There was a time when everything that was used was made by someone that the user knew: bread by the baker, pots by the potter, cloth
by the weaver, tools and hardware by the blacksmith. Somehow we have turned this all around.
It started with the Industrial Revolution
when machines were made to imitate what had been made by hand, to relieve us of the “burden” of work. The standard has shifted, too.
Now we tend to judge handmade against what is made by machine. Look at your own life and see how many things you use everyday are
made by a real person- a kitchen tool, a mug, a quilt? (Third world sweatshop labor counts as real people, but do you really want
to support that kind of industry?)
This also opens the question of Art or Craft? Art is beautiful, uplifting to the soul. Craft is
another kind of beauty. It is attached to this world, down to earth, useful daily, but no less soulful. As I have worked in Craft
I have come to see it as “the Art of the everyday”, a thing of beauty to use for the most mundane purpose: to hold your coffee, to
cut your food, to warm you against the cold. Gibran writes: “Work is love made visible.” The person who made this object imbued it
with love and his/her own person, and there is a spiritual connection to all the other craftspeople in the world.
Machines can make
some wonderful things, but a person can make them REAL. Revolution means a complete cycle, to turn around.
Scotia Metalwork
Historically Accurate
Ancient Scottish Weaponry
Random Thoughts
Every line of strength in American history is a line colored with Scottish blood.
From The Declaration of Arbroath, 1320
...for, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom -- for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet,
balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze
a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
Robert Heinlein - Time Is Not Enough
I won't be lied to, or insulted or, laid a hand on.
I don't do these things to others and I require the same of them.
John Book -
the Shootist
Be happy while you're living for you're a long time dead.
Scottish
Proverb
Be Revolutionary...Buy Handmade!
When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.
Billy, age 4.
My name is Michael McRae and I approved these messages.
You got all my gold; you got my silver.
All that's left is brass and lead...
You want them?