Craft and Neutrality (gj)

As I was preparing for the 2nd set of works in my series “Subtle Weight”, while working on teaching materials for the furniture design class I am teaching, I started reflecting on the connected idea of “discourse”, “linguistics” and “skills” in the context of craft.

In the furniture design class, I have shifted my typical arrangement of two projects, project 1 focused on skill building while project 2 focused on creative expression, to an arrangement of three projects, inserting a middle project that acts as a transition project between.

As a reference, to consider the application of forms as a language, in design, in general, and thus the editing of the language, in analogy to linguistics as a key method of creating meaningful forms through abstraction and expression, is not uncommon and instrumental in teaching creativity in art schools.

However, in the particular context of making things in the woodshop, the lightness or playfulness that arises in the creative process above, often finds itself restrained by the necessarily tedious safety protocols, and the steep learning curve for much of the haptic or tactile knowledge that are key to the understanding of craft, can only be acquired in the process itself.

Encouraging and building up a mindset that does not get instantly frustrated by a mistake or mishap in the process of making, is necessary; Establishing a willingness to makeshift or design upon a mistake’s good side, is important. Both have been key strategies in my multiple runs of furniture design classes in the past few years.

Further than these strategies, to break down the different aspects of abstraction and exploration in the context of craft (here using woodcraft as a fairly relevant example), help shed light on ways that can benefit both the teaching materials and my own material practice. And this is the same range of questions that I have been thinking about designing Project 1 and Project 2 in the furniture class. 

To begin with,in this context, machining tools are NOT neutral, as in, the tools are NOT independent of a particular target of form, color, texture or any other visual quality.

In contrast to all the explorations done by modern, post-modern and contemporary painters, who have explored using paint, brushes, and the absence of paint and brushes, the creative path in woodshop does not work in the same way.

Referring back to the conversation of the two creative forces (Two Forces, December 2025 Post), a problem-solution axis/force is embedded in the invention, evolving history and current operation of a tool like, table saw. The level of precision table saws are meant to achieve is built upon a very specific solution to a problem, of cutting wood into straight, square and precisely angled pieces.

To teach the basic ways of using table saws, I, probably like many others who teach the tool, would require a precisely cut square angle, put together through a miter joint. To further explore the intricate levels of control designed into the tool, I require the students to cut slots for a spline in the miter joint, which requires an understanding of in-the-field alignment and measurement in the process. And we can go a few steps further to design trickier problems to help the students achieve better “crafts” in using the table saw.

Here, the use of the word “craft” is not unfamiliar to anyone who would use it in a flea market, a thrift shop or any context, the word “craft” is standing for a very particularly defined set of skills to make an intricate object. 

The magic of the craft here is additive:

A simple miter joint,

A miter joint with spline or key,

A angled miter joint with spline or key,

Soon enough, we would get into the problem, where the artists and artisans encountered 100 or 200 years ago, and quoting the title of a manifesto written by one of my favorite architects of all times, while not necessarily fully agreeing with him, “Ornament and Crime”. 

It was craft, but not THAT creative anymore.

So what does it mean, to nurture creativity with tools with particularities ?

And how to go beyond the norm of the addition?

I would like to give a more thorough discussion of it in the 2026 April post.

To give it a preview: 

Through my personal art practice, my answer to this question refers back to the initial intention of my long term project series “Subtle Weight”, through a rigorous process of making, documentation, abstraction and application.

In teaching,in the materials I have set in the 2nd project of my furniture class, is a calibrated building up of an individual art language by making, observing, recombining and application.

One key point I would like end this post with is that: 

To break out of the restraint of the intricacies of a tool that is related to and dependent on a prescribed task at its initial invention and design, the first step is to actually admit it, knowing these tools are NOT neutral. It is in the recognition of this fact, that we can experiment and explore beyond the perimeter with creativity.