I'm not a bookbinder, but I am an academic who likes working with his hands--and I'm sure I would love bookbinding. Actually, I'm currently on a sort of self-funded, indefinite sabbatical (trying my hands at homesteading) due in part to the issues you noted regarding the average college student in the post I just saw in Persuasion and in part to the issues you note here about how handcraft is meta-easy and being a professor meta-hard. As I was reading this post I was starting to think we should be friends when I saw the reference to Boethius, and then I knew I had to make a comment, for I named my first son, Severin, after Boethius.
I just started with bookbinding a few months ago and got a big passion for recycling old beautiful books I find in the streets. I take them home, leave a few pages of the original book & bind a new inlet for someone else to write their own story. I've made around 40 books by now and I'm considering to do a professional bookbinding study. There is an actual apprenticeship you can take in Germany and it lasts for 3 years of learning! Same as becoming a sourdoughbaker, roofmaker or gardener in Germany. I love that we kept this traditions until now and appreciate good, detailed quality work learned by doing not by reading essays in universities 📚
Good for you! A real apprenticeship is terrific opportunity. I hope it works out great. I’m working now on a very difficult design called a pierced vellum binding. We’ll see how it goes…
"It is interesting the fine details [of the binding] that impress the experts tend to be lost on casual observers. "
"One of the deeply pleasurable features of fine bookbinding, and handcrafts more generally, is that they are hard to do, but meta-easy. "
I'm not sure these two statements are entirely consistent. Isn't it is generally true with crafts that neophytes find them both hard and meta-hard, and it is expertise that makes them eventually become meta-easy (even if they remain hard)?
The kind of woodworking I would be satisfied with would not be the kind of woodworking a skilled woodworker would be satisfied with precisely because it is meta-hard for me and meta-easy for them. I don't know what I'm missing. And it is likely the case that it is so meta-hard for me, that it appears meta-easy [see D-K effect]. The pieces hold together, right? What more do you want? (What do you mean by "bookmatching"?)
That, in fact, is the pleasure of engaging with experts. They can make the meta-hard meta-easy when you aren't prepared to do the hard work of becoming an expert yourself. (Think: typesetting, interior design, wine tasting, software architecture, tennis, physical training, bike tuning, furniture refinishing, movie criticism, photography, literary analysis, even philosophical analysis.)
Good thought. Take the neophyte woodworker. Their goals are pretty basic: to make the Ikea nightstand hold together. It is meta-easy for them to tell whether they succeeded in that task. As their skills improve, the goals get pushed out: like starting with raw lumber and assembling their own nightstand. Did it hold together and not look like garbage? That's meta-easy to tell. Then even further: making the nightstand with bookmatched veneer on the drawer front, all mortise-and-tenon construction, and tapered legs. It's meta-easy for the now-experienced woodworker to see if they succeeded.
I think your point is that a certain amount of education is needed for anything to be meta-easy on the grounds that otherwise you couldn't even understand the goal. Yeah, that seems right. I still think there's a difference between even expert completion of tasks that are meta-hard and those that are meta-easy. Bohr writes an article defending the Copenhagen Interpretation of QM. How sure is he that he's nailed it? Seems quite different from the experienced woodworker looking to see if the joints are flush.
I'm not a bookbinder, but I am an academic who likes working with his hands--and I'm sure I would love bookbinding. Actually, I'm currently on a sort of self-funded, indefinite sabbatical (trying my hands at homesteading) due in part to the issues you noted regarding the average college student in the post I just saw in Persuasion and in part to the issues you note here about how handcraft is meta-easy and being a professor meta-hard. As I was reading this post I was starting to think we should be friends when I saw the reference to Boethius, and then I knew I had to make a comment, for I named my first son, Severin, after Boethius.
Beautiful work.
I just started with bookbinding a few months ago and got a big passion for recycling old beautiful books I find in the streets. I take them home, leave a few pages of the original book & bind a new inlet for someone else to write their own story. I've made around 40 books by now and I'm considering to do a professional bookbinding study. There is an actual apprenticeship you can take in Germany and it lasts for 3 years of learning! Same as becoming a sourdoughbaker, roofmaker or gardener in Germany. I love that we kept this traditions until now and appreciate good, detailed quality work learned by doing not by reading essays in universities 📚
Good for you! A real apprenticeship is terrific opportunity. I hope it works out great. I’m working now on a very difficult design called a pierced vellum binding. We’ll see how it goes…
Brewing a good cup of coffee it is indeed really hard. I really enjoy books and recently started to read and learn about the subject. Great lecture.
"It is interesting the fine details [of the binding] that impress the experts tend to be lost on casual observers. "
"One of the deeply pleasurable features of fine bookbinding, and handcrafts more generally, is that they are hard to do, but meta-easy. "
I'm not sure these two statements are entirely consistent. Isn't it is generally true with crafts that neophytes find them both hard and meta-hard, and it is expertise that makes them eventually become meta-easy (even if they remain hard)?
The kind of woodworking I would be satisfied with would not be the kind of woodworking a skilled woodworker would be satisfied with precisely because it is meta-hard for me and meta-easy for them. I don't know what I'm missing. And it is likely the case that it is so meta-hard for me, that it appears meta-easy [see D-K effect]. The pieces hold together, right? What more do you want? (What do you mean by "bookmatching"?)
That, in fact, is the pleasure of engaging with experts. They can make the meta-hard meta-easy when you aren't prepared to do the hard work of becoming an expert yourself. (Think: typesetting, interior design, wine tasting, software architecture, tennis, physical training, bike tuning, furniture refinishing, movie criticism, photography, literary analysis, even philosophical analysis.)
Good thought. Take the neophyte woodworker. Their goals are pretty basic: to make the Ikea nightstand hold together. It is meta-easy for them to tell whether they succeeded in that task. As their skills improve, the goals get pushed out: like starting with raw lumber and assembling their own nightstand. Did it hold together and not look like garbage? That's meta-easy to tell. Then even further: making the nightstand with bookmatched veneer on the drawer front, all mortise-and-tenon construction, and tapered legs. It's meta-easy for the now-experienced woodworker to see if they succeeded.
I think your point is that a certain amount of education is needed for anything to be meta-easy on the grounds that otherwise you couldn't even understand the goal. Yeah, that seems right. I still think there's a difference between even expert completion of tasks that are meta-hard and those that are meta-easy. Bohr writes an article defending the Copenhagen Interpretation of QM. How sure is he that he's nailed it? Seems quite different from the experienced woodworker looking to see if the joints are flush.