Autographic

                Anyone who has made a physical object from scratch- a clock, a birdhouse, a fixture, has likely constructed a monologue of lines, an autographic conversation of drawings, scribbled notations, and question marks. These esoteric notes that emerge from the process of fabrication are emblematic of the author, the maker.

                They provide information, but only for the initiated. Whereas the blueprint or machine shop schematic is crucially, intentionally, clear-cut and subscribing to industry standards, the maker's scrawl is personal and confounding to the outsider. This is because only the information outside of the creator's head needs to be worked out.

Notes to myself for machining a quick part

                When one is skilled in a given craft or trade, a great deal of the process is absorbed in tacit knowledge. Hardly a conscious thought is required, much less a written phrase or diagram. For the most seasoned maker, the details may only amount to a jotted line or two, more for reassurance than necessity.  For the newcomer, the notations may be extensive- crossed out, revised, underlined and boldfaced.  In this extensive if slapdash script, one can read the rough outlines of what it means to grapple with a spatial problem. I find these notations fascinating both for their unmodified honesty and their incidentally captured history. They are the fabricator's equivalent of a diary, capturing their fleeting thought process as well as the technological/theoretical milieu of their time.

                By showing the human element of invention, the struggle, we see more clearly the connections between our past and present.