenging ideas by exposure to alternative possible readings and ways to overcome obstacles. Within this framework, the maker assumes more responsibility for her choices and begins to interpret and develop her own path from the possibilities examined. The field of possibility opens, but also narrows, as strategic preferences are made and an individual trajectory forged through a developing ‘practice’. Throughout, the tutor must have the confidence and flexibility to adopt different roles at appropriate times, shifting from instructor to guide, to collaborator and colleague, to pupil, and even to understudy. Pedagogy becomes a critical sensitivity to the differing levels and temporal rhythms in which practice-as-problem-solving unfolds for the individual: of observing and sensing when best to intervene and when to stand back; of how best to respond to moments of hesitation and disappointment, to bursts of attentiveness and receptiveness, and to quieter periods of rest and reflection. This draws us to the practice level of problem solving. Characterised as a fundamentally embodied and performative encounter, the craft act of making is nonetheless cued by an initial intention or project idea, and bounded by constraints that include the materials to be worked, the abilities of the practitioner, and available tools. All are encompassed within some form of more or less explicit provisional plan that constitutes the makers ‘strategy’. Strategies amount to the ‘ways of seeing’ and comprehending a given project. They link ideas and intentions (i.e. the ‘horizon of expectation’) to procedures and techniques drawn from the repertoire of technical skills and methods that the maker has learned to perform over time (i.e. the ‘space of experience’). Alongside the critical pedagogy referred

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to above, one of the tasks of modern craft education is to develop and expand this tactical repertoire of practical skills. To this extent, the traditional workshop techniques of explanation, demonstration, observation, mimesis, and continual refinement through practice hold good. In this way the practitioner acquires her basic ‘toolbox’, orientated towards a given field of production. Strategies are typically worked up as drawings, including, occasionally, formal three-dimensional ‘languages’, as in isometric plans (e.g. ‘I will produce this design-to-make furniture using traditional and digital processes according to these CAD designs’). Even so, the act of making, once begun, is rarely accomplished instrumentally through rigid adherence to a pre-planned and sequential route. Indeed, strategies can also sometimes be little more than intuited types of creativeinterpretive dispositions that unite expectations and experience (e.g. ‘I will gather together these used cotton shirts and up-cycle them into new one-off fashion garments’). In either case, although there can be no general description of the process of making that covers all instances, we might think of making as a sort of (wordless) dialogic encounter: at times analogous to the musical concept of ‘resolution’ – a relatively smooth and uninterrupted movement from dissonance to consonance, at other times perhaps better understood as a series of iterative problem-solving ‘events’. Sometimes the strategy is endorsed, sometimes repudiated; occasionally new provisional approaches to a problem might be proposed. Solutions typically throw up further complications; minor failures can be as important as successes, pointing the way towards new and unique responses; and improvisation and serendipity customarily make (repeat) star appearances. All the while, at a granular level, the making invokes various modalities of problem solving: memorising, anticipating, structuring, planning, contextualising, inferring, recognising, correlating, measuring, calibrating, analysing, revising, timing, coordinating, connecting, and synthesising. These micro-modal instantiations of problem solving cannot simply be understood as intellectual reflections read off from the tools and materials-tohand. Rather, as intrinsic components of the embodied performance, they are often constituted tacitly through proprioceptive sensibilities in acts of making that modify subject as much as object. Here we return to the issue of craft as problem solving self and social identity: the unfolding engagement not only fostering ingenuity and resourcefulness, stamina and determination, but also potentially promoting more subtle human sympathies of relational interdependence, empathy, equanimity, humility, and a certain generosity of spirit. These lend the craft encounter a decidedly moral dimension. Taken into the social domain, they point to an inherent ‘civility’ embodied in craftwork, to the sense of it having affects that can empower us to make a better world.

Index

The terms ‘challenge’, ‘context’, ‘materials’, ‘problem solving’, and ‘solution’ are core themes referenced repeatedly throughout the volume, and therefore page numbers for these have been omitted from the Index. Acton, Alison 60 Adamson, Glenn 6, 51 aesthetics 7, 22–3, 37, 42, 96–7, 116–17, 126–7, 135, 137, 155, 171, 174–5, 179, 189, 209–11, 217–18, 222, 237, 241, 247, 259 affect 24, 169–70, 172, 178–80, 260 affordance(s) 13, 17–18, 123, 130–31, 142–3 ageing 2 agency 7, 95, 171–2, 176, 258 (of tools) 115, 124, 130–31 Akin, Ömer 238 animal breeders 15 apprenticeship 2, 9–10, 22, 84, 96–8, 160–61, 162 (ftn 2), 166, 171, 177, 183, 185, 217, 219, 258–9 architecture 6–7, 101–3, 215–33, 238–9, 244 Aristotle 242 art (fine) 1–2, 4, 7–8, 21, 34–5, 45, 95–8, 101, 104, 109, 111–12, 185, 189, 191, 197, 203, 209–10, 237, 240 Arts and Crafts 4–5, 189–90, 194 Attfield, Judith 243 authenticity 6, 7, 58, 211 authorship 7, 107, 179, 192 Bachman, Ingrid 7 Balfour, Barbara 96 (ftn 2) Barnett, Pannina 245, 246 basketry 22–3, 133–48, 198, 203 Benjamin, Walter 98 Berger, John 107 Bergson, Henry 243 Berkeley, Edmund C. 110

bespoke 9, 22, 41, 43, 169, 171–2, 177 Betjemann, Peter 189–90 Betts, Gregory 100 Beveridge, Erskine 146 bicycle mechanics 20, 71–84 black box correlation 73–4 blacksmith(ing) 15, 138 Blanchot, Maurice 107–8 Bloch, Maurice 163 bodily extension 56, 59 body (human) xvii, 2, 5, 9, 12, 24, 39–40, 48, 62, 115, 117, 119–20, 122, 126, 128, 130–31, 135, 139, 144–5, 163–4, 171, 174, 178, 211, 243 Bohm, David 48 Borges, Jorge Luis 109 Brock, Philippa 244 Brunel, Isambard Kingdom 135 Buddhism 25, 199, 200, 208–10, 213 budgets 2 building conservation 15, 215–33 Bush, Vannevar 99 cabinetmaking (see furniture making) calculation 2, 12–13, 65, 67, 117, 156, 161–2, 176, 241 Camden, William 52 Camnitzer, Luis 95–6, 112 capitalism 5–6, 10, 258 carpentry 10 Cassidy, Rebecca 60 ceramic production (see pottery) chairmaking 14, 125, 136 challenge (see note at start of Index) chemistry 14, 105, 191–2, 221, 240–41, 243 Chick, Anne 236

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citizenship 5 Classen, Clarence 242 client(s) 2, 4, 6–8, 15–16, 23–4, 41, 43, 45, 73, 84, 93, 153, 155, 162–3, 169–80, 183, 191–2 cognition (situated) 2, 135, 239–40, (motor) 12 cognitive science 2, 12, 97 collaboration/collaborative practice 14, 18, 22, 25–6, 34, 36–7, 39–41, 45, 47, 89, 96, 98–9, 105, 160–61, 163–4, 166–7, 175, 183, 200, 206, 216, 218, 224, 227, 235–8, 247, 249, 259 collectors 7–8, 202–3, 208 Collini, Stefan 237 colonialism 95–6, 110 commensality 163–4, 167 communication 21, 28, 40, 47, 71, 78–80, 83, 88, 99, 172, 178, 215, 221, 223, 227, 236, 246–7 community of practice (of craftspeople) 18, 34, 93–4, 153–5, 161, 164, 167, 175 concept(s) 6, 26, 48, 78–9, 83, 235–7, 239, 242–3, 245–7, 249, 251–2 conceptualisation xvii, 11–13, 19, 22, 82–4, 95–7, 99, 105, 109, 115, 117–19, 128, 130, 185–95, 197, 208, 210, 212, 238, 240, 243, 245–9, 251 confidence 17, 58, 61–4, 66, 161, 166, 176–8, 199, 226, 259 Conrad, Joseph 109 conservation (architectural) 26, 215–33 consumption 3, 10, 172, 235–6, 257, 259 context (see note at start of Index) context-dependence 15 contract(s) 6, 34–5, 45, 163, 215, 220 coordination 21, 36, 215, 217–18 counting 156–7, 159, 161–2 craft activism (see craftivism) craft identity/definition xvii, 6, 9–10, 24, 170, 175 craftivism 258 Crafts Revival 5 Crawford, Matthew 39, 47

creativity 5, 27, 39, 64, 97, 105, 107, 111, 139, 156, 160, 169, 171, 175, 177, 185–6, 193–4, 208, 235, 239, 247 Cross, Jamie 177 Cross, Nigel 235, 238–9 Curedale, Robert 238–9 customer(s) (see client) cutaway (in film editing) 91–3 Darwin, Charles 106–7 decoration/decorative 5, 135, 204, 206, 209, 218, 247 Deleuze, Gilles 136, 147, 178, 245–6 Derrida, Jacques 107 design xvii, 2, 4, 7, 9–10, 12–14, 17–19, 21, 23–4, 26, 38–43, 48, 52, 60–62, 103–4, 111, 115–19, 123, 125–6, 135, 139, 141, 147, 156, 159, 161–2, 169–77, 179, 184–7, 191, 194, 197–8, 203, 218, 220–23, 225–7, 231, 235–44, 247–52, 260 designer-maker 1, 7, 22, 36, 117–18, 147, 258 developing world 7 Dewey, John 5 dexterity 9, 64, 138, 145 diagnosis 73–4, 84, 87, 216 dialogue 17–19, 26–7, 37, 63, 72, 79–80, 84, 99, 240, 242, 247, 249, 251–2 digital video editing 21, 87–94 division of labour 35–6, 185–6, 191–2, 194, 215 docile body 61–2, 64 document(ation) 1, 18, 20, 22, 51, 55 (ftn 7), 63, 67, 92, 116, 118, 173, 215, 218, 223, 225, 230–32, 240, 248 Dormer, Catherine 246 Dostoevsky, Fyodor 81, 84 drawing (see also sketch) 18, 22, 34–7, 38–41, 44, 109–10, 115, 117–18, 120, 125–6, 128, 172–3, 186, 206, 218, 221, 223, 260 dressmaking 24, 169–80 ecology (work) 115, 119–21, 124, 130–31, 257

Index economy/economics 2, 4, 6, 9–10, 19, 23, 24, 134, 143, 147, 153–5, 158 (ftn 1), 162, 170–71, 176, 178, 186, 208, 211, 215, 235–7, 257–8 education 4, 20–21, 24, 52, 55–6, 62, 71–2, 84, 97, 193, 197–9, 210–11, 257–60 Einstein, Albert 97 Elyachar, Julia 178 Emery, Irene 133 emotions 11–12, 93, 144–5, 159, 171–2, 178, 237 engineer(ing) 2, 4, 26, 111, 135, 215, 219–24, 232–3, 244, 247 environment (working/learning) 3, 12–13, 18–20, 22, 24, 89, 117, 140, 143, 145, 179, 222, 236 ethics (ethical conduct) 3, 8, 24, 51, 257 ethnicity 6, 8 ethnographic methods 2, 54, 160, 171–2 Ettinger, Bracha 246 Evans, George Ewart 52–3, 55 (ftn 7), 59 (ftn 8) experimentation 13–15, 17, 21, 72, 88, 91–3, 96, 124, 135, 143, 176, 203–4, 218–20, 241, 251, 258 expert(ise) 7, 9, 18, 20, 51, 65, 67, 71, 147, 169, 180, 191, 247–8, 251 failure 2, 66, 84, 165, 188, 222, 232, 260 film editing 87–8, 92 fine arts (see art) Flusser, Wilhelm 141 Foucault, Michel 51, 61, 64, 107 Fuad-Luke, Alastair 236 function xvii, 6–9, 14–15, 74, 117, 122–4, 130, 198, 203, 218, 222, 226–7, 237, 247, 259 funeral 155, 165, 165 (ftn 3) furnituremaker/furnituremaking 16–17, 22, 115–31 gaffer/gaffing 19, 33–5, 37–40, 43, 45, 48 garment workers 24 Geigel Mikulay, Jennifer 130 (ftn 2) gender 6, 154, 174 (ftn 2), 224 (ftn 1) genius (ingenuity) 27, 39, 98–9, 155, 169, 260

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Gerdes, Paulus 15 Gibson, James 143 glassblowing 14, 19, 33–48 Goldsmith, Kenneth 98 Grant, Isobel 145 Grasseni, Cristina 59 Graves, Jane 240 green agendas 2, 236 Greenhalgh, Paul 3, 8 Griffin, Walter Burley 103 Guattari, Félix 136 guerrilla knitting 5 habitus 169, 177 Hallam, Elizabeth 189 hand (the) xvii, 3, 24, 26, 71, 84, 87–8, 94, 130, 139, 187, 189–90, 192–3, 195, 212, 237, 242 handtool (see tool) Hansen, Karen Tranberg 173 haptic (see senses) Haraway, Donna 51 Harper, Douglas 39, 116 Harrod, Tanya 8 hearing (see senses) heritage 6, 7, 26 (architectural) 25, 215–17, 224, 231 Herzfeld, Michael 7, 194 Hirota, Dennis 208 (ftn 4) Hochschild, Arlie 178 horsemanship 20, 51–2, 59, 61, 64–7 hotshop 33, 37, 40, 42 human-animal relations 20, 51–2, 58, 60–62, 67 identity xvii, 8–9, 12, 25, 53, 58, 95, 170–72, 199–200, 208–10, 257–8, 260 Igoe, Elaine 238, 245–6 Ilhan, Ali 235, 239–40 imagination 12–13, 34, 37, 39, 43, 145, 184, 186, 188, 190, 200, 212, 237 imitation 95–6, 106, 176, 197, 211 improvisation 15, 19, 22, 34, 45, 47, 64, 115–16, 119–20, 124, 127, 131, 136, 143, 147, 158–60, 177, 187, 189, 260 industrialisation 5, 189, 215, 219, 221, 258

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Industrial Revolution 134, 139, 142, 189, 191 Ingold, Tim 51, 62, 64, 119, 121, 143, 147, 177, 187–9 innovation xvii, 9, 14–15, 18–19, 64, 87, 89, 91, 99, 135, 143, 160, 185, 192, 211–12, 239–40, 245, 247, 257, 259 intellectual work (see conceptual) intention(ality) 14, 47, 52, 58, 110, 115, 117–18, 120–22, 124–8, 170, 178, 187–90, 199, 208–9, 211–12, 223, 225–6, 236, 259 interdisciplinary (approach) 26–7, 98, 216, 220–21, 231, 235–7, 240, 246–8, 251–2 Internet 17, 93, 98–9, 172 interpretation (of design, of materials) 2, 33, 39, 40, 43, 45, 119, 174–5, 216, 226–7, 259–60 intuition 39, 47, 47 (ftn 5), 115, 124, 127–8, 145, 147 invention 87, 91, 110, 135, 139, 222 Jones, Sîan 64, 159 Kappraff, Jay 241 Keller, Charles 138 Kimbell, Lucy 239–40 kinaesthesia 10, 16, 177 Kirsh, David 14 knowledge 10, 11–13, 18–21, 25–6, 33–4, 36, 38–41, 43, 45, 47–9, 51–2, 54, 56, 62–3, 67, 95–100, 105, 107, 109–10, 116, 118–19, 126, 140, 142, 145, 147, 155, 162, 166, 173, 175–7, 179–80, 188, 191–3, 215–17, 219, 221, 223–6, 232, 235, 237–43, 246–9, 251, 258 (embodied) xvii, 21, 41, 97, 105, 144–5, 219, 223, 236, 238, 240, 242–3, 248 Kundera, Milan 106, 109 Laithwaite, Eric 243 language (use of) 8, 13, 20, 59, 61, 67, 72, 75, 77–9, 83–4, 88, 98, 101,

106–7, 110, 144, 183–6, 193, 202 architectural/constructional 216, 218, 220, 222–3, 226 Lave, Jean 18, 160 Leach, Bernard 197 (ftn 1) learn(ing) xvii, 3, 11–13, 15–17, 19–22, 27, 35–6, 41, 55–6, 58, 61, 63, 65–7, 71–4, 78, 93–4, 98, 105, 112, 115, 123, 130, 144–5, 147–8, 154–5, 160–61, 166, 176–7, 183, 185, 192–4, 197, 203, 206, 212, 216, 219–20, 223, 226, 232, 259 limit (see limitation) limitation 2, 5, 15, 22–3, 27, 38, 42, 64, 74, 77–9, 83–4, 88, 97, 111, 118, 123–5, 135, 140–41, 146–7, 153, 164–5, 167, 172, 189–91, 198–200, 204, 206, 208, 210–12, 218, 222–3, 230, 245–6 linear analogue video editing 88 locality 9, 135, 140–41, 145–6, 198, 258 Lomax, Yve 245 Lyng, Stephen 65–6 machine(s) 18, 23, 39, 42, 54, 78, 87–8, 99–100, 110–11, 118, 121–2, 125–7, 139, 142–3, 172, 176, 189, 202–3, 215, 219, 226 making horses 60, 65 management 153, 159, 169, 170, 172, 220–21, 223, 230, 239 manufacture 7, 15, 17, 21, 58, 60, 95, 100, 111, 165, 171, 202–3, 215, 217, 219–23, 225–6, 230, 232, 236, 243 maquette 116–17, 202–3, 216, 218, 227 Marchand, Trevor xvii, 77, 79, 98, 116, 175, 185, 257 market 2, 7, 9, 20, 23, 34, 171, 193, 197 marketing 3, 41, 52, 154 marketplace (see market) Marx, Karl 121 Mason, Otis T. 133, 139 mass production 6, 110, 189, 194 mastery 6, 8, 21–3, 97–8, 105, 166, 171, 177–8 materials (see note at start of Index)

Index mathematics 4, 14–15, 117, 186, 240–41 McIntyre, Kate 4 Meagher, Kate 153, 165 mechanisation 139, 142, 188 Mehaffy, Michael 103 memory 39, 155, 243, 260 (embodied) 40, 130 mending 139, 143–4 mental representation(s) 12, 74, 78, 83 Metcalf, Bruce 4–5 Micklethwaite, Paul 236 mimicry/mimesis 95–6, 98, 105–7, 110, 260 Mingei 25, 197–9, 208–12 mistake(s) xvii, 3, 10–13, 15–16, 19, 21, 36, 65–7, 186, 188 mock-up (see maquette) modelling 22, 115–17 Modernism/Modernity 6, 8, 10, 103–4, 257 morals 23, 101, 189, 260 Morris, William 4–5, 189, 216, 258 multidisciplinary (see interdisciplinary) music video 91 Navaro-Yashin, Yael 179 negotiation 14, 24, 34, 40, 65, 97–8, 131, 154–5, 159, 169, 172–5, 177–9, 186, 188 Nietzsche, Friedrich 106 Ohki, Sadako 208 (ftn 4) ornament 103 Otto, Frei 244 Ovid 104 Pajaczkowska, Claire 243 patron (see client) patronage 8 perception (see also senses) 11–13, 16, 18, 48, 59, 65, 71, 80, 83–4, 126 perfectionism xviii, 9, 16, 59, 65, 67, 189 Perloff, Marjorie 98–9 personal style 16, 170, 177, 211 phenomenology (phenomenological approach) 101, 105, 170, 179, 180, 194 photoengraving 87

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place 5, 116, 198 Plato 99, 107 Polanyi, Michael 34 (ftn 3), 36, 43 politics (of work) 10, 19, 95, 195, 257 polythetic category 3, 8–10 Portisch, Anna 63–4 pottery 14, 24–5, 183–95, 211 precarity (economic) 23, 153–4, 164 Prentice, Rebecca 63 printing, 3D 104, 110 printmaking 21, 95–7, 101, 105, 110, 211 problem (defined) 14 problem-aversion 59, 65, 67 problem-seeking 12, 16, 59, 67 problem solving (see note at start of Index) process (working/design) xvii, 6, 8, 18–19, 73–4, 95–9, 103–7, 109–11, 116–20, 122, 125–6, 128, 134–6, 138, 142–3, 145–7, 157, 169, 173, 175–7, 179, 184–91, 216–24, 230–32, 237, 239–40, 242–52 proprioception 10, 16, 260 prototype(ing) 19, 22, 33–43, 45, 47–9, 111, 116–19, 131, 183, 220, 240 psychoanalysis 97 psychology 2, 12, 15, 94, 200 Pye, David 35, 64, 67, 125, 186, 188, 191 reciprocity 154, 162–3, 165 regulation(s) 17, 125, 217, 219–21, 223, 225, 230–31 rehearsal 56–7, 65, 122 Renaissance 4, 14 repair 10, 19, 39, 71–4, 84, 144, 158–9, 218–20, 222–3, 225–6, 232 repetition xvii, 58, 61–2, 64–5, 95–7, 102, 104–6, 108, 112, 116, 118–19, 185, 188, 198, 220, 222, 258 revolution (see also Industrial Revolution) 95–6, 110, 221 (digital) 99 rhythm (of work/of problem solving) 16, 23, 33, 43, 63, 97, 101, 135, 137–8, 145, 148, 159, 242, 259 Risatti, Howard 6

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risk 10, 35, 40, 43, 58, 63–7, 115–20, 154, 187–9 Rommetveit, Ragnar 107 rope making 134, 139–40 Ruskin, John 4–5, 38, 189 Salingaros, Nikos 103 Scarpa, Carlo 36, 36 (ftn 4) schema 119 school(ing) 6–7, 45, 60, 62–4, 66, 71, 97, 154, 158, 171, 176, 191–2, 258 Schoolman, Ethan 237 science (scientific inquiry, scientific attitude) xvii, 14–15, 116, 186, 221–2, 225, 232, 237, 240–41, 247, secret (knowledge) 3–4, 8, 71, 76, 97 security (social and economic) 154–5, 165 Seiler-Baldinger, Annemarie 133 self (see identity) Sennett, Richard 5, 23, 43, 47, 47 (ftn 5), 51, 61, 63, 66, 135, 143, 145, 147–8, 242 senses, sensory experience 10, 12–13, 16, 59, 119, 126–7, 138, 170, 224, 238, 241–3, 259–60 Serres, Michel 245 simulation 65 sketch(ing) (see also drawing) 18, 22, 115, 117, 124–5, 128, 169, 172–5, 179, 184, 218, 227 skill(s) xvii, 3–6, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20, 23, 27, 35, 37, 47, 51–2, 55, 61, 65–6, 71, 96–7, 105, 116, 143, 145, 147–8, 154, 156, 158–61, 165–7, 171–2, 175–9, 186, 188–90, 198, 206, 210, 217, 219–22, 225, 258–60 skilled practice/performance 58, 63, 65, 67, 177–8, 185, 188, 193 skilled vision 59 Smith, George Albert 92 Smith, Pamela 14, 116 social capital 153, 166 social change/transformation 4, 95 social class 6, 7, 172–3, 194 social exclusion 153, 165–7 social network 12, 153–4, 159–61, 165, 176, 200

social transformation 6, 170–71 sole trader 15, 230, 258 solution (see note at start of Index) sound recording 88–91 spatial awareness 59 spiritual practice (craft as) 211 spoken script 56 Spuybroek, Lars 238, 244–5 standards 3, 10, 17, 59, 67, 198, 215, 219–21, 223, 225, 231–3 status (professional) 12, 19, 66–7, 170, 177, 194, 198 Steinbeck, John 101 Stewart, Ian 241 structuralism 5 sustainability 2, 26, 144, 233, 235–9, 247 Suzuki, Daisetsu Teitaro 199 symbol(ism) 4–5 107, 173, 179, 199, 236, 243 synaesthesia 59 Tallis, Raymond 242 teaching (teaching-learning) 20, 55, 60, 62, 65, 67, 71, 74, 84, 176–7 techne 4 technique 6, 8, 13–14, 19–21, 23–4, 34–40, 43, 47, 74, 98, 104–5, 112, 118, 125–6, 128, 133–4, 136–7, 139–42, 145, 162, 169–70, 177, 191, 200, 216–18, 223, 226–7, 231, 259, 260 technology xvii, 2, 5–6, 23, 25, 87–9, 91, 93, 95–6, 98–9, 110–11, 115, 138–9, 143, 148, 219, 221–3, 232, 237, 240, 257–9 textile practices 133–4, 136, 202 textile thinking 26, 235–52 Thakara, John 236 tool(s) (including handtools) 2–3, 5, 8, 10, 12, 14, 17–18, 22–3, 26, 35, 43, 62, 72, 84, 115–16, 120, 122–6, 128, 130–31, 133, 138, 153, 155, 157–9, 162, 171–2, 175, 177, 179–80, 186–7, 198–200, 203, 206, 208, 212, 216, 224, 226, 232, 235–6, 252, 259, 260 (modification of) 130, 226

Index touch (see senses) tradition(al) xvii, 7–8, 10, 20, 25, 34, 38, 51–3, 59, 64, 67, 96–8, 100, 104, 111–12, 118, 122, 124–5, 158, 198–9, 204, 206, 208, 210–12, 215–22, 224, 226–7, 231–2, 239–40, 247, 258–60 training 6, 20–22, 34, 37–8, 52, 54–6, 60, 62, 74, 98, 142, 161, 166, 176, 191, 198–9, 202, 217, 220, 224–5, 231–2 (horse) 20, 51–67 transference 95–9, 105 translation (of materials) 2, 36, 42–3, 98, 118, 126, 183 unemployment 41, 118, 154 utility (see function) Veblen, Thorstein 189–90 Venkatesan, Soumhya 147

267

vision (see senses) visual aid(s) 19 vocational training 4, 97, 176, 192, 224 von Uexküll, Jacob 143 Vygotsky, Lev 15, 72, 79–81 Wang, David 235, 239–40 watchmaking 14 weavers(ing) 15, 23–4, 133, 153–67, 237, 241, 244, 247 website 17, 94, 191 Weil, Simone 49 Wendrich, Willeke 136 Wilkie, Rhoda 51 working relationship(s) 20, 48, 56, 161 Yanagi, Sōetsu 25, 197–9, 209–12 Yarrow, Thomas 64, 159 Yingee (Taiwan) 24 Young, Arthur 53