Knifemaking: The Genius and the Master

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Oct 20, 2000
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I learnt recently that anybody who is determined enough can learn knifemaking. Many can even become Masters of the trade eventually.

However, there are a few who are simply geniuses in this much admired art. One can say that there are things a knifemaker can learn. Probably, in time, he will learn to be good, perhaps very good.

Then are those who pick up the skills of knifemaking in a year or two and quickly become the Masters of the trade.

Is it entirely possible that there are things an aspiring bladesmith can learn but there are certain things you may just have to be born with?

Life is not always fair but I suppose there exist knifemakers who are head and shoulders and perhaps hands above their peers, and they didn't take long arriving at where they are today.

So is it safe to assume that not everything can be learnt in knifemaking? Sometimes you are just born with it.
 
Huh? Nature vs nurture as applied to knifemaking?
Having a great source for titanium helps...;)
 
Folks are born with some gifts. The truly gifted see the frontiers that await them no matter how far they have progressed. I once had a good friend who worked with folks who were a little short on brain power. He had the ability to focus them in areas where they had potential and they challenged many who posessed higher general intelligence. It is called drive, desire, the ability to see the challenge. No one, no organization can declare a person a master, they are what they seek. Good Post!
 
I think it is true that the truely gifted will learn to do something faster than those that are not so gifted. I do not believe however, that if you are determined enough and believe in yourself enough, that even without those gifts you can not get to be just as good at what you endeavour to do. Just put your heart and soul into it and anything is possible.
 
Not only what has been mentioned above, but todays makers have a wealth of knowledge from which to learn, whereas knifemakers of old had to find the info we take for granted now, on their own. So although makers with "pure talent" are out there, their work, I don't think, would be near as good if the information wasn't there to be plucked like a ripe fruit from the information tree.
 
In any age (and by this I mean...in your lifetime) there will always be people that can do things far in excess of your skills.

I do not say this lightly, there are people that are gifted, some are my friends. KWM is incorrect, you can not , by practice, 'catch up' with these people.

I was not made to be able to hum a perfect 'middle C' or understand how my home machine relates to the local server, or draw lines that, when you look, form a 3D object.

These things I leave to the gifted, the musician, the computer guru...and the knife maker.

Some are better than others...



Steve-O
 
The good Lord has given us all a gift, whatever it may be. It's up to us to recognize and do something with it.
 
Knifemaking like any craft is part art and part science. Some people are artists and some are scientists. The great knifemakers are usually both.

Andrew Limsk
 
The first book I remember my grandmother reading to me was, "The Little Engine that Could". A little switch engine had to take over bringing the circus to town when the big locomotive broke down. It wasn't too bad on the flat, but got tough when he got to the big hill, he slowed down but kept repeating "I think I can" I think I can, I think I can, and HE DID, because he thought he could. That book and the pictures come back to mind regualrly. Anyone else read it?
 
Redvenom touched upon something I was thinking. That is, it depends on what one is talking about, as far as genius and mastery is concerned. Some knife makers are far ahead of others because of very seminal designs they have created, some are way ahead of others because of innovations they have helped create, some are way ahead of others because of the quality of their heat-treating, while still others are ahead because they create flawless fittings between diffent materials.
 
yes MR, fowler i remenber that story. drive and desire are a large part of it. we all know a gifted person or two that pumps gas or something because they just dont have the detemination to go for their hearts desire. and also they are afraid of failure. but there are some god given attributes that we have to channel into the apporiate area. i can't draw a straight line or spell my own native langugane very well. but i can see a design and colors in my mind and have it come out of my hands in blades and handle colors. to sort of quote T.rosavelt. { it is better to have tryed and failed that to rest with the timid that know neither victory or defeat)
 
"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race."

-Calvin Coolidge
 
I agree with many things said her, but I think "Genius" combined with good old "hard work" and "determination" are the keys to telling a true outstanding knife-maker among other very good ones.

When I first read this post, the name that popped into my mind was Darrel Ralph - why? Because he seems to master innovation, hard work, and design and manufacture skills - all to a very high level.

And on top of that - he is a nice and friendly guy.

No offense to all the other makers I so admire and appreciate - it seems that DDR has 6 sets of hands and a mind that keeps racing and coming up with new and exciting designs.

There was a thread in the past (I think it was Tom Mayo - not sure) that laughed about DDR being 3 guys disguised as one knife maker...

Funny - but by the wealth of designs and workmanship - it very well may be the epitome of a true genius.

There are others that qualify to the same criteria - they come up with new designs all the time, execute them to the highest level and influence the entire industry.

Kit Carson, among others, is one of them.

Don’t flame me for this - this is just my 02.
 
I agree with you Blilious. Many factors must come together to be a successful artist. I believe Coolidge is saying that persistence is the catalyst, the "sine qua non" (without which not) of any endeavor.
Mr. Fowler, I remember very well, having that book read to me.:)
 
when people agree with you...

I believe the "sine qua non" has to be pure talent - but it goes absolutely nowhere without years of hard work..

There only so many Mozarts around...
 
Talent you are born with. Skill you acquire through learning and practice. No matter how hard you try though, you can never excede your maximum talent potential. But this potential differs within each individual from talent to talent. Over here is a person who loves music and has worked all his/her life to be a professional musician, but no matter what their drive, never achieves the level of skill required to break into the ranks of "the world's greatest." What he/she didn't know, was that their potential talent for knife making (or sculpture, or whatever else) was amongst the world's greatest, but they never knew it because they never thought to try or have an interest in those things...

When I grew up I wanted to be a scientist, I tried that for a while, then became a philosopher, and now I'm a computer programmer. For all I know I had a built in potential to become the greatest (insert field here) in the world, but having never had an interest in that, I never tried it...

In some countries, educational institutions test for "talents" in the U.S. we seem to test only for "interests". I wonder if we are ultimately short changing a lot of people on the assumption that one is happiest when one is doing what one thinks he/she wants to do instead of doing what one is best at doing...
 
Originally posted by matthew rapaport
...In some countries, educational institutions test for "talents" in the U.S. we seem to test only for "interests". I wonder if we are ultimately short changing a lot of people on the assumption that one is happiest when one is doing what one thinks he/she wants to do instead of doing what one is best at doing...

MR is making some very interesting and valid points.

Somehow - it is the belief of the "hidden hand" theory supporters - that people will make more "goods" if left to choose their destination...

Yes - we loose some genius athletes on the way - but probably gain more...

Not sure? look at the USSR and East Germany.. they were picking people by talent..

China - well, that is another story all together.

Knife content: china had some of the finest cutlery made there. When? before the revolution.
 
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