In his fabulous book, 'Oak: The Frame of Civilization,' author
William Bryant Logan tells us...
"The honorific title 'Mister' is a pure and vanishing formality. Few
people are aware of its derivation. But in the age of oak, Mister
denoted the master of a craft. It was a powerful honorific, and
existed specifically to distinguish from the other current honorifics:
Lord So and So, Sir Somebody, the Honorable Diddledee, Most Reverend
Rubbadub... Mister meant that a person had mastered a complex task and
could do it reliably and well. It signified a high level of
coordination between hand, eye, and brain."
"These were the people, argued Thomas Jefferson, out of whom the great
democracies were to be made. The Misters were men who had trained
their intelligences to a high level by encountering and transforming
resistant materials."
In my opinion, the patriots of our nation are the Misters...not the
masters...
Today, we have technology. Modern machines require modern materials,
but wood is unruly, coming in random widths and random lengths with all
the defects that nature can endow. But, isn't that the beauty of
wood? No two pieces are ever alike.
"If the craftsman will submit himself to the material, rather than
trying to impose his own will upon it, the material will ultimate speak
to him and supply all the answers..."
As a woodcarver, I found this to be true. If I was carving a molding
into a string of beads, I could impose perfect dimension, but if I
followed the grain, the wood gave me perfect pearls for my string of
beads. We all know the value of pearls...
What are the pearls of your craft?

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