I don’t think intent has very much to do with it.
You make good work, or you don’t.
The only question that remains is how long it will take before the work’s quality is widely recognized.
Think about great painters – some were recognized widely in their lifetime and others not until long after their death. But none could make it so simply by intending to be great.
Famous, that’s another question. Skilled self promoters can become famous and widely known, but if their work is not truly good, they are not “great” and the fame will not last.
Replies
Skill is only one aspect. While you may need skill to make great pieces, high skills in no way ensures a great piece. The joinery, finish, etc, may be impeccable, but if the aesthetic sucks, it's all for naught. The proof is in the pieces, period.
As far as some being denied, it may happen. Just as it it may happen that a painter may paint a great work in her basement, store it in her attic, and never show it to anyone who recognizes its greatness. But in practice, anyone who puts themselves out there at all, is sooner or later recognized if they are indeed prodigious in their talent (of whatever sort).
Wineman,
When you look at the work of the men you've mentioned do you see just craftsmanship? or is more being communicated to you through their objects...
"I’m saying that there’s more to greatness in woodworking then just good composition and joinery and many uninitiated don’t have a clue as to what they are looking at unless some one tells them."
Could it be the other way around? That the initiated, not the uninitiated, have no clue? In blind wine tastings, even by experts, there is typically little correlation between a wine's cost and how highly it is ranked by the tasters. There are a few wines that consistently rank very highly (these are the truly "great" wines), but only a few.
If people who have an interest in things made of wood (but aren't "in the know") don't rank a piece highly, I think that says something about the piece, not about the people. Naïve aesthetic assessments can be the most honest, as they are relatively free of suggestion bias.
-Steve
There are lots of rather intractable philosophy of aesthetics questions in your musings.
There is an age old debate about "high art" versus "craft." I doubt we'll solve that one.
There are the questions of taste.
There is the question of the ability to recognize the quality in new and challenging works (ground breaking rather than proven and accepted motifs).
Think of Impressionistic paintings. Many critics and the masses disliked them at the time they were created as too messy, abstract, and blurry, etc.. But most people today recognize them as masterful. Some people recognized them as great in their time, and it wasn't only those who were trained in art.
Think of fine wine versus the grocery store boxed variety. Most folks can taste the difference. But without an experienced pallette from trying many wines, the average person may be unable to distinguish which vintage or variety of a current crop is best, or more to the point, will will hold up as the best as it ages.
So yeah, most folks are ignorant (note that I mean ignorant, and am not using it as a synonym for stupid) and don't have a good eye for quality regarding things outside their experience. That said, once shown the differences, they can readily appreciate them. Indeed, that's why the avant garde becomes mainstream over time.
I think greatness in woodworking can be attributed to; (a) Design. All the people you mentioned had new and unique designs. (b) Skill. They are all great craftsmen and pay intense attention to detail. (c) Luck. They made things that someone liked and they told someone else and someone wrote an article in a magazine and so on and so forth. Luck is huge.
I on the other hand will never be known as a great woodworker, regardless of luck or skill. Too bad. I'm a pretty good dentist though.
Jim
Edited 7/8/2008 6:04 pm ET by James R.
I don't know about greatness. If you want to "make it" in woodworking, either in terms of commercial success or critical acclaim, you definitely need to be able to do more than work wood. Lots of guys can do the work Nakashima did. Its not technically difficult. I guess the old adage is true. You have to be true to yourself. And when you put a piece of yourself into your work, and you are enthused about your work, doing the stuff you need to do to succeed won't feel or look like schmoozing.
Adam
"Lots of guys can do the work Nakashima did."But that's not the measure. Technical difficulty is not a prerequisite to aesthetic success.The fact that others are able to copy a work is no measure of the original's worth.I can print copies of a Rembrandt, or hire a technically talented art student to reproduce it stroke for stroke in oils, but it doesn't effect the value of the original or detract from the fact that Rembrandt created it (not just copied something).
I believe that the term greatness and fine are both very vague and overused terms. In terms of art, greatness is achieved by a broad recognition of ones pieces and innovation of style. There are great fine artists producing work today achieving success even in the realist genre. Look how long realism has been around but somehow some way, great painters come along such as Jeremy Lipking who will outright claim that John Singer Sargent is one of his biggest idols and though his style is similar he has achieved international recognition and he is only 32. By being a realist, it doesn't mean that you are stuck in an academic style or a copycat but rather one who has admired the works, styles, and process of the greats and has taken that to build upon. Realism might be a revolving trend in which certain artists due to some added luck achieve success by producing great works during that time. How does this all tie into woodworking? Well, I think that you don't have to create things beyond the modern genre in which the likes have never been seen before, but I do think that innovation comes into play. A piece can be traditional looking yet innovative with the artisans "integral signature" which then becomes his style and is then recognized as a "maloof" or a "john doe." All areas of art and design whether oil painting, architecture, woodworking intertwine. If one doesn't have a keen sense of design and aesthetics then they're pieces will fail to be great regardless of the craftsmanship.
I agree with you.
I never meant to imply that established genres could not be added to by new generations. There is, however, a difference between creating original pieces within a traditional genre and creating copies of pieces made by others in the past.
...and I agree with you as well. I just thought I'd add my 2 cents as well and when you started discussing art, I thought it'd be a perfect time to chime in! Making a living as an artist/illustrator myself and being just a beginner hobbyist woodworker, I absolutely love when art is brought into the discussion of woodworking.
A lot of it has to do with promotion, from what I've heard Sam Maloof's wife did wonders for his career. I love his rocker but everything else is "eh' who cares". I still don't get Krenov's popularity, but then I haven't read his books ( I don't think much of his cabinets so why would I?). It's "what makes art????" Promotion and timing??
But then I'm just a simple guy with simple tastes. Wine??? Sour grapes yuck!
Craftsmanship on par with any "great woodworker" can be found in many shops, sometimes innovation? But I've seen so many items that look like they tried to hard to be "different" and creative that just missed the mark by a long shot.
All disclaimers apply!
mousejockey, drinker of boxed wine!
Timing is everything. The proclaimed "greats" must have what it takes in terms of composition and execution, and it has to have an aesthetic to which the public will respond at a given time. The same work may be considered nothing special a generation later.
There are craftsmen now who design and build beautiful things, but who are not proclaimed as great because what they build is not "of the moment."
Joe
"How does a woodworker come to be recognized as great?"
Easy - and all three are required, nothing else matters:
1. Be reasonably good at what you do, and do it a bit differently than most.
2. Be extremely lucky - no amount of hard work will overcome this requirement.
3. Most importantly - be willing to live the vast majority of your life and have almost no money (and all of your life if you die younger than "old man" status). After you die (and not a day beforehand), whatever you've made will skyrocket in value and whatever you haven't sold will make your heirs rich.
I started to just put the reply: "Easy - die", but that seemed a bit too basic, though true.
Winemane,
I think that design is a greater factor than craftsmanship. Originality of a well-accepted design is critical. Krenov, Maloof, Nakashima, Stickley, etc. all poinneered design. They created a style of their own.
However, one can also make a name for themselves by making reproductions - copying tried and true designs. But I don't see that as being as easy.
Publicity is certainly important. Without anyone seeing your work, you will never get recognition. That's why most of us submit our work to magazines, upload photos to our websites or the Knots Gallery.
Chris @ www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
I will submit that a lot of it has to do with the support of their patrons. If they are there and continue to up the ante, and support the growth of the "artistic inspiration" then it will grow and flourish. But without their support, the cost and effort is just too great, and without point. So I guess I am saying that great artist are not born, or even rewarded for their exceptional talent, but are "made by their patrons".
I guess this would be a good time to reveal the latest Newton Equation (I~=0-U)
Before you spend a lot of time trying to figure out what that means, It is (I am more or less equal to nothing without you). Without the patrons that support the work in my visions, they are just wasted along with whatever talent I have developed through life.
If you look at the works of the craftsmen you have mentioned, something jumps out ay you. Sam's rocker, Wendell's clock series, George's slab tables or JK's cabinets on stand. These men each created something unique in their woodworking: a jenre if you will.
Each of these gentlemen is responsible for the inspiration guiding hundreds if not thousands of woodworkers. I have seen many "Maloof" rockers and many pieces "inspired" by these gentlemen (if not out and out knockoffs) but it is rare that I see a piece that is as inspired as an original. These craftsmen put a piece of their soul in their works!
It is unfortunate for our woodworking community that these craftsmen do not go on forever. Nakashima is gone, Krenov has ceased to build because physical problems won't allow him to build up to his standard, Wendell has slowed down and Sam is in his ninetys with a ten year backlog of orders. But, as these spirits pass, others will come along to take their place. Chippendale, Afleck, Shaw, Seymour, Goddard the list goes on and on.
Hopefully the grandson or granddaughter you take in to your shop and give inspiration to will join these great names.
Dick
You hit the nail on the head with your comments!
Very well said.
Wine,
Your question, and the replies all seem to agree that recognition is, or ought to be, somehow an expected result of greatness (whatever that it--skill, design, promotion, all of these); one of, or maybe the only real, reward, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The desire for recognition may be a universal human trait, but I would posit that it is separate from the drive to achieve excellence in craft. The cliche of the artist alone in his garret singlemindedly following his muse, vs that of the shameless self-promoter, highlights this.
Not to say that recognition or fame is either bad or good, just that it may or may not be the reason for any given artist or craftsman doing what he (she) does.Like Hillary (Edmund, not Rodham) who didn't answer, "For the recognition," as to why he climbed that little old hill.
Ray
Ray, it seems like we need to define "greatness." To me, it means the best works of a generation - best being those that are ultimately and generally recognized as superior to all others in terms of all the subjective qualities that matter. Can a work be great that has never been seen by anyone but the maker? Sure, but the maker will not be recognized as a creator of great works (i.e., "great" himself) until it it known to others.
I agree that artists are not typically driven to produce great works by the hope of fame. Indeed, I think the creative impulse is more like the hunger impulse or the sleep impulse -- for those folks, it's just something they are driven to do. There is a joy in exercising one's talents, separate and apart from recognition. No doubt ego enters too, as does the need to earn a living, but creative inpiration is ultimately much more personal in my estimation (and if I'm reading yoiu right, yours too).
When I got started WW in 1972... there was very little information available in the U.S. There were few who were acclaimed at the time. I remember seeing a poster hanging in Highland Hardware around 78'-79' advertising that some European WW was going to give a seminar in the old basement at the original store.
Un-known to me I decided to shuck out a few $ and see this Tage Frid guy just to see why he was chosen to give a seminar. At that time I was not aware of the apprentice-ship program in Europe. But... I got my moneys worth as I did a few years latter with Klaus.. Maloof.. etc. etc. A number of those things set the precedent of how I will function in my shop in about an hour. Basics... you start with basics and then add advanced skills along the way.
I personally don't think that the mentioned "acclaimed" Wood-workers are head and shoulders above others you have never heard of. I could take you to see the work of at least 4 gentleman and 1 lady locally in the Georgia WW Guild that produce work as out-standing if not more out-standing than anything they've produced.
So... I personally believe there are many that will never be "acclaimed" and you will probably never hear of... and should be "acclaimed" based on how I feel those mentioned got that way. I think all those gentlemen mentioned had something in common even though their work is different.
They were at the right place... at the right time when sources of craft skills.. general knowledge of the vast wood arena were highly sought after with early U.S. WW'ers who had very few sources to turn to other than word of mouth locally. Someone.. be it they or a promoter recognized that and did a very clever job of promoting a few (but not all) who could deliver when the market that was esculating was crying for deliverance from anyone really.
Just my humble opinion based on what I have seen evolve over 37 years. Now I can go down and do it "Sarge's Style" based on some things I learned from the "acclaimed" in the past. And... keeping the thought in mind that this is the present.
Sarge..
Edited 7/9/2008 10:43 am ET by SARGEgrinder47
Luck is # 1 closely followed by talent, and then the most important is creativity.
How does a woodworker come to be recognized as great?
I just make stuff for Family and friends!
Winemane & All ,
" How does a wood worker come to be recognized as great ? "
By whom ? By a magazine and it's readers or his family or Brotherhood of wood workers ? By the High Point N.C. crowd , how about the gallery or studio furniture experts ?
I think there are many very talented makers out there that have not had articles and their works published anywhere enough to help them become known as " Great " or known as famous if you will to the general public .
Imho if the work is great whether we have seen it or not changes little fact .
The marketing is key for business / financial gain from ones works , but really points the maker in a direct track for selling goods not for doing better works .
When a makers works are indeed of exceptional quality the maker is Great , if you don't know of the maker he is still great just more unknown then some .
dusty
A tricky question! If you had asked me directly (say over a beer) who I think is (was) a "great" woodworker of the modern era and why I think it, I would have said Krenov, Maloof, and the Green brothers. I would not have included either Nakashima or Stickley.
My favorites were able to look at the raw material we all use and conceive unique designs that have stood the test of time. But so did Nakashima and Stickley.
My favorites were also able to execute those designs with an incredible level of skill I can never hope to emulate. I admit that the Green brothers had the Hall brothers do much of the actual execution, but it doesn't detract from the incredible body of work they produced. Nakashima and Stickley were no slouches in this department either.
My little brain cramps up when I try to think about the difference between art and craftsmanship, but the distinction between my favorites and the big names that don't make my list is my unrepentant belief that wood was meant to be touched and should feel friendly. It should also bear the mark of the tools that were used to make it. The good stuff has a tactile feel that quietly says "This was made by my hands, and I'm proud of it even if it's just a simple thing."
Nakashima and Stickley furniture don't deliver for me on this count. I've seen Nakashima's creations several times in museums and once in a private collection where I was able to touch the table and look at the construction. It was brilliantly executed but left me cold. I've also looked over several genuine Stickley pieces and there was a square machined sensibility to all of them that made me think of government-designed furniture for the masses.
I have my biases, and I'll happily live in a world where others may disagree with my viewpoint. My tools are tuned up, my blades are sharp and my supply of wood is both plentiful and cheap. Now if I just had some skill...and time...
Regards,
Ron
I think you touched on something that should be explored ala Greene and Greene and others. Much is made of them in woodworking.Is it the design sense of the piece, or the craftsman that manufactures the product that determine a piece is great and if the two elements are originated by different people, who is the great woodworker?G&G were architects, not woodworkers. No different than Frank LLoyd Wright. It was the Hall Brothers that were the actual woodworkers who produced the dazzling pieces. On the design side, not everything was sent from heaven as several pieces were produced by the Hall brothers on Greene and Greene specs that were absolute disasters. Out of proportion, gimmicked and overdone. The are photographs of them, but never shown in the glory books. This was not the Hall's fault but G&G's. Many times Peter Hall would give them solutions which they would then incorporated into the design. There are some Hall pieces that survive with their families that show elements of G&G that predate G&G by years.
Wright used to spec brand new materials and the way they were to be used which many times failed and were disasters. Architect yes, craftsman-no. So who deserves the credit as to great woodworker? I personally like the G&G style but I don't believe they deserve the all the credit. IMHO, I think that in most cases, their contribution stopped at the end of a pencil.Is it the design or is it the execution?
Thanks for a good reply. I'm experiencing a bout of "slow thinking" today so it's taken me awhile to get my head around to point you make. I find that I'm basically (but reluctantly) in agreement with you with respect to the Greene Bros. That being said, I don't believe that Peter Hall's design elements would have received nearly the attention they merit today if the Greene's had not created an effective canvas for the work to be displayed. It is still a marriage of design and execution and I don't think Greatness can be assigned without both being present and faithfully applied to the object at hand. So I'm left with Krenov and Maloof. Krenov had a good editor and publisher and his timing was great. Maloof has a good publicist and his timing was great. In both cases, their actual work exemplifies the qualities I look for in defining greatness. They would still be great if they had lousy timing and no publicity. . .we just wouldn't know about them!
Winemane
I don't think woodworkers ever get to be great. Go back in time, ala Sarge 50 years ago and name some names.
Shakespeare and who was the woodworker of the day?
Socrates and who?
Michelangelo and ?
Van Gogh ?
Seems to me most of the recognized names, and the ones you mention are extremely modern, and known mostly amongst other woodworkers.
I don't think it is in our cards, but then again, maybe you can be the Van Gogh of woodworking, and be great AFTER you die....
AZMO
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-------(*)/ (*) http://www.EarthArtLandscape.com
How about Karl Farbman?Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
I think in an art or craft the real difference between very good and great is that your work is recognized as yours and not anyone else's and example in woodworking would be Sam Maloof, his chairs are his you don't look at one and say oh that looks just like so and so's. In photography Ansel Adams works look like his you don't look at one of his iconic images and say oh that looks like somebody else's work. If I knew anything about painting I could probably make a similar comparison.
Anyway a great topic
Thanks
Troy
Early in our marriage, My Young Bride and I found a nice wine in an unusually shaped bottle: Mateus Rose. The wine was a product of Portugal. We were living in Germany at the time, compliments of Uncle Sam.
We had not seen a distinctive Mateus Rose bottle for well over 30 years, but a bottle was discovered on a store shelf just last week! The Mateus bottle looked the same, except now it had a metal screw cap instead of the cork of a few decades ago. Even worse, the wine was not at all what we remembered. In fact, it was awful.
When we make the change from crafting each piece painstakingly unique to "production," we follow the way of my once favored wine. The screw cap is cheaper, and chemical fermentation is much quicker than the old fashioned way.
When you're young and in love any cheap plonk tastes like the nectar of the gods; and it never tastes the same years later. My first wine, when I was too young to drink anything, was Sauternes. Cool. When I tried it again a few years later I almost gagged it was so sweet.
I think Mateus was always a candidate for the screwtop, if only because it was so enormously popular. Every restaurant, liquor store and grocery in the UK seemed to sell it, and it was popular with the young because it saved them the trouble of choosing red or white -- and it was reasonably priced because in essence it was a blend, like Blue Nun. When a wine is going to fly off the shelves there's little point in corking it because it's not going to age gracefully in the bottle.
When I was briefly a pub landlord around 1970, Allied Breweries had already converted most of their most popular offerings, mostly Spanish, to screwtops and hardly anyone complained. They introduced French "vin ordinaire" , one red and one white, that used to arrive from France at the bottling plant in tankers that looked as though they might have held Esso leaded the day before. Ordinaire was right on. A bit like British sherry. If you look on the bright side, though, a number of North American wines are as good as anything from Europe, though they lack the mystique.
Jim
Wineman,
Congratulations on opening up this conundrum of "greatness". I have read the entire thread with great interest. There were a number of insightful comments, but do you remember the old joke about a Chinese meal. -- After eating it, I am still hungry. I feel the same way about this discussion. I believe the reason is that we are all using the same term "greatness", but we are using it to mean different things, and none of us have tried to define it very well.
"Greatness" in whose eyes? Should we all vote on the ten greatest woodworkers of all time? What would that tell us? No much. It would like making stew. Should we appoint a committee of well accepted woodworkers here on Knots, and have them make a committee decision on the ten greatest woodworkers? Nope, I wouldn't expect their ideas to match mine. So far, this all leaves me unsatisfied.
SO lets try to come up with some definitions of greatness? Here are a few, in no particular order.
1) the person's works sell for a lot of money.
I have seen a lot of very expensive furniture that I didn't think was all that great.
2) the person thinks highly of himself or herself.
Wow, a lot of us are great if we use that as a criterion.
3) The person sells A LOT OF FURNITURE.
OK, then the greatest designers of today are those who design for the world's largest furniture producer -- IKEA. Whoops, there are problems with this definition too.
4) The person is not only a woodworker, but he/she has now become an author and also teaches workshopos for $900 a week.
Naw, I don't like this definition. The people that I know who have moved from doing furniture to writing and teaching about it are folks who couldn't make it as furniture makers.
4) a lot has been written about the person, and that makes them great.
Naw. A lot has been written about the Unibomber and he wasn't great.
5) A woodworker is "Great" if people will pay an enormous amount of money for something they made regardless of whether they liked the piece or not.
Do you remember a hand plane that went up for sale on EBay last year, and sold for an enormous amount of money. Someone described the plane as looking like it had been made by a sick woodchuck. Nope, I don't like this definition either.
SO I GIVE UP ON DEFINING "Great woodworker".
Actually I don't care much about "great woodworkers". I am one who cares more about a person. If I see a person who I think is a really great person, and is also a artist, I would consider buying one of his pieces. In this vein, I think of people like Ray Pine, Philip Marcou and a few others here on Knots. I can also think of people here on Knots whose works I would not buy, because I am not wild about them as a person.
To me, "Greatness" is something that is a part of the fabric of a person. A person who can make a great chair but who is essentially an a......, is not "great" in my book. A person who can make really nice woodwork but is a "failed person", needs to rethink and rework his or her life.
Mr, Wineman, last year, there was a thread in which someone asked about what constitutes a "Modern Master". It was much the same question as you asked. The responses were much the same. I started calling everyone in Knots a "Modern Master", and many others picked up on that. So Master Wineman, I congratulate you again on bringing up a VERY VERY INTERESTING topic which seems to defy easy answers. I have tried to be creative in searching my mind for answers, and I come up "wanting". I still don't have the answer, but my strange belief that Greatness is something bigger than Woodwork, is different than you have heard from others. That doesn't make it CORRECT. It is my off-the-wall take on the subject.
You see, I don't consider "Woodwork" as difficult or important as things like medicine or law or high level management or ..... Anyone with an IQ of 90 can learn to do very very good woodwork. I often wonder why some woodworkers are so impressed with themselves as woodworkers. Why not try something more difficult? So if I feel this way about woodwork, why do I do it every day? BECAUSE I ENJOY IT, and not because it is difficult or important in its own right.
Hope this tweaked your imagination. This post and $5 will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks.
Have fun, and keep on asking hard questions.
Mel
Measure your output in smiles per board foot.
A "great wood-worker" is someone I would pay money to hear or see demonstrate in seminar with after actually practicing the craft as a hobbyist for 37 years . And... everyone knows I am one tight SOB with my money. So... with that thought and my money tightly super-glued in the bottom of my front pocket just under the .45 Auto holster.... back to the shop making drawer handles to await the arrival of the "wood-working messiah"!
And if a candidate for that position pulls out a precision digital alignment read-out to tune his saw before he is going to preach the gospel to me.. as with a High School garage band that spends 45 minutes tuning their guitars before they attempt to play two consecutive notes in a three cord turn-over.........
They are indeed pretenders in my mind and I will probably have made an exit stage left before the first note is attempted... seeking solace and sanctuary in my own shop knowing I can do it just as well myself and have saved my money. ha.. ha... ha..ha..ha..
Sarge..
Sarge,
I like the way you think.
Great answer. I don't take any classes from the "greats". I am thinking of one. If I do, it will be my admonition that he is really good.Let me know if you are going to offer a class. I'll take yours. :-)
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
The guys you mentioned are, at their core, artists whose chosen medium is wood. Any attempt to consider them in the general class "woodworkers" (even if they self-describe as such) misses the mark terribly IMO.
Were every tree on the planet to die, the artists you mentioned would find some medium through which they could express their abundant innate talents, and probably make a living at it to boot. The rest of us would resume careers as IT professionals, accountants, engineers, civil servants, etc.
If woodworking were not available to you, would you automatically gravitate toward the sketchpad, sculpture, pottery, photography, etc? Do you feel like you would explode if you couldn't create something? That's how the guys on your list feel.
Edited 7/12/2008 10:08 am ET by TaunTonMacoute
I’d call that a pushover…. YES I am.. But I thinks friends are special...
I have three or more College age girls here sometimes (As in almost always IF they have nothing better to do) (My oldest Grandbaby has ALOT of Girl friends) (NO Boys allowed here for obvious reasons) and I can never get into my own bathroom! I'm old and when I have to GO, I really HAVE TO GO!
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