As the world grows, so do its needs. Even more so its wants. The population swells and with it our ability to create and consume, produce and devour. From the starting pistol of the industrial revolution to globalisation’s erasure of any clear finishing line, we have evolved the ability to manufacture bigger, faster, cheaper and always more. But what is lost in the process? Many things, no doubt.
Not the least of which is craft.
As a kid, photographer Spid Pye watched his father work the farm and was occasionally pulled from the sidelines to lend a hand.
“Putting up a fence looked, on the face of it, like a simple, blunt bit of labour. But once involved in the process I quickly discovered this was not the case. I was exposed to a new vocabulary of tools; wire strainers and joiners, gripples and come-alongs. Some names were familiar, but with specialised advantages over their garden-variety peers, like fencing pliers and fencer’s crowbars.
“Then there was the anatomy of the fence itself, with its posts, droppers, stays, battens and strainers. Even the different types of wires were numbered like classical symphonies.”
It wasn’t just some chore, it was an art. A craft.
And craft sticks with you. Once you’ve witnessed the pleasing and fair conjured from someone’s mind and delivered into the world through weary hands, the urge to do so yourself is like a siren call.
“The camera became my tool, the photograph my artefact of beauty and I, like my father, became a craftsman. I’m not erecting fences anymore, but the physical dedication is still there: For this project I grew out my moustache and beard over a year, periodically stepping in front of my own lens as a cast of characters equally dedicated to their diverse arts.
“A chance to demonstrate my own craft by honouring the crafts of others.”
We may live in a word driven by consumerism, where mass production and overconsumption are the norm. But there will always be a place for those with artful cunning and consummate care. The artisan who toils at their own pace, with heart and hand. Their passion might be dressed in gumboots and Swanndri, or stained with sweat, dirt, sawdust and grease. But it burns all the brighter for it:
“To this figure I dedicate these images: The Craftsman.”
