Made by Hand
Made by Hand by debgrant
Every time I am woodburning,
I think of him. And them.
I never met him. Or them.
The he. I don’t know if he is still alive.
His children made a video of him
Woodburning in his little home shop.
Somewhere in Central America.
Making small plaques and ornaments
For the tourists.
He burns wood with an iron tool
With a long handle with a rough piece at the end
The size and shape of a rough tablespoon.
He heats the tool in a metal bucket of coals kept burning.
He doesn’t use a pencil or sketch.
Just a good eye.
His hand pulls the tool from the heated bucket,
To the wood, a few strokes and then back again
Into the fire to reheat and then repeat.
His ornaments are little landscapes.
Drawn by hand from memory.
The them. They are the ones who imagined and made it possible
To woodburn with a computer and a laser.
The hands work a keyboard. The computer tells the laser
What to do to the wood.
I woodburn by sketching on the wood.
Sometimes I use transfer paper to copy a design.
I use the stylus of an electrically heated burning tool
With precision crafted steel nibs.
Fire and smoke.
I am wood burning art with electricity in my hand.
The man in his shop is woodburning art with his iron tool
and a bucket of fire. His eye and his memory.
The person at the keyboard computer and the laser is wood burning art
Using the skills of other hands to imagine and burn a new creation.
We could argue what is truly made by hand.
But all we could make with that is an argument.
I am amazed at what the human hand can do.
My hands with my electric stylus work somewhere in the middle
Between hands that draw with iron from a fire bucket
And hands that built a computer and a laser.
The outcome across the spectrum
Of burning wood
Is still beauty.
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