Love Craft. Not Kraft.

Madison.

I spend the bulk of my days - weekdays, workdays - surrounded by people enamored of "Art" (capital A). I'm unclear on exactly what they mean. This may have something to do with the fact that every building products manufacturer tries to exploit the notion of art in their advertising, their corporate slogan, wherever. I may suffer from a stunted imagination, but I can't really make the associative leap that sort of marketing requires.

Maybe I'm supposed to watch more TV.

There seems to be this loose definition, this vague understanding of what we mean by art, that fuels this mindset. We speak of processes in euphemisms like, "I've got it down to a science," or "There's an art to it." From what I can gather, the former means that the process can be broken down into a series of steps, a convenient line diagram that states, "If A, do B. If C, do D." Sometimes you're allowed to personalize things, but it's pretty much like a mathematical function: each set of inputs determines a specific output. In theory, you could just write down this step-by-step process, and anyone could follow it exactly. (Not exactly science, since it doesn't involve the continual questioning and testing that are the hallmark of the scientific method, but I'm not getting into that today.)

The latter means, more or less, that it requires a sort of intuition - gained through experience, talent, doesn't matter - to get the appropriate end result. Chances are that you have a variety of different things you could end up with, each having a varying degree of success. For some, this is the perfect excuse to inflate their own egos, a sort of proof that they've got the chops and you don't, neener neener. Maybe it's not always so overt, but I think I see it when designers are listed for project awards. I'm fortunate to have a firm that respects individual designers enough to give us all our names beside the images, but I realize that's a rarity.

I don't feel like picking on a particular person today, so I'll use the term 'Starchitect' as a stand-in. Whenever we see grand images of some new, flashy piece of architecture (completed or design-in-progress), they are accompanied with Starchitect's name. Sometimes it'll include the firm, but most references will point to a single individual. The team responsible for executing the design - which often includes other architectural firms in the case of particularly large, complex projects - barely gets a mention. It conditions us, especially those outside that particular technical field, to think of this as the work and responsibility of a single person. Responsibility it may have been, though even the most technically savvy architect is hard-pressed to understand, in all honesty, the full extent of the design of all the systems in most any sizable building. But work? Hardly. Between the technical expertise, drafting plans and details, writing specifications, and all else, it's truly impossible for one person to do it, let alone in any sort of time frame that prevents a design from being obsolete at completion.

If Starchitect's really a manager, then let's call him that. There's a perception of management folks - not entirely positive, deserved or not - that is not entirely out of place.

This also minimizes the efforts of the manual laborers responsible for turning a bound set of drawings into something tangible. Few designers can do much in the way of manual labor these days. Those who can lay claim to titles like 'master builder' that represent positions straddling the divide between design and manufacture, roles that have been essentially eliminated by an increasingly fractured, specialized system. Not only is each side - design and construction - divorced from an integrated understanding of the entire process, but it promotes a divide that one's own side is always right, an us-versus-them mentality.

Where I think the notions of the master builder and the art (little a) live is craft. Craft, or craftsmanship, is the province of the master builder, the intersection of both design and manufacture. It's the work of the artisan, not the artist, a creative endeavor that involves the craftsman in all aspects. It requires more skill, more effort, more of an investment in the process, but results in something that you can view with a justifiable sense of pride. You can say, "I made that." Although it may not be the best of its kind - there's always someone better - those who understand the effort required in their own craft can respect it, can be impressed.

One doesn't need to build one's own house. This can be as simple as cooking a meal, an example that I think most people can relate to. The more you put into understanding the process - both overall and in all its details - the more engaging it becomes. A homemade meal doesn't need to reflect just one's skills at slicing, mixing and heating food, but can reach as far into other realms of interest as one is willing to go: growing fresh herbs and vegetables; getting to know a farmer who raises the livestock you'll be eating, knowing that the animals are treated well; building a barbecue pit in the backyard; making special, unique containers to give with food gifts. Whatever.

I think craft can be and deserves to be taught. Although there is much to be said for individual innovation, an amazing wealth of knowledge and skill to be learned from those craftsmen still practicing their trades. Slow Food is a good example of a movement trying to keep traditional foods, cooking, and the social nature of eating alive and well. Another everyday example is National Novel Writing Month, though it tends to the idiosyncratic, artistic side. It's still an immensely useful tool to understanding and appreciating writing as a craft.

Plus, it's insanely fun. And isn't that what one's craft ought to be?