Have you ever entered a library and marveled at the sheer volume of information that existed before you? When I was a child I would speculate about the time it would take to read every book in my local library. Would it take years, a lifetime, or possibly multiple lifetimes? Knowing the rate at which I read I can now safely answer that question. Today, I’m more curious about the acquisition of practical knowledge then the consumption of sheer data. The advent of the World Wide Web has provided us with greater access to facts about the world. While this access may be undoubtedly helpful when seeking answers to spontaneous questions it does little in the way of providing the knowledge and experience required for solving higher order problems.
I will compare this to baking a cake for the first time. If you were given all of the tools and ingredients for a lemon cake except for the recipe then using the web to look it up would be an obvious solution. You get to work baking and voila you now have a tasty cake standing before you! Congratulations, you are now a baker in the literal sense of the word. However, if you are like me then you would be hesitant to call yourself a skilled baker when in the company of someone whose income is tied to that particular skill. If you memorized the lemon cake recipe then perhaps you could make it again without help but what if you were asked for a different type of cake or didn’t have access to the same tools or the proper ingredients?
Throughout my childhood education I believe that too much effort was spent guiding me towards the correct answer rather then empowering my capability to reach sound conclusions.
I offer this site to you as a space to share my experience as I learn through doing and as a repository of wisdom from more experienced craftspeople. Let’s get to baking!