When we work with raw materials and bring out their potential, such as turning rough wood into an elegant chair, we perfect them. We come to know those materials—and through them, the world—more intimately. We also enhance our world, even just a little, by creating something useful and beautiful.
The term “traditional crafts” reflects their connection to the past. Practicing such a craft gives us a window into what life was once like, how our ancestors lived, their daily lives, and how they worked and played. Many of these arts have remained unchanged for centuries, perhaps millennia.
Finally, learning a craft helps us refine the usage of our body as we develop new muscle memory, coordination, and strength. We get a sense for the heft of real things, real material, how it behaves, and its latent properties. We must practice careful focus, attention, and diligence to make our craft fruitful. Making something by hand has lessons for the body and mind.
But how do you get started?
Apprentice
Trades and handicrafts were traditionally learned via apprenticeship. Young workers—usually beginning in their early teens, but sometimes even younger—lived with a master craftsman, helping and learning from him. They weren’t paid, but in return they received food, lodging, clothing, and—most precious of all—the chance to learn directly from an expert, day in and day out.
Such opportunities are rare today, and few of us would want to live with someone just for the sake of a hobby. Still, finding a friend or mentor who could offer you a few instructional sessions could make the difference between success and failure when you’re first beginning a new craft. I struggled to grasp the fundamentals of both fly fishing and fly tying simply from reading books. It wasn’t until I saw a pro in action and imitated him that things began to click. There’s no substitute for first-hand observation and hands-on learning.
Attend Folk Schools
Folk schools provide a means of finding an expert to teach you, but they aren’t free. Folk schools are amazing reservoirs of old-fashioned knowledge, rooted in your local or regional community. A folk school in my area offers a wide array of classes to choose from, including:- Leatherwork
- Medieval bookbinding
- Soapmaking
- Copperwork
- Yarn making
- Foraging
- Mushroom growing
- Tanning
- Herbalism
- Butchering
- Cheesemaking
- Windmills for water pumping
- Timber framing
- Banjo playing
Research Books and Online Resources
There’s at least one book on virtually any traditional craft you can name. This is a great place to start learning your craft, although an in-person demonstration always trumps book learning. Even if there’s no one to show you what to do, sometimes books combined with real-world trial and error can be enough to teach you what you need to know.The internet offers extensive resources for learning new skills, and it has the added benefit of video content, the next best thing to an in-person demonstration. Never in human history has so much information been so readily available. Obscure knowledge is finally available.
For all of its flaws, the internet replaces the oral tradition that has been largely lost on the local level. Skills and information can be passed down from one individual to the next—just as it once was in more tight-knit, traditional communities—only now your instructor might be from the other side of the globe.
Let’s consider this perspective when it comes to traditional crafts. We shouldn’t abolish them or allow them to die out because we no longer see their practical value or think we have more efficient ways of accomplishing the same tasks. There was wisdom in the way our forebears approached things, and there may be benefits and rewards to these “old ways” that are unrelated to speed and efficiency. While we can certainly take advantage of the power of machines when our focus is on quickly producing a final product, some things are worth doing for their own sake, slowly and thoughtfully. Traditional crafts are among them.
