People ask me if I have a bread machine. The answer is no, for many reasons, but taken out to the extremes, I don’t have room for Pearl, my kitchenaid mixer on the counter, let alone a bread machine. Anyhoo, Fortune mentioned Carlo Middione’s blog and in her pick of his posts is this great quote:

Even though a lot of people like bread baking machines, I don’t. If I had a choice of no fresh-baked bread because I did not want to use my oven or use a bread making machine, then of course, I would do so. But making bread essentially by hand is my idea of deep satisfaction; craft at work.

No offense to bread machine users – keep making bread and enjoying it!I was more struck by that last line. Since what I do other than bread-making is something stuck (for good reasons) in the art v craft debate, this strikes me as a wonderful concept: craft at work. I’ve always thought that the craft part is learning your chops, getting the skills, becoming familiar with the medium. Then, you add yourself, and it goes beyond and is art.

If one advances confidently in the direction of their dreams, And endeavors to lead a life which they have imagined, They will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. — Henry David Thoreau

I think I mentioned that I had been reading Walden, and found it was just packed full of quotes that I’ve collected over the years. There were parts I had to read out loud to figure out the direction of the sentences, and I’ll admit to liking his accounts of the experience perhaps a little more than the political parts… but I think I would have enjoyed meeting him in the woods. We could have looked at long skinny things together.

I’ve long thought that the most important thing for all of us to do is just to look around and actually see what’s there.