Using One's Hands

My great-grandfather was a carpenter. I don't use this title as someone who frames houses (though there is nothing wrong with this), but rather as a true woodworking, build-anything carpenter. In fact, before he passed away, he was the last person alive in Illinois who could make a wagon wheel. This blows me away. I think the only thing I could make from wood is a spice rack.

I tell you all this because I have noticed that trades involving the skill of one's hands is on the decline. There used to be a time where people lived on a trade and in order to become accomplished at that trade, they became an apprentice under a master of that trade. Blacksmith, carpenter, printer, etc. But in this age of office jobs and corporate ladders, the simple art of working with one's hands and creating something has lessened in its use.

So I was pleased when I went to Gatlinburg with my wife's family and found Alewine Pottery in the Great Smoky Arts and Crafts Community. Walking through their building was like taking a step up into a mountain community. Wood floors and a banjo/bass duo out front gave the place an earthy feeling you don't get amidst the bright lights and cheap novelty shops of downtown Gatlinburg.

As I was perusing the pottery-lined shelves, I saw another area with large glass windows to view the potters at work. It was not a high-energy show, but rather a display of creativity, art and skill, often absent from our everyday lives. So I stood there, watching and taking pictures of an artisan at work and not once did I wonder why he wasn't doing it more efficiently through mass-production.

A Potter at Work, Alewine Pottery, Gatlinburg, TN