The Invisible Hand

A couple of years back,sociologist Richard Sennett wrote a book,The Craftsman,about respecting and prizing artisanship. The desire to do something well for its own sake is one of our oldest impulses,says Sennett. We might artificially split knowledge-work from manual skill and disdain the latter,but thinking and doing have always been beautifully twinned concepts. The glassblowers breath,the carpenters patience,the angle at which to poise a knife or a brush,a way with wiresthese are deeply important,but devalued in our education and employment.

Skilful doing is a form of thinking. There is something about that surprising encounter with material,and working past the resistance and getting it right,that produces a quiet satisfaction ever noticed the rush of pleasure people talk about when they start tending roses or baking clay? A doctors physical exam,for instance,involves paying special attention,it demands the right instincts,as you press and probe,interpret bodily clues and discover the disease. Tests and machine aids only take that initial wisdom forward.

Technique,that easy flow between hand and brain,comes from practice alone it apparently takes 10,000 hours of doing something to achieve mastery. It takes years of arduous labour to refine the eyes judgement. Draw,draw,draw,Antonio; draw and dont waste time, as Michelangelo scrawled over his young apprentices work. And whether it is playing an instrument or weaving a sari,after a certain point of mindful repetition,it opens up problems,it invites improvisation. But craft is part of what Sennett calls social capital when old ways of life crumble,so do these kinds of tacit knowledge.  

My grandmothers generation expertly sewed entire wardrobes for their children,made jams and pickles,cooked elaborate meals from scratch,made quilts and tapestries,drew lovely kolams,and managed household odd-jobbery with ease. By contrast,Im insecure about threading a needle,Ive fumbled my way through a basic block-printing class at school,minor repair-work is beyond me,and nor can I fix a buggy laptop or even cleanly paint a wall. This domestic de-skilling is really kind of pathetic to be relatively well-off in India is to be detached,dangerously,from the heave of everyday,life-sustaining labour.  

But when people talk of craft,they usually pit it in opposition to the machine and global supply chains. The John Ruskin and William Morris-inspired Arts and Crafts movement of 19th century England glorified the great medieval guilds and workshops and lamented mechanisation. After Indias colonial trauma,Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay saw her own work in reviving craft traditions as linked to our sense of self-worth. Even now,we value the artisanal,the handmade,the natural,as wistfulness for some pre-industrial purity. Sennett,by contrast,sees craft and cunning in the scientific laboratory,in the work of open-source eager beavers,even in skilful parenting. 

Like the Arts and Crafts movement,the DIY (Do It Yourself) phenomenon that began in the 90s was also a clear rejection of mass-produced bounty,and the abstraction that came with it. Those dedicated to the DIY ethos try to recover a personal connection with the processes of daily life,instead of relying on the intervening industry. (Martha Stewart was maybe the pinnacle,the perversion,and the most annoying embodiment of DIY,making millions out of making other people feel incompetent.)

Even now,in the US,magazines like Craft and sites like Etsy are homage to the handmade in fact,Etsy is a gigantic virtual crafts fair with people selling and buying art,clothes,toys,bags,stationery,cellphone sleeves,and some entirely novel things that fit no category. Etsy is a Long Tail phenomenon,a storefront for the most narrow quirks and hobbies. Fabindia or Anokhi here are more market-driven,they take certain kinds of craft to a wider world,and their market determines which crafts find sustenance,and which dont.

India is strategically focusing on skill-building now,and contemplating the idea of early vocational training. Maybe it makes sense to remind ourselves of the ethical lessons in craftsmanship,and give it its due.

(amulya.gopalakrishnanexpressindia.com)