QuantumD

I have been working as an artisan for almost 8 years now. Artisan being a person who make a product with dexterity. I am also a woodworker, but I work in glass, metal, and do my own design work from scale dimension drawings, mock models, and proof of point research. Being adept in many trades has gives me almost an outsider view of the woodworking world, and an interesting view of all of you die hard wood guys and hobbyist players alike.

I learned dove tails only a year ago. Never had the need for them.. still have not, but I want to and know I will. I make drawers depending on the project, but I know dovetails and I can cut them by hand or my machine (router, table saw, band saw, etc). This argument though intriguing... is silly. I want to gain as many skills as my talent can pull in and use.. one skill always leads to mastery of other things as well.. some that can surprise you.

Aesthetics are learned appreciations not instinctual design. To the general masses a dovetail means as much as can of soup.. they may have heard it or even know what it is but they know noting intrinsic about the joint or the process. They also do not care other than what we as artisans tell them is important to know.. interior designers do the same.. but they also DO NOT understand the process only how to sell the joinery.

I was told back in design school to "Learn by hand and you will know what the machine does." You have more control over the joint, the process and the project... if you know why and how the joint works. When I teach.. I encourage my students to know their body. Their body is the most important tool in the shop. Dovetails... above all things are about how your body relates to the wood. How you stand and hold the saw... how you chisel and chop and pair down. It is not elitist, purist, or bad in any manner to love and master ones body as a tool.. and dovetails really are the most visible expression of skill there is in woodworking. But the neither joint nor the process should control you. Personally I do not believe in teaching to the tool.. nor to the market.

But then all of us came to woodworking in different ways and have different desires for what we get out of the trade. Follow that path.. your own.. and to emphatically argue one way or the other.. is more damaging than elitism.