Teaching craft in a designed world

Teaching craft in a designed world - Nick de la Mare - On Design - Creativity Online

I think at this point it's important to remember that craft, by definition, is fundamentally a dedicated mastery of a chosen subject matter, not necessarily just the deep understanding of a specific material or tool. Richard Sennett, in The Craftsman, cites a commonly understood 10,000 hour figure as the time needed to master any particular skill, from violin, to carpentry, to painting, to surgery:
'As skill progresses, it becomes more problem-attuned, such as the lab technician worrying about procedure—whereas people with primitive levels of skill struggle just to get things to work. At its higher reaches, technique is no longer a mechanical activity; people can feel fully and think deeply about what they are doing, once they do it well.'