Tomorrow I start gathering the materials for making several pieces of rustic furniture. I was surprised to hear in a discussion on the internet that some woodworkers view rustic work as being inferior and unworthy of interest, in light of more technically demanding work. It may be that since fewer tools are required and the level of finish is not quite as demanding, it may not qualify as "real" woodworking in some minds.

I've been re-reading David Pye's book, The Nature and Art of Workmanship, in which he proposes the interesting concept, "workmanship of risk" as contrasted with workmanship of certainty in which tools and jigs remove the requirement of attention in the making of objects. Nearly all our mass production culture is based on "workmanship of certainty." Unfortunately, Pye drops the ball in his interesting discussion. Rather than describing what the values of risk are in human life and society, thus entering the insecure zone of human reflection and emotion, he spends the balance of the book in criticism of John Ruskin and William Morris for the imprecision and lack of rationality of their justification and advocacy of hand-craftsmanship.

So, anyway, Mr. Pye, thank you for your contribution of an interesting and valuable concept. Not trying to be flip, but, here is the skinny. No risk, no culture. Everything that exists is what it is because someone stepped outside the bounds, out of the box, putting something on the line to try something new, to learn to do something they had never done before, and we owe it ALL, EVERYTHING to the very simple concept of risk.

So, in explanation of rustic work... or the work of kids in school where not every edge gets sanded and not all concepts work: Where there is risk, there is learning and growth. When things are done by hand, even inexpertly done by a child there is the potential of discovery and refinement. So, none of this can really be understood as a purely intellectual concept. It is messy and emotional like the twigs on a branch and the branches on a tree... connected at the deepest core of our humanity where we may suddenly feel beauty as visceral and real ("My breath was taken away"). There is a hollow space behind the heart that is suddenly filled and brought to silence in the presence of a well crafted object. And if you put aside David Pye's criticisms of Ruskin and Morris and examine the feelings of order, attention and serenity conveyed by one of the things he made, you will probably decide as I have that while a picture is worth a thousand words, an object, well crafted, created in the fullest expression of human attention is worth a million or more.

So, go make something. The photo above is from David Pye's book The Nature and Art of Workmanship. If you look closely at the wood grain, you may get a better understanding of the piece, and the woodworker always has a choice. Do I use my skills to draw attention to myself? Or do I use my skills to draw attention to the beauty of the materials and nature? Most of us are working somewhere in balance between the two, so if you were to wondering where rustic work falls into the scheme of things, now you know.