Reading Response: The Nature and Art of Workmanship by David Pye

David Pye has managed to write quite eloquently about a topic that I think about quite a lot in my personal art practice. Questions of “What is craft?” and “Is it necessary?”, even “Will it survive?” are often swirling in my head when I think about printmaking, or more specifically, letterpress printing.

Letterpress has all the hallmarks of a craft: it feels like its backwards, its slow and arduous, expensive, not efficient, and has a various range of qualities. Indeed, if you wanted something printed ‘perfectly’, you’d let a machine do all of it, instead of relying on (somewhat fickle) 60+ year old technology and materials and the human hand. But, this way of production has a certain feeling not present in those mass produced, digitally printed items. This is the workmanship of risk that Pye mentioned, and depends on variety of factors; the output isn’t fully known until it is produced. Granted, Pye cites printing as a form of workmanship of certainty, especially when compared with the pen, and cites a typewriter as sort of an intermediate form of the two types of workmanship.

It’s true, the printing press has certainly sped of production and increased accuracy as compared to handwritten/hand copied texts. I wonder in this modern age if the previous, non-digital presses are now pushed more towards the realm of workmanship of risk than they were previously. As new technology is created, do the things it replaced become less of certainty and more of risk?

I like the idea that even workmanship of certainty is based on the jigs and tools produced via the workmanship of risk. There is still value in this form of workmanship, even as it dwindles in practitioners, as it becomes more and more financially impossible to make a living from it. Indeed, the article states that it must be done for love, and not for money. I think I have always known this about printing: while there certainly is a way to make money at it, it’s not necessarily a path I want to follow. Summed up neatly, Pye writes, “What matters most is not long experience, but to have one’s heart in the job and to insist on the extreme of professionalism.” Pye even states that sometimes earning hours and creative hours can be kept separate, that it might be better that way. What an idea in this modern culture that tells us we must do what we love, or that we should find a way to monetize our hobbies. Should we though? I’m not exactly convinced. I especially liked this quote, and so I will end on it:

We forget the prodigies one man and a kit of tools can do if he likes the work enough.”