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The Great Escape, originally uploaded by Ethan Moore.
Getting a little too photoshop-y on my lampchord.
Which is incredibly tempting, nearly all the time. I think it’s because when first handed the tools of making, our first instinct is to simply use them really, really hard.
If a master blacksmith invited me to try my hand with his hammer and gestured towards his anvil, furnace and supply of raw iron, my first instinct would be to grip that hammer with two hands, take a deep breath, and channel all possible force in striking that iron in an arbitrary spot. (Or – the other half of the time – to say “No, no. I might ruin your nice iron bars.”)
Odds are doing the former would significantly affect the state of the medium: the iron bar in front of me is now quite a bit flatter. But ultimately all I’ve accomplished is aligning a hammer’s vector with some iron’s position.
But at least I’ve gotten one swing better at deforming some perfectly good metal.
