[ihavenofish]

Exactly! The CNC is just a part of the material preparation. The skill and craftsmanship is what happens AFTER the roughed out piece comes off of the machine. My point exactly!

uh. no, thats not what he said. he said raw material processing, now roughed out piece.

unless your roughed out piece is a planed block of wood.

you seem hell bent on twisting everyones words to justify calling cnc machined parts hand made.

[twoartistic]

uh. no, thats not what he said. he said raw material processing, now roughed out piece.

unless your roughed out piece is a planed block of wood.

you seem hell bent on twisting everyones words to justify calling cnc machined parts hand made.

Uh. No, you seem determined to call a roughed out piece that is then completed by hand a "machined" piece, which it is clearly not. If a piece is taken straight off a CNC and put into the final assembly, or even if it is sanded, then I agree with you. What I have stated is that if the piece is taken off the CNC, and a significant amount of hand-work, ie carving, hand plane, wood burning, scraping, or any other process controlled by hand, then, and only then, it is hand crafting.

Let me put it another way. If a component is prepared by a CNC and a human has the potential to significantly enhance or ruin that piece by action of hand application of an artists or craftsman skill then the piece has an element of hand crafting. You can split hairs all you want, but nearly every modern piece of art/craftsmanship has technology in it's preparation. It is what happens after the machine preparation that makes it hand crafted.

The craftsman that does more of the preparation by hand, ie cut the tree down with an axe, buck saw blocks, hand saw planks, hand plane boards, etc. now has a claim to having more hand work invested in the process. This would certainly give a claim of having more skill in the overall process. However, hand carving is hand carving, regardless if the block of material was roughed out by hand saw and hatchet, or by a CNC. By the way, the corbel in my video was roughed out by hand saw and hatchet. It came out of a solid block of Douglas Fir 52" x 18" x 18". I did not have any power tools big enough to rough it out, and I didn't want to spend the money on a chainsaw at the time.

Why are you determined to twist my words into claiming that I am calling a CNC manufactured piece hand crafted? Look at all I have said, I have never made that claim. And what's more, I clearly agree with you multiple times in that regard. Perhaps I did not spell it out as clearly as I should have. So again, I do not think a piece that is fully manufactured on a CNC is hand-made. In addition I do not believe that a piece that is CNC roughed out and then only finished by sanding is hand-made. I also do not believe that a piece that is prepared by a CNC, or other power tools, then sanded is hand-made.

For clarity, I believe significant hand shaping, carving, artistic hand painting and other hand processes that require dexterity and practiced skills add elements that qualify a piece to be called hand-made. Not completely hand-made, that is different. So we can continue to get hung up on semantics, or you can site a current artist who is creating their work without the benefit of technology in its preparation? It is all a matter of degrees, and I agree that whom ever puts more hand preparation into their work has the greater claim on the degree to which the piece is hand-made.

This takes me back to the opening of the thread. I am here to argue my position. So far I have given many examples in both actual pieces, and theory. Can you offer the same? Rather than simply arguing an idea based on ideology and verbiage, show us an example. Surly, on the whole world wide web, someone is creating hand-made items that are not prepared by technology... right? You can surly point to the hand-crafted piece that no technology was used... right? Invite the craftsman/artist to this thread.

Nearly all creation uses technology, nearly all art has an element of technology. My original post asks if it is art, when technology is used? At what point does it cease to be art, and simply production? Is a Ferrari art? Many purist say no, many who love car design say yes. Can a piece that comes out of the imagination, but that is completely produced by a machine, (a photograph, for example) be art. I know photographers who hand develop their prints, and call it hand-crafted prints. Are they wrong? Or do they offer something that sets them apart from other photographers?

Don't get me wrong, I don't want you to stop arguing this point, because I think I am winning more converts to my point of view. I believe that because I am willing to site actual works, and give examples, I have the stronger claim. Please, show us some examples to support your argument.

[ihavenofish]

you are good at evading what everyone is telling you with long winded posts. but the answer hasnt change in the 2 years since you made this thread.

if the overwhelming majority of the core work is done at the control of human hands, its hand made. introducting cnc for roughing the shape then doing final carving by hand is "final carving by hand".

its the same as calling something made in the USA. its only supposed to get the label legally if the overwhelming majority of the work was done in the US, not just the paint, assembly and detail work.

[Geof]

Exactly! The CNC is just a part of the material preparation. The skill and craftsmanship is what happens AFTER the roughed out piece comes off of the machine. My point exactly!

Not really. If I machine a three dimensionald shape in wood using CAM with an appreciable stepover and a fast feed, and then sand down the rough surface to get a smooth sculpture it is stretching a point to call the end product hand crafted.

However, if I chew the same shape (or pretty close to it) out of a block of wood using a hand held chain saw then finish it by hand sanding it is hand crafted.

I think the key point is whether the tool is guided only by the hands/arms of the operator. And the tool can be powered, stone sculptors use air chisels and wood carvers use chainsaws or chainwheels on angle grinders.

[twoartistic]

Not really. If I machine a three dimensionald shape in wood using CAM with an appreciable stepover and a fast feed, and then sand down the rough surface to get a smooth sculpture it is stretching a point to call the end product hand crafted.

I addressed this in my last post, and I am in agreement with you. Or was I not clear? Again, I do NOT believe that rastering a shape out and sanding it is hand-crafting. How many times and ways do I have to say it?


But my original post was not about hand crafting. It was about what is or is not art in relation to technology. A viewer pointed out that soon after the words hand-crafted were shown in one of my videos, a piece that obviously had significant CNC work is shown. Yes that piece has CNC work as PART of that design. Did he bother to study the piece directly following the title block? No, he wanted to dog the title block "hand crafted". The piece following the title block was created before I even owned a CNC. It had no CNC work in it, at all. Even the piece that had significant CNC work, also was MOSTLY, hand-crafted. But I never put that piece forward as hand-crafted. Only mostly hand-crafted, in subsequent conversations.

Even with all that, I contend that my argument is more correct. Since nearly all materials are at some point processed in part or in whole by advanced technology in our modern society, the definition of hand-crafting is MORE about what happens after that technology is used. Hand cut, carved, painted, hewn, crafted, are just that, done by hand. They demonstrate the skills of the craftsman. What happens before that is preparation. Every art piece I have created is set apart by far more hand work that goes into the piece than automation. The automation is prep work. Just like buying a rough cut board. You are not buying the tree, you are buying significant technology and automation to get it to that state. That is the value of technology, shortening the time and effort to get to the craftsmanship part. Otherwise craftsmen would spend a lot less time in lumber yards, and a lot more time in the woods.

The great masters often had apprentices to rough out their work. Their time and value was applied to the concept and finishing of the piece, not the grunt work. Our modern automation is the continuing refinement of that prep work. How many artist still gather minerals and dies to mix their own paints. 300 years ago, that was part of the craft. Today few artist go to the trouble, there is little value attached to proving you are a paint mixer in addition to an artist. In that same regard, there is little value in proving you are capable of hand sawing a board, or hand sawing out an arched molding blank. No, nearly all the value is in your vision, proportion, shape and hand finishing. I have never, ever, not even once had someone approach me at a gallery showing and ask what machines I use. Instead they run their hands over the hand hewn and carved details, the hand forged hardware, the hand painted finishes, hand rubbed oil finish, and compliment the work. They frequently ask how much time goes into the piece, and are amazed at how long it takes to do some of the work. I think that some of you are discounting the hours and weeks that goes into hand working these pieces. If all it takes is pushing a button, and doing a little sanding, show me that piece, I want to see what you are talking about in comparison.

I use a saying all the time, "if it were easy, everybody would be doing it." Since it is sooooo easy, and automatable, (not sure that is a real word), show us. Crank something out, and post a pic. I have a feeling if you try to reproduce some of these items, you will gain an appreciation for just how many blisters you earn doing an "automated piece."

[twoartistic]

you are good at evading what everyone is telling you with long winded posts. but the answer hasnt change in the 2 years since you made this thread.

I agree, I am still correct. And a few diehards is not everyone. Still no examples? Show me what you mean. I have been bold enough to post examples, and defend them. Are you? Show us the modern craftsman who's work is not significantly impacted by technology? Let's talk about how that differs from what was being produced in years past. How are the arts effected? How are they made better, worse, unchanged. That's why I posted in the first place. Not that I am unhappy with how the discussion has evolved, but it would be nice if you could at least show an example and explain how it proves your point. Let's start with that, or are you worried that your example would be hard to defend. It is one thing to pick apart what someone is saying, it is another to put forward your own example and stand by it.

[louieatienza]

I addressed this in my last post, and I am in agreement with you. Or was I not clear? Again, I do NOT believe that rastering a shape out and sanding it is hand-crafting. How many times and ways do I have to say it?


But my original post was not about hand crafting. It was about what is or is not art in relation to technology. A viewer pointed out that soon after the words hand-crafted were shown in one of my videos, a piece that obviously had significant CNC work is shown. Yes that piece has CNC work as PART of that design. Did he bother to study the piece directly following the title block? No, he wanted to dog the title block "hand crafted". The piece following the title block was created before I even owned a CNC. It had no CNC work in it, at all. Even the piece that had significant CNC work, also was MOSTLY, hand-crafted. But I never put that piece forward as hand-crafted. Only mostly hand-crafted, in subsequent conversations.

Even with all that, I contend that my argument is more correct. Since nearly all materials are at some point processed in part or in whole by advanced technology in our modern society, the definition of hand-crafting is MORE about what happens after that technology is used. Hand cut, carved, painted, hewn, crafted, are just that, done by hand. They demonstrate the skills of the craftsman. What happens before that is preparation. Every art piece I have created is set apart by far more hand work that goes into the piece than automation. The automation is prep work. Just like buying a rough cut board. You are not buying the tree, you are buying significant technology and automation to get it to that state. That is the value of technology, shortening the time and effort to get to the craftsmanship part. Otherwise craftsmen would spend a lot less time in lumber yards, and a lot more time in the woods.

The great masters often had apprentices to rough out their work. Their time and value was applied to the concept and finishing of the piece, not the grunt work. Our modern automation is the continuing refinement of that prep work. How many artist still gather minerals and dies to mix their own paints. 300 years ago, that was part of the craft. Today few artist go to the trouble, there is little value attached to proving you are a paint mixer in addition to an artist. In that same regard, there is little value in proving you are capable of hand sawing a board, or hand sawing out an arched molding blank. No, nearly all the value is in your vision, proportion, shape and hand finishing. I have never, ever, not even once had someone approach me at a gallery showing and ask what machines I use. Instead they run their hands over the hand hewn and carved details, the hand forged hardware, the hand painted finishes, hand rubbed oil finish, and compliment the work. They frequently ask how much time goes into the piece, and are amazed at how long it takes to do some of the work. I think that some of you are discounting the hours and weeks that goes into hand working these pieces. If all it takes is pushing a button, and doing a little sanding, show me that piece, I want to see what you are talking about in comparison.

I use a saying all the time, "if it were easy, everybody would be doing it." Since it is sooooo easy, and automatable, (not sure that is a real word), show us. Crank something out, and post a pic. I have a feeling if you try to reproduce some of these items, you will gain an appreciation for just how many blisters you earn doing an "automated piece."

OK send me the g-code for your stuff, my machine will handle the grunt work, and I'll hand sand it for twoo weeks and use a brush to finish it. Is that art? What then would be teh difference if YOU sanded and finished it? I can hand-sand pretty damn good, almost to a fault. Heck, a good carver doesn't need to finish sand a piece.

To a purist, sanding is man's way of removing the marks that his machines had made. It's a way to pass machine work as hand work. Maybe greater credibility would be had if one was so deft with his/her chisels that no sanding is required after finished carving. The subtle shimmer a piece of wood has after a fine shaving with a sharp gouge or finely turned edge of a scraper is far superior to the almost dull look that sanding leaves.

Not saying sanding doesn't have it's place, but sanding in an of itself is by no means an absolute measure of skill.

As for the masters having their apprentices doing all the rough work - how do you think the apprentices roughed out the work? Hmmmmmmm....

[twoartistic]

OK send me the g-code for your stuff, my machine will handle the grunt work, and I'll hand sand it for twoo weeks and use a brush to finish it. Is that art? What then would be teh difference if YOU sanded and finished it? I can hand-sand pretty damn good, almost to a fault. Heck, a good carver doesn't need to finish sand a piece.

I agree, I never sand a carved piece, ever.

[twoartistic]

OK send me the g-code for your stuff, my machine will handle the grunt work, and I'll hand sand it for twoo weeks and use a brush to finish it. Is that art? What then would be teh difference if YOU sanded and finished it?

Good Idea, here is the g-code for a section of a carved door. If you have a small machine you will have to put it in a code editor to bring the x and y into the range of your table. 0.0 z is the top surface of the material. My machine is set up so that 0,0 is the bottom left corner of the machine.

I used a .125" radius 3 degree tapered bit to rough this out. You can use a standard .125" radius ball nose, and it will work fine, as long as the side cut is deep enough. If not run one pass high, then the final pass at the correct depth. The stepover is set at 0.1" per pass, rastering at 45 degrees.

I drew this design as a hand sketch, in a topo map style, then imported it into photoshop to paint bucket grey scale into the drawing. Then I imported the grey scale file into Artcam to create a relief from the greyscale. I used a smooth operation just to soften the edge transitions and speed up the cutting. The tolerance was set quite loose at 0.01" because this was just a roughing operation.

The last relevant information is budget. To fully understand how far an artist pushes a commissioned project, the budget needs to be taken into account. Carving these two doors had to be finished in just 3 days, start to finish, to stay on budget. I ended up putting an extra day into them, so two days each. I usually don't have time in a budget to do the level of shape programming reserved for production items that are going to be produced by the thousands. I have to amortize programming into one unit, so it is pretty down and dirty to make it cost effective. Nothing fancy, just get rid of the bulk of the material.

If you run this file you will see it is a true rough out, all the CNC is doing is getting rid of most of the material. All of the elevation blending and shaping is done with hand gouges. I could have sketched the same design onto the panel, and used a hand router, or gouges to remove the bulk of the material, but that is the grunt work, not the craftsmanship portion of the project.

[twoartistic]

Here is a screen shot of the tool path simulation of the toolpath I posted. For those who may not have a machine to run this on, you can see how rough it starts out. Compare it to the detail photo in my last post. Considering the time allotment for this project, this section was hand carved in about an hour and a half, two at most.

I used the first day of the project to draw and program the rough out. The first panel was roughed out by the CNC over night. I started carving the first panel on the morning of the second day, while the CNC roughed out the second panel. I was teaching a student artist at the time, she did some of the texture carving, while I did the detail and shaping. We spent 3 days carving the panels. Or a total of about 55 - 60 hours carving time.

[judleroy]

I think the answer to all this is pretty simple. If you do each and every process by hand (hand tools only no power tools) then you can claim the title of artist. When you add power tools and machines of any kind as long as you do all the background work (design, layout, shape, finish) you can claim the title of craftsman. If you only do one or two parts of a job and others do the rest then your neither a artist or craftsman your an employee. I have always been told that an art can also be a craft but a craft cannot be an art.
Art is made for no purpose but to look at or feel but can sometimes be a useful item. Crafts are made to be used for a purpose not just to be seen. I hope you find the right answers for your questions.
Good luck.
judleroy

[ihavenofish]

Here is a screen shot of the tool path simulation of the toolpath I posted. For those who may not have a machine to run this on, you can see how rough it starts out. Compare it to the detail photo in my last post. Considering the time allotment for this project, this section was hand carved in about an hour and a half, two at most.

I used the first day of the project to draw and program the rough out. The first panel was roughed out by the CNC over night. I started carving the first panel on the morning of the second day, while the CNC roughed out the second panel. I was teaching a student artist at the time, she did some of the texture carving, while I did the detail and shaping. We spent 3 days carving the panels. Or a total of about 55 - 60 hours carving time.

with that much pre machining, it would be very difficult to justify the hand made title. hand finished, hand detailed, sure, but not hand made. it would be misleading.

[tc429]

in the whole art/vs tech arguement, cant technology BE art? I wouldnt call myself a artist by any stretch, but came up with some neat little projects over the years- some real, some not...if a machine runs right, nobody even knows how the ladder works, or cares- we built a cell to balance some big castings- rather than buy a custom machine, we wrote a custom interface to a standard machine, wrote a 13 page macro that took standard balance info, touchprobed and machined the part...is it art/technology, or just a machine?
a few years back we had big issues with Marposs probe life on a job that measured 30,000 pcs A DAY, costs were killing us...I talked them into letting us try something different, built a 68.00 LVDT into a 25.00 Bimba air cylinder, used a panasonic PLC/touchscreen, and for under 3000.00 replaced about 10,000.00 worth of probes that didnt hold up more than a week...we ran literally millions of cycles at 25 millionths resolution, never replaced a part. fun stuff- and the touchscreen was setup where the operators didnt 'need a book' to use it... I dunno about 'art' but technology can build itself into what might be seen as artistic applications. Ive seen some truly wild stuff over the years, some neat, some a stupid waste...
we built a small desk sized drill (out of mostly used parts) that GM eventually bought off us to replace a 1.2 million dollar 50 foot long transfer machine that didnt work...I had a 6,500 budget, built TWO machines for that, we ran the job over a year(they were paying bigtime too) while they debugged their 'machine' then in the end they bought one of ours for 40k
IMO that big monstrosity of a transfer line was like a picasso piece of sh.. - 'art'. not all art is pretty, and some of it is a waste of time in the eyes of most folks...then if done right, some of it is invisible. take Fords PATS key, you get in turn the key it starts...you dont need to think about the rfid chip being read/relays/solenoids...the thing just works. is that invisible art or technology- or both?

[ihavenofish]

in the whole art/vs tech arguement, cant technology BE art?

theres no argument about art vs tech in this thread. its whether a cnc milled piece of are is "hand made". the answer is no in the example work above.

[twoartistic]

with that much pre machining, it would be very difficult to justify the hand made title. hand finished, hand detailed, sure, but not hand made. it would be misleading.

Many terms are industry driven. In the door, cabinet and furniture industry hand-crafted/hand-made, means that part of/or most of the the process was done by hand. ie carving, planing, shaping, finishing, etc.

Some of these companies tell you about the technology, most don't. Here are a few examples.

Exterior Hand Carved Doors

Here is how they explain the use of CNC in their "handcrafted" doors.

"This beautifully handcrafted door is the result of our ability to combine new world technology of door constructions with exceptional hand carving craftsmanship on the panels."

On of the factories that supplies there doors used to be my biggest customer, before they moved manufacturing to Mexico. They use CNC combined with hand-carving for almost all of their carving.

Home

Lone Peak does some amazing work. But they never talk about the technology behind there carvings. I know about the process, because I have been in their shop. They have an artist that sculpts the origonal in clay, then they laser scan the clay model. The wood carvings are then roughed out with a CNC and finished with rotary tools and hand tools.

Hand Carved Wood Entry Doors | Custom Wood Doors

He is probably closest to what people think about when they hear "hand-crafted", "hand-made" and "hand-carved". He does many of the processes by hand. But if your a purist, you may take exception to his use of router jigs and using a router to hog out some of his carvings. He does not use a CNC.

All of these companies are producing handcrafted pieces in my opinion. They all aproach it in a different way. They all use some form of technology to remove the bulk of the material. I am certain there are also guys out there making doors, cabinets and furniture with only hand tools, no power tools at all. I didn't include any, because I don't personally know anyone who still does, so I could not say for sure that they do not use some automation. I am talking about my peers in commercial endeavors here, not the guys who are hobbyists. I do know of hobbyists that do it all by hand, start to finish.

So unless you can convince an intire industry that the terms handmade/handcrafted should not be used if the piece has not been intirely handcrafted I am certain the use will continue. I don't recall if it was on this forum, but someone suggested that there may actually be a legal requirement, so I checked with the Utah State Dept. of Commerce. There was no guidelines in using the term, except in jewelery I think, and even then, if a portion of the jewelery was handcrafted, the term was still usable.

In my opinion the term is valid when hand crafting is used on a piece. Especially if the application of that skill creates a texture, look, or feature that cannot be produced by a machine. No machine I know of can gouge out wood, keeping the grain variations aligned with the tool, as to not create tearout. Hand carving will always have a place, until robots have a soul, passion and love for the wood and a dexterity, vision and feel fine enough to express that with the tool. In the mean time my craft is safe.

[ger21]

He is probably closest to what people think about when they hear "hand-crafted", "hand-made" and "hand-carved".

Notice his website says "milled and hand planed", leading people to believe he hand planes the doors, even though he uses a jointer and planer, and the hand planing is probably just a finishing process.

Seems to me like throwing around the "hand made" words are an attempt to almost "mislead" the customers into thinking what they're buying is worth more.

Personally, I don't care if it's handmade or machine made. Art is art, and quality is quality, however it's made. And real art isn't restricted by budget constraints. That's a job. jmo.

[twoartistic]

Notice his website says "milled and hand planed", leading people to believe he hand planes the doors, even though he uses a jointer and planer, and the hand planing is probably just a finishing process.

Seems to me like throwing around the "hand made" words are an attempt to almost "mislead" the customers into thinking what they're buying is worth more.

Personally, I don't care if it's handmade or machine made. Art is art, and quality is quality, however it's made. And real art isn't restricted by budget constraints. That's a job. jmo.

Yes, the hand planing is the finishing process.

It is easy to live with ideology. Reality is more challenging. The reality is that once a labor saving technology becomes industry wide you must adopt that technology to stay competitive. When was the last time you bought a pound of hand churned butter?

Technology moves the reference point. I remember helping out with my grandpa and his brother while they built a garage. His brother had a circular saw, it was the first one I had ever seen. We had only ever used hand saws for cross cutting boards. My grandpa was quite proud of the fact that he could cut just as clean a cut by hand, but at the end of the day, the power saw was doing all the cutting.

As I mentioned in my starting post, the valley I grew up in did not have electricity when I was growing up, so we didn't own any power tools besides a chain saw. I have hand hewn, hand sawn, hand planed boards down from the lumber we felled on our ranch. I know the skills, sweat and blisters required to do those tasks. So do many of my peers. The problem is, even if you wanted to follow that pure of a path to creation, you would be extremely hard pressed to find a market to create a living at it (unless you live in a third world economy). I think it is valuable to know the skills and offer them to your clients. Some have been willing to pony up the dollars required to go that route, but that is the exception rather than the rule.

Reality puts bread on the table, purist ideology... not so much.

One of my mentors explained this to me early on, "commercial artists like us get paid for getting the work done, so I hope you are getting a fortune for putting in all that detail." I of course was not getting paid a fortune, I was building my reputation. I learned that reputation building can earn you a whopping $2 bucks an hour, if that. ;-)

[louieatienza]

I'm going to try to speak plainly about this. First off, your work is very good, and the designs are pleasing and well-proportioned. I understand fully the necessity of using technology to offer something that could probably not be conpensated fully for, or made more accesible, using manual means.

Basically not many people have the conviction to do a project entirely without power tools, and live out of a tie-dye microbus wearing the same clothes every day (Deadheads excluded)...

I think the point of contention amongst many here is the impications or inferences one makes when seeing the words "hand crafted." The words conjour romantic visions of a candle-lit workshop, with the sounds of mallet-hitting-chisel and saw-cutting-wood and hammer-driving-nail.

Now, one either make the choice of being honest about what you do, or "parse" words to justify one's position, or give the "impression" of something that is not. I truly believe that you believe what you do is hand-crafting; and after thinking this through that's fine with me. Honestly, since I probably won't be purchasing anything from you, and you from me, our discussion is more an exercise in spirited debate. While I can't agree with some of your points, I understand what you're getting at; and I think the "semantics" get in the way.

That said, I present Thomas Kinkade, the "painter of light." He's made a francise out of his artwork, though most of what he sells I wouldn't consider art. There are three tiers from what I believe: the 100 percent, hand painted originals; the "lithographs" over textured canvas with "details" hand-brushed in, and the 100 percent lithographs. The lithographs are printed on canvas that had been textured to simulate the brushstrokes of the originals. Although they make no claims that they are hand-crafted, they are presented at the malls as if tehy were, with a pricetag to match. I for one am not a believer in the collectability of "manufactured" rarities, but these things do sell, and I guess there is the demand for replicas of the real deal.

On the other hand, it may not be well known, but aside from the micro-lettering, the dies used to make the blocks for printing US currency are all engraved by hand, on lead ingots, using graving tools. Engravers work continuously under a scopre to carve the tiniest of details; it truly is a phenomenal skill. So now, does that make all dollar bills hand-made? Look at the wood block prints of MC Escher. The amount of detail he carved into those wood blocks is phenomenal, especially considering he was working in reverse, and negative! He used his own press to make his prints; I believe each one is a hand-made work of art. Conversely, Ansel Adams was one of the greatest photographers ever, and what he did was definitely art in my book, though even though he did his own developing and printing, I wouldn't call anything he did hand-made...

Maybe hand-detailed, hand-embellished, hand-finished, hand-worked might be a better description for some of our work. Saying "hand-crafted" seems to be a bit pretentious. "Hand-made" would be a flat-out lie, by your own definition. But then you contradict yourself. You say that if you rough out a carving, then basically take a shallow gouge to hide the mill marks left by your ball endmill, then that's hand crafting? But nothing is ever truly hand-made because the tools are made by machine, even the hand-tools?

I could even play devil's advocate and say that this forum entitled "Woodworking" is a misnomer; for since this is the CNC Zone, and this is a forum for CNC "woodworking," shouldn't this section be called "wood machining?" Because in reality, we're just "engineers" programming a machine to make precise cuts in wood. In fact, we really don't even do the programming; our computers and CAM software do that; we just select a feature and a toolpath type and sit back.

If anyone has facebook, I have some of my work "preserved" there for posterity's sake (my screen name here with a space in between); although I am proud of what I've done, it's not intended to "show off" but to answer the question many of my friends ask - "what do I do and what am I working on?" Hehehe...

[twoartistic]

I'm going to try to speak plainly about this

Bravo Louie! An excellent and well thought out presentation of your perspective!

I do believe it is the semantics that are getting in the way of finding a level of agreement. The perception of what is the acceptable use of terminology can be colored by many factors and is different for each of us.

I appreciate your considerable efforts to convey your position, you have sparked deeper contemplation of the subject. I will attempt to honor your efforts with the same level of intellectual honesty in my presentations of my views.

I am far more inclusive in the arena of what is art and craftsmanship than some. Perhaps that is a reflection of having created on both ends of the spectrum, and knowing that while the skill sets are different, the effort is still a 100% commitment to achieving excellence. I am inclusive enough to feel that the presentation of the history of motorcycles at the Guggenheim Museum was as valid an exposition of art as the Monet exhibit in Paris. Original art and design start in the vapors of the imagination, how they are created can be awe inspiring, yet what truly speaks to me is something far more ethereal. It is as if you can feel the spirit and soul of the artist as you view there work. When you discover it, and it speaks to you, you know you are witness to exceptionalism.

[Mcgyver]

What then would be teh difference if YOU sanded and finished it?

sanding + wood = an industrial product sorry, I'm of the school sandpaper doesn't belong in a wood shop....scrape/plane half a board and sand the other half if you need convincing.


There are a lot of interesting posts here but I've come to the conclusion there's no right and wrong, just opinion. There is so much overlap between art, craft, design and even engineering....I can scatter a handful of chips on the floor and call it art - but do you? Someone crapped in a can or someone floated a bunch of old boards down a river - is that art to you? Not to me but it is according to the Tate gallery.

If I had to define art it would be something that gets done just because the artist is overwhelming compelled to do it, it is creative and that i like it. Vivaldi is art. Monet is art. A steven segal movie or a pop song is not, that's an entertainment product....according to me! The model engines I make are not because the artistic creativity isn't quite the same as engineering prowess and problem solving - according to me! Kitchen cupboards and horse doors are not so much art.....I think because they look like they're done as a commercial undertaking to fill a practical need as opposed to you just waking up and building a kitchen because it was just so fundamental to your being you had no choice.....but again, that's only me! Its just opinion and there is no right wrong.

If I had to be reflective on it, I'd say the only one not really qualified to judge whether its art or not is the creator....other than that pretty much everything seems fair game to be considered art by someone. Frankly I think it would devastate a Mozart to see the likes of a Michael Jackson.... or a Michelangelo see the likes of a Duchamp...labeled as artists but everyone gets to decide there own opinion.

Your work looks really great. I was watching the video link in first post I was wishing it wasn't moving around and changing so frequently, made it hard to see...maybe its there as an album ( didn't look for it)?