I don't see myself as an artist, but I'm getting to where I appreciate people who are. We go up to Nelson, BC pretty often. A few miles up the road and across the lake is this little village that's kind of an artist's community. We've only gone there the one time, pretty much at the end of the season. A wide spot in the road with potters, blacksmiths, stained glass artists, painters, glass blowers, wood workers. All the getting their hands dirty arts that 150+ years ago weren't arts, but necessities to the community. In the day, there was no WalMart to go pick up a set of plates. And a lot of these guys are using old school, hand built tools, forges, kilns, knives, lathes, whatever. And showing up at the end of the season, they had more time to really talk and show off the actual process. I got the idea that building their own tools was really half the fun for them. It was a really fascinating look at not only their setup, but their mindset. So much that we almost missed the ferry back.

Totally agree with Steez that the knives would make foodies jizz all day, but I also get how the artist would find it boring. I think in their mindset, when it turns into an "assembly line" sort of thing, they lose interest. My mindset allows me to do the same thing over and over with some variations, with the money being the real payoff. But at the same time, someone saying "that's cool" is enough to stroke the creative part of my ego.

My SO lost her SO a couple of years ago. He really liked the stuff I was doing, and it influenced him to do his own smokeware. Mostly given to friends and such, but I've been stumbling across his pieces in going through boxes in storage. All unused. We're not sure what we want to do with it. To have it sit in boxes doesn't seem right. But selling it seems a little wrong too. I'll start taking pics of some and posting them.