It started with a plane from eBay. A Stanley No. 4 — rusty, sole out of flat. I spent a weekend getting it to the point where it took transparent shavings.
S2A documents a collection of traditional hand planes — mostly American production from the turn of the 19th and 20th century: Stanley, Record, Sargent, Miller Falls — and the work that comes from them. No nails. No hurry.
The collection
Over eighty pieces. The smallest is the Stanley No. 2 — a bench plane that makes no sense until you pick it up. The largest are jointer planes: No. 7 and No. 8. Between them: rabbet planes, combination planes, router planes, shoulder planes.
Not interested in display pieces. Interested in tools that can still be used — and that are old enough to show how they were made.
The work
Japanese aesthetics is a deliberate choice. Wabi-sabi — imperfect, impermanent, incomplete. Kumiko lattices, shoji panels, Japanese joinery: form that emerges from constraint.
Objects are made slowly. Documented in Objects.
The name
Skill to Art. The movement from technical competence to something with its own character. A direction, not a destination.