Artists or engineers?

So this week I got an addition to my knife collection. It's a yearly edition by probably my favourite designers, A.G. Russell and Phil Gibbs.

Like this....except for this guy's
killer hair/glasses combo.

I sat on the couch with my new knife and was just checking out all the details on it. The little things that make it one of their knives. Small things that just improve the quality on it whilst the casual observer would probably not notice on it. And I was extolling the virtues of some of these features to my wife when she asked me: "So is he an Artist? or an Engineer.

You see a while back I started thinking about what makes some knifemakers able to turn out knife after knife, each the exact same as the last one. Or with only a slight change in colour or shape. And that would blow my mind. Because....well....I can't imagine making the same thing over and over again and still enjoying it.

Dreadlocks are cool though
Maybe I could get away with
those?...nah, would probably
just get stuck in my beltgrinder.

And since me and the missus discuss almost everything we came up
with a reason for me not enjoying making the same thing over and over again....she decided I'm too much of an artist to like that.

Now let me assure you....I ain't no hippy sitting around painting grass and smoking flowers (that's what hippies do right? Or did I get those mixed up?) and hugging trees whilst wearing goat woolen socks and hemp clothing. So I asked her what she meant.

Assembly line work needs
a special kind of person
sometimes.

Well it all has to do with the creative process. Turns out that for me (like for some) the process of creating, of doing NEW things of building experiences is VERY important. This shows itself in the fact that the first time I've ever tried to build knives that look similar was this past year.....and the reason I did it was mainly to see if I could......so in short I tried it for the experience of trying it.

Solution based thinking
if I ever saw it

So I could see the point. So it started me wondering.....what's the opposite of that then? Why do some people work on ONE model knife for so long, tweaking it and perfecting it slowly, building generation after generation of it each one slighly.

After pondering it I realised.....it's because they're more of an engineer. You see an engineer is
someone who works to find solutions. Who leans towards perfection if possible. Who's more occupied with how WELL something works than with the process of building it.

"Now if we move this over there...the toilet will flush
just a tiny bit faster"
"Sounds like it'll be worth the extra $50K, I'm
right on it!"

And engineer can take months of preparation, drawing plans, doing calculations and research before he ever commits to the first spade/brick/piece of concrete etc. And if possible he'll redo the entire thing if he feels he can get an extra 0.001% of performance out of it.

An artist on the other hand will waste as little time as possible and just get cracking as soon as he can. He might make a quick sketch but some will not even do that.

I'm honestly not sure which
should represent
the artist and which
the engineer in this
one. You decide.

Now realise here...I'm not saying any of you knifemakers are a complete artist or a complete engineer.  What I'm saying is that every knifemaker has to be a little bit of a multiple personality version of that. (Not Scizophrenic........Schizophrenia is NOT multiple personality disorder like most people think).

He (she? There's some impressive knifemaking ladies out there) HAS to be. In order for the knife to functional he's got to get in to the science side of things. Learn about materials, learn about construction etc.
In order to make the knife look good he's got to embrace his artistic side. I've seen some very well built knives (functionally and technically) that look like complete crap (to me). So in those cases maybe there's very little artist and a LOT of engineer.

I google "Fantasy Knife" was NOT disappointed

At the same time I've seen many a knife that looks AMAZING.....but then the person starts talking about the materials/construction methods he uses and it turns out it'll probably not work very well at all. Or maybe it'll be very uncomfortable.

Some collectors might prefer artists' knives. They love the aestethics. Others listening to the engineer inside them will prefer more utilitairian looking things.

In the end.....All this doesn't really matter. Some people have a preference for Artists while others prefer Engineers. I try to be a little bit of both.

All of this is just to give you some food for thought. Maybe next time you look at something you see you'll stop and wonder....was this made by an artist? Or by and Engineer.....and why do I like/dislike it?

In closing...enjoy this little clip that made me scratch my head in bafflement.