Images: on the left “Broadway”, 1947, by Todd Webb. On the right, muralist Jenny Phillips at work.
On my morning ride to work today while cycling past a shopkeeper touching up a storefront sign, I was reminded of one of my favorite images: a 1947 Todd Webb photograph of a sign painter in New York. The sign painter is very much a craftsman practicing his craft – and watching craftspeople practicing their craft is a wonderfully rewarding activity (and it certainly attracted the photographer's attention). For example, when we go to a concert or dance performance, whatever the musical genre, we are in effect watching (and listening to) craftspeople practicing their craft. Author Richard Sennett estimates that it takes about 10,000 hours to become a master craftsperson (or musician or ballet dancer) – a somewhat awe-inspiring contrast to the instantaneous product generated by AI (Philosopher Immanuel Kant once suggested that "the hand is the window onto the mind” – does this mean that AI is the window onto the mindless?).
The spectacle of craftsmanship used to be very much in evidence in our cities – furniture makers, ropemakers, dressmakers, as well as the butchering of meat, the casting of glass, the cobbling of shoes. Walk down a pedestrian street in Barcelona and many other cities today, and you’ll see store after store catering to tourists – but before the advent of 19th century tourism and the proliferation of soft goods retail, all these spaces would have been workshops of various kinds, filled with artisans and open to the street. Today the spectacle of the street is much diminished: street musicians still ply their trade, but manufacturing is now hidden away in suburban boxes – and so we have to go to YouTube to watch potters, woodturners, cabinet makers at work.
There is however some hope of seeing more craftspeople plying their trade in our cities: the covid-19 emptying of downtown storefronts has led to some creative thinking about what uses could replace retail, and some limited forms of manufacturing and craftsmanship have popped up here and there. In San Francisco, SF Made is a local organization promoting small scale manufacturing, and it has been actively involved in finding storefront manufacturing space for its members. A few blocks from our office, a local radio station has created an event pop-up space in a formerly empty storefront, and it’s fun to see people getting interviewed – a modest version of Times Square’s Good Morning America. The proliferation of public art such as murals (whether in public or private projects) brings both art and craft into the public realm; and we can always go to a restaurant with an open kitchen or a chef’s table to witness the craft of preparing delicious food.
Craftsmanship is something that can touch all of us - most of us can relate to the level of effort that it takes to craft a creation that we can be proud of. Although our society of mass production tends not to reward craftspeople (and tends to over-use the word “artisanal”, implying craft when there often is none), Sennett suggests that the self-worth achieved through craftsmanship is reward enough – which is also why watching a craftsperson at work is such a rewarding experience. With the challenges faced by the retail sector, will craftsmanship be able to come “out of the closet” and into our storefronts, and once again become part of the spectacle of the street?
