Why We Make Things and Why It Matters: The Education of a Craftsman

by Peter Korn

Overview

A furniture maker and author offers a mix of personal memoir and personal philosophy in a book perfect for craftspersons, artisans, and artists.

Woodworking, handicrafts—the rewards of creative practice, bringing something new and meaningful into the world through one’s own vision, make us fully alive. Peter Korn explains his search for meaning as an Ivy League-educated child of the middle class who finds employment as a novice carpenter on Nantucket, transitions to self-employment as a designer/maker of fine furniture, takes a turn at teaching at Colorado’s Anderson Ranch Arts Center, and finally founds a school in Maine: the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship, an internationally respected, non-profit institution.

This is not a “how-to” book in any sense. Korn wants to get at the why of craft and the satisfactions of creative work to understand their essential nature. How does the making of objects shape our identities? How does creative work enrich our communities and society? What does the process of making things reveal to us about ourselves? Korn poignantly provides answers in this book that is for the artist, artisan, crafter, do-it-yourselfer inside us all.

“In his beautiful book, Peter Korn invites us to understand craftsmanship as an activity that connects us to others, and affirms what is best in ourselves.” —Matthew Crawford, New York Times–bestselling author of Shop Class as Soulcraft

“What is the point of craft in a completely mass-produced world?... This fascinating account offers insights into the significance of the handmade object for the maker as well as for society as a whole.” —Martin Puryear, artist, recipient of the Guggenheim and MacArthur Foundation Fellowships

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781567925142
Publisher:	David R. Godine, Publisher
Publication date:	12/18/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	176
Sales rank:	908,118
File size:	7 MB

About the Author

Peter Korn is the founder and executive director of the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship in Rockport, Maine. A furniture maker since 1974, he exhibits in galleries and museums around the country. He is also the author of award-winning how-to books, including Woodworking Basics: Mastering the Essentials of Craftsmanship.

Table of Contents

Introduction 7

Chapter 1 A Shared Hunger 9

Chapter 2 Hammering Out a Vocation 15

Chapter 3 The Seductive Ideology of Craft 29

Chapter 4 Live from New York 37

Chapter 5 Heart, Head, and Hand 49

Chapter 6 Thinking With Things 57

Chapter 7 Exercising My Voice 69

Chapter 8 The Inward Migration of Truth 89

Chapter 9 Second Epiphany 97

Chapter 10 Mapping a Craftsman's Mind 107

Chapter 11 A Miracle at the Heart of the Ordinary 121

Chapter 12 Creating a School 127

Chapter 13 The Creative Cycle 147

Chapter 14 A Good Life 159

Endnotes 169

Selected Reading List 173

Index 175

Editorial Reviews

11/25/2013
In this philosophical reflection, Korn (Woodworking Basics), a long-time furniture maker who founded the non-profit Center for Furniture Craftsmanship, takes readers on a journey both spiritual and personal, recounting his life spent as a builder and teacher. Clearly, endless hours alone in the workshop have given him time to think; this introspective study alternates between biographical sequences and navel-gazing, endless questions related to craft and purpose, function and design, bubbling to the surface. As he states, "…creative effort is a process of challenging embedded narratives of belief in order to think the world into being for oneself, and that the work involved in doing so provides a wellspring of spiritual fulfillment." When talking about his personal growth—his attempts to start a business, his battles with cancer , his struggle to create a teaching space—Korn is straight-forward and engaging. When he delves into the more abstract and ephemeral notions, evoking the classic Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, the narrative loses both focus and intensity, becoming a hazy, meditative piece. Color photos. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

The style of Peter Korn’s lovely, patient and fastidious ode to craft, Why We Make Things and Why It Matters, mirrors the technical precision and style he has used in his career as a furniture maker and teacher.”—The New York Times

“In his beautiful book, Peter Korn invites us to understand craftsmanship as an activity that connects us to others, and affirms what is best in ourselves.”—Matthew Crawford, author of Shop Class as Soulcraft

“An uplifting title for artisans, novice or skilled, who will benefit from the ideas of a kindred spirit.”—Library Journal

“Peter Korn’s brilliant new book resonates with me as a visual artist in a profound way. I share his passion for craft and admire his ability to take a plank of wood and fashion anything he sets his mind to. Throughout the centuries, furniture makers and painters have shared a set of belief systems centered on craft. The pleasure and calm that I get as a painter fashioning a complicated work from colored dirt on canvas is, I believe, the same pleasure and peace that Peter Korn and his students get as craftsmen.”—Chuck Close

From the Publisher

10/15/2013
Here, furniture maker Korn (Woodworking Basics: Mastering the Essentials of Craftsmanship) shifts from how-to guides to a more philosophical approach to woodcraft. Tracing his evolution as an artist, he chronicles his beginning with carpentry/early efforts, then describes his ownership of a storefront in New York City's Little Italy in the 1970s and his first solo show in 1981 at the Gross McCleaf Gallery in Philadelphia. Korn taught at Anderson Ranch in Colorado and eventually opened a school, the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship, in Rockport, ME. He discusses having cancer as a young man and describes its return when he was older and the impact it had on his life. This book documents Korn's personal philosophy, interweaves art and existence, and is based on a strong belief in his work. He mentions as influential Robert M. Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values, Richard Sennett's The Craftsman, and Matthew B. Crawford's Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work, as well as other books that have explored similar territory. VERDICT An uplifting title for artisans, novice or skilled, who will benefit from the ideas of a kindred spirit.—Barbara Kundanis, Longmont P.L., CO

Library Journal