Not a single piece of Sung ware, as everyone knows, bears the signature of its maker: the potter never signed his work, however beautiful it may have been. One explanation that has been put forward is that in those days the custom of signing a work was still unknown. The true explanation, however, may be simpler still. Sung craftsmen were not self-conscious artists, they were not learned men, they were mere craftsmen making articles for daily use; most of them were probably extremely poor and had to work hard from morning till night, most also were probably badly educated and uninformed. They were not privileged people who could choose to work only when they were in a creative mood. Yet, despite all this, potters in Korea as well as in China were able to produce objects of consummate beauty, such as Sung ware and Koryo celadons: works of art that have endured through the ages.
-Soetsu Yanagi, The Unknown Craftsman
My first job in woodworking was with an architectural millwork shop. An uncertain 17 year old, I was hired to sweep the floors and move lumber. Soon, I was put to the task of hand-sanding moldings, then jointing lumber, finally cutting the joinery and assembling the paneling. I took to it with joy, and over five years I learned to do most of the work. I simply loved making things with my hands. And I got pretty good at it. And with that, I got pride--look what I did!
One day, we installed an ornate Colonial-style mahogany corner cabinet in a living room high up in a Trump Tower. When we finished, the client commented how good it looked, “even with all of you in here.” We blinked, thanked her and left, check in hand, job done. In the freight elevator on the way down, we laughed so hard we cried. “It’s your shoes!” “No it’s not—it’s your nose!” Our client’s comments didn’t hurt our feelings so much as amaze us. Instead of recognition and thanks for nice work, we were an aesthetic blot on her life.
We were nobodies making beautiful things.
The moment was stunningly obvious, and yet soul-crushingly disturbing for a 22-year-old kid who had just gone along with life thus far. Get a fun job. Make things. Learn cool shit. Get paid. Hang out with friends. Get insulted by a rich woman. Wait—what?
The encounter brought on a hand-wringing, self-involved crisis of my purpose on this planet (yes, I was an English major). Why do I make things? What’s the purpose? What’s the point of it all? Of course I was an insignificant speck in the universe. I just hadn’t been reminded of it, or realized it on my own. The woman’s insult brought that into sharp focus. The process of understanding and accepting that insignificance took some time. Perhaps it’s not entirely done, as I don't plan on going gently into that good night quite yet. However, I now understand that self-insignificance is the most necessary capacity to be a great craftsman. To be nobody opens up the ability to understand and create beauty, even if you still want to be somebody. And I do. Doesn’t everyone?
It was shortly after the Trump Tower “incident” that I read The Unknown Craftsman. Yanagi presented the idea of the anonymous-great-artist. I loved it. I hated it. I recognized how I participated in that economy—the Trump Tower client would show off our work to her friends: “Darling, look at this Mahogany corner cabinet I just commissioned. The beautiful grain! Made in Connecticut by real Artisans. All by hand!” Maybe she would mention the company name, or the owner’s name, but not mine, or any of the rest of the crew who had actually made it, whose actual hands had worked the wood that was now part of her life. They would run their fingers over the finely-sanded surfaces and comment on how silky they felt. They would open the drawers and enjoy the smoothness of operation. They would talk about how "inviting to the hand" beautiful wood was. Our hands were important—they were the hands of the “hand-made” she found appealing and had spent so much money on—but our persons were not. In fact, our persons were offensive, and needed to be out of her apartment ASAP.
We were not people of any value, our individuality was irrelevant. This part I hated. The white collar – blue collar divide in America seemed to be an ancient prejudice of the worst sort, the kind that led to strikes and revolutions. The faceless, exploited laborer, my hands a commodity, not anything individual, valuable when disembodied, sold for $4.50 an hour.
And yet for Yanagi this was not social injustice. He had something far more insightful to say. Sung potters did not consider themselves artists. They were not attempting to make anything according to a personal vision. They were not attempting to be famous, or be appreciated for “who they were”. They were not attempting self-expression in an egoistic effort to find themselves. And they were not even aiming for “beauty.” They simply made pots the only way they knew how. That’s what they did.
This isn't to say that Sung dynasty potters did not want to be famous, just that they invested no personal desire into their work. Look at the bowls at the bottoms of the page. Do they look like they are the product of a striving artist or artisan? They look pretty humble to me, pretty simple. The Kizaemon bowl looks like it was made in a hurry with little attention to detail. And they are greatly prized for their beauty.
I won't address what beauty is, except to suggest it is the experience of an intuitively harmonious perfection. Have you ever felt a gut punch in beholding something that takes your breath away? You feel unworthy in its presence? In awe of its existence? No matter how you contemplate it, you couldn't imagine it any other way to be better?
The most famous bowls, ones used by the masters of Tea, betray no desire to be anything other than a bowl—no artistic statements, no gestures or mashups or commentaries—just utilitarian and everyday for use in a humble home. This part – the simple focus on making something useful, and what that led to spiritually – really appealed to me. It felt noble, pure, and somehow right. It was also what I had done, willingly and happily, before I read Yanagi. At no point had I ever wanted to sign the paneling and furniture I made, to be famous for them, sell or promote them as art or any kind of individual expression. I simply enjoyed the casual compliments I received from friends and customers, which I would imagine Sung dynasty potters enjoyed as well.
While artists are full of self, and aim to express self, craftsmen have no self, at least in their work. So what do craftsmen express through their work? Beauty is Yanagi’s answer -- specifically an expression that artists are incapable of achieving, as self always gets in the way of beauty, obscures it, distracts from it, replaces it. Does self endure? No. Beauty endures. The individual is always unique and the exception, while beauty is always universal. What we remember from the past, what endures, is the beauty that wasn’t obscured by the self. We may give it a name, such as a Leonardo, or a Michaelangelo, but we do not know their individual characters any more than a collection of life facts can conjure a person. We only know the surviving beauty they created.
Consider how some people suggest that Shakespeare wasn’t really Shakespeare, and that all the plays were written by someone else. How does it matter who wrote the plays? How does knowing the person of the author, or not knowing it, make the plays any better or worse? How much does that personal knowledge affect the characters of Macbeth, Hamlet, Beatrice or Rosalind? What if William Shakespeare the person was really obnoxious, difficult to engage in conversation, and never bathed?
Suddenly, I find it possible to say “Thanks for the plays, William, I like them a lot -- even with you here.” What was he pursuing? Fame? Or money? A bit of both? Did he try to write “the best” plays and want to be known for them? Or did he just write plays in the only way he knew how? And that’s just what he did, and what endures.
It’s said of old houses that “they don’t build ‘em like they used to.” This isn’t true. It’s that the poorly-built houses built 200 years ago have all fallen down. Only the well-built ones from the past survive. There was a lot of bad drama in Shakespeare’s time. We just don’t read or remember it because it doesn’t give us joy. At the time, like much art today, it was new and interesting and perhaps had something relevant to say about that moment. It may have made money and been celebrated. But it had no lasting beauty, so we quickly forgot it.
I’ve not met any woodworker or other tradesmen who “pursues beauty”. That would receive a laugh on any jobsite, no matter how much any one of us might think about these things. But I have seen a lot of beautiful work done by tradesmen—the work that endures. The pride, as I often hear it described, is in the satisfaction of a job well done, a job done right, with no glaring errors or awkward bits. It’s professional. It’s quality. And no callbacks! These encompassing terms don’t point to any one aspect, but to the whole of the job done. It just works. It doesn’t even call attention to itself except as a whole, a beautiful, complete whole. And I think that’s key to the sense of craftsmanship. Yes the details matter, but only as they contribute to a whole.
I once stumbled across the idea that in good design, no one part calls attention to itself over any other. If you don’t notice or appreciate the design in any particular way, and the object fulfills its use in a perfectly unobtrusive manner, then it is successful. As soon as the eye is distracted, the hand uncertain or impeded, the use obscure, the design is imperfect.
Of course, craftsmanship is more closely aligned with the use and beauty of practical objects, and the artist more closely aligned with objects created for purely aesthetic value, but the overlap is substantial and blurred. Every object has a use, a purpose, whether quotidian or luxurious. If a portrait of a politician meant to impress you with handsome resolve, wisdom and integrity (and all these are recognizable in the face), but the odd angle of a lifeless hand in the foreground makes you giggle, then the portrait has failed. You will remember the giggle.
On good days in the shop, none of these thoughts plague me. The problem is that woodworking is a solitary pursuit, hearing protectors on most of the time. The mind can wander not just towards lunch, but also to these larger questions. What giggles am I making now? What lasting beauty, if any? How can I get better if Yanagi's best is unconscious? Just keep working and stop thinking...
Ten tears after the encounter in the Trump Tower, I started my own furniture company, and named it after myself. I wanted to make beautiful things.
I didn’t advertise but I answered the phone. I made spec pieces but rarely sold them. Except for one time, I didn’t present my work in shows. I didn’t strive for prizes or recognition. I relied on word-of-mouth, and it was enough to make a modest living. The phone always rang. I always made. I was happy. Mostly.
Was I intentionally hamstringing the growth of my business to achieve some kind of pure approach to work? Not intentionally, I wasn't. I think I just wasn't a good businessman. I had no drive for self-promotion, or even the promotion of my work. I could have approached fame and self-promotion the way Banksy does-- anonymous fame. I love the idea that he or she goes to art shows and talks to critics who have no idea who he or she is.
Eventually I found my niche in custom work, designing and building furniture like a bespoke tailor, fitting pieces to people and their homes. I designed and made Craftsman-style furniture for clients who loved the Craftsman style. I designed and made Art Deco furniture for clients who loved Art Deco. I designed and made Colonial, Art Nouveau, Biedermeier all styles. No piece was a copy of anything. All were “original” designs, but none were “me.” I signed a few of them at first, then stopped the practice. Some customers insisted that I sign them, as that was part of what they wanted. A word my clients often used was “beautiful.” It is still the word that makes me the happiest to hear.
When a client says my style is unique or recognizable, I get wary. Frankly, I feel as if I’ve failed in some way. I am happiest when my hand in the design is quiet, the piece looks like it fits the client’s home seamlessly, and no one could ever guess I made it. And I am happiest when I am recognized for this quiet approach. When I’m gone, out of the room, so to speak, the work can speak for itself, and “my story” of the anonymous hand-crafting artisan can remain in the room with it.
Some days I worry that I have pride in trying not to have pride, a pretense and false humility. People smirk at me when I shrug off a compliment. On these days, I wonder what kind of privileged intellectual game I play at, and why. Other days I feel I have pride in just making things that work for people, do the intended job and thereby give them pleasure.
For Yanagi, awareness of beauty is a burden that will prevent its full achievement. My work can never attain the level perfection in Sung ware as I intentionally pursue beauty in my work. Investing personal desire into one’s work is the mistake. It harms the work, and thereby frustrates the maker. You work with what you got, they say, and what I got is a conflict.
My work is not artistic, looking to achieve self-expression and fame – I did not invent Art Nouveau or Arts-and-Crafts, the most common styles I work in. And yet, this essay is all about my pride in craftsmanship and where it comes from.
Not too long ago, a friend and fellow woodworker put it perfectly: “I’m not famous, but my hands are. Among other hands, that is. And I’m really happy for them.”
I like the idea of a wordless kind of fame and appreciation between the hand that make things, and the hands that use those things.
The Kizaemon Ido tea bowl,16th century, and a national treasure in Japan
This 11th century bowl recently sold at auction for 37.7 million dollars. The maker, I don't believe, got a cent.
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