On Craftsmanship

“The moment of effectiveness, when skill is changing the raw material into the desired product is always worth ‘realizing’. It is momentous every time…..”

There is a lovely book, The Wheelwright’s Shop by George Sturt (1863-1927), in which he describes in detail how a farm cart is constructed from local timbers whose various characteristics are matched to the demands of the various parts – elm for wheel hubs, ash for spokes, etc. He also portrays the changing ways of life in a small English farming village at the dawn of the industrial revolution. Sturt eloquently describes what motivates the craftsman:

“The Moment of Production, when the Craftsman is actually getting his effects – this Moment which has been at the heart of Village life or of all the labor of Peasants….. is misunderstood by most academic minds.” *

“At the very moment of change, when the effort actually comes off and has its effect – this keeps the “peasant” more or less satisfied, but “superior” people never experience that satisfaction.

“The moment of effectiveness, when skill is changing the raw material into the desired product is always worth ‘realizing’. It is momentous every time…..”

– from George Sturt’s Journals edited in two volumes by E. D. Mackerness, Cambridge University Press, 1967

* – from E. P. Thompson’s foreword to a 1992 edition of The Wheelwright’s Shop by George Sturt