A Craftsman's Legacy: Why Working with Our Hands Gives Us Meaning

by Eric Gorges, Jon Sternfeld

Overview

A book for makers, for seekers of all kinds, an exhilarating look into the heart and soul of artisans—and how their collective wisdom can inspire us all.
 
"Despite our technological advances, we’re busier than ever, our lives more frazzled. That’s why the handmade object, created with care and detail, embodying a history and a tradition, is enormously powerful. It can cut through so much and speak in ways that we don’t often hear, or that we’ve forgotten." —Eric Gorges, from A Craftsman’s Legacy
 
In this joyful celebration of skilled craftsmen, Eric Gorges, a corporate-refugee-turned-metal-shaper, taps into a growing hunger to get back to what’s real. Through visits with fellow artisans—calligraphers, potters, stone carvers, glassblowers, engravers, woodworkers, and more—many of whom he’s profiled for his popular television program, Gorges identifies values that are useful for all of us: taking time to slow down and enjoy the process, embracing failure, knowing when to stop and when to push through, and accepting that perfection is an illusion. Most of all, A Craftsman’s Legacy shows how all of us can embrace a more creative and authentic life and learn to focus on doing what we love.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781616208363
Publisher:	Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Publication date:	05/07/2019
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	392,164
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Eric Gorges has been the host of Public Television's A Craftsman's Legacy since it began in 2014. Before that he worked in the corporate world until a health crisis caused him to reevaluate his life. He sought out one of the best metal shapers in the country and signed on as his apprentice. In 1999, he struck out on his own, opening the custom motorcycle shop, Voodoo Choppers, in Detroit, MI, where he lives today.

Jon Sternfeld is a writer whose work includes Crisis Point, with Senators Trent Lott and Tom Daschle, and A Stone of Hope: A Memoir, with Jim St. Germain. He lives in New York.

Table of Contents

Introduction: From Our Hands 1

1 The Battle for Perfection 5

2 Tearing Up Floors 17

3 Focus 32

4 Forethought 34

5 Sacrifice 46

6 Falling for Bikes 63

7 Respect 70

8 The Give-and-Take 86

9 Underwater 97

10 Finding Peace 103

11 Discovery 116

12 Tradition 131

13 Shrinking the World 151

14 Legacy 159

15 Individuality 173

16 A Special Kind of Stupid 187

17 Connection 197

18 Purpose 204

19 A Craftsman's Legacy 214

Conclusion: Day One 223

Appendix: Featured Craftsmen 231

Acknowledgments 235

Notes 239

About the Authors 245

Editorial Reviews

01/21/2019

Metalworker Gorges, who has profiled artisans of all stripes as host of the PBS series A Craftsman’s Legacy, revisits some of his favorite interviews in this invigorating survey. He highlights woodworkers, blacksmiths, and even a maker of high-end blue jeans to learn about their approaches to and appreciation for their crafts. Without resorting to banal platitudes, Gorges weaves the various stories together to explore the philosophical aspects of working with one’s hands. In discussing his own experiences as an artisan, Gorges illustrates the therapeutic qualities of craftsmanship: finding solace in the rhythmic thrum of a potter’s wheel to ease the pain of his mother’s recent death, and how working in his garage offered him safe harbor from debilitating panic attacks. Digressions on the very real dangers of many of these jobs, the challenge of determining price, and the often circuitous path many artisans take before finding their place (as well as the role of failure in that path), satisfyingly round out the book. This is an impressive and emotionally rich appreciation of the work often taken for granted. Agent: Alison Fargis, Stonesong. (May)

Publishers Weekly

This is a book full of cool stuff and the people who do it . . . Like the kindred-spirit book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Gorges' narrative serves up the lessons that one learns from hard, deliberate, artful work . . . a fine read for DIYers looking to up their game—or get their hands callused in the first place.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Invigorating . . .  Digressions on the very real dangers of many of these jobs, the challenge of determining price, and the often circuitous path many artisans take before finding their place (as well as the role of failure in that path), satisfyingly round out the book. This is an impressive and emotionally rich appreciation of the work often taken for granted.”
—Publishers Weekly
 
“It’s a serious tome that deals with the significance of work and with principles like honesty, integrity, and purpose, which oddly mirror the world of business. There is indeed much to ponder.”
—Booklist
“A congenial and thoughtful host, Eric Gorges takes us on a guided tour of a rare species—resourceful individuals who buck the herd to build purposeful lives through self-employment at skilled crafts and trades.”
—Peter Korn, author of Why We Make Things and Why It Matters

From the Publisher

2019-03-03

"I wanted to be the driver of my own life." Metalworker/mechanic/TV host Gorges writes about the pleasures of—and lessons from—working with one's hands.

Handwork is challenging, and, as the author writes by way of an affable if admonitory opening, sometimes it involves pain: "My hands bleed all the time," he writes, "their skin is rough and cracked like a dirt road, and there's a gnarly scar across my right index knuckle." Yet, he reflects, such disfigurements are really badges of honor, pointing to the things that one learns through artisanal work that calls on the practitioner to step away from the "larger churning machine" that wants to chew us up and instead do cool stuff. This is a book full of cool stuff and the people who do it, from making swords—swordsmiths are "our last line of defense from this craft being completely lost to history"—to rebuilding vintage motorcycles and carving gargoyles for cathedrals. Gorges, who hosts a TV show of the same title as the book, also notes that doing such pursuits can take passion to levels of mania, with no such thing as time off, no social or family life, and no chance of ever winning that "never-ending struggle to find that work-life balance." Nevertheless, like the kindred-spirit book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Gorges' narrative serves up the lessons that one learns from hard, deliberate, artful work, including persistence, planning, gumption, stick-to-itiveness, and focus—about which he writes memorably, "some of the frame has to be blurry in order to sharpen the object you're shooting," which goes a long way to explaining that whole work-life balance thing.

A friendly, pleasant manifesto; without the philosophical depth of Matthew Crawford's Shop Class as Soulcraft, but still a fine read for DIYers looking to up their game—or get their hands callused in the first place.

Kirkus Reviews