I had the rare privilege to study metalsmithing and silversmithing at Skidmore College during my time in NY and the professor there was immensely talented, intelligent and fun to hang with. Couple that with the fact that he liked industrial stuff and we had a good time together. He taught me about metalworking and art and the fine, vague, and wavering line between art and industrial goods.
We were talking in private about how some of the other students either seemed to naturally grasp the concepts and pure labor of metalsmithing and how some others never really get it no matter how hard they tried. He then told me that, in his mind, everyone grew up either as a “Tree house Kid’ or a “Non-tree house Kid.’
He went on to tell me that in his view kids either grow up making tree houses, go-carts with lawnmower wheels and rope steering or chopper bikes, or they didn’t. It’s as if this mechanical and structural curiosity is inherited or innate and if it’s not there as a child that developing or learning it at a later age is very difficult. Kind of like learning a new language during middle age. Looking around the room at my fellow students it was easy to tell the tree house kids from the non-tree house kids. Just looking at the way the student positioned their work or held a tool in their hands spoke volumes. Just looking at the faces of the students as they solved the problems and did the work was instructive. The tree house kids were engaged and even smiling as they labored and the other kids weren’t having much fun. You just had to feel for them. They looked like I felt when taking chemistry.
I’ve thought about this concept a lot over the past 15 years since I went through that course of study at Skidmore and was sitting the other day talking about the ‘tree house kid’ concept with my good friend Carl Strong. He and I were discussing the influx of folks that want to get into bicycle framebuilding as a profession, and that while many of them are very nice and well intentioned they are people that are lacking the ‘tree house experience.’
I’ll bet that most successful framebuilders were the kind of kids that took their bikes apart for no reason other than being curious. They took tubing from a swingset and pounded it over the fork blades of their Stingrays to make super long chopper forks that looked so cool. I have an open shop here and as a result get a fair number of folks that want to hang out their own shingle stopping by to see how I do what I do. When I speak to them I’m surprised how many have never turned their own wrenches or made stuff of any sort. I’m not finding fault with these guys at all, I’m just curious as to why a well trained and well paid engineer or lawyer would want to walk away from their chosen profession to jump into the framebuilding game. As so many of them have never built anything it must not be the desire to do more of that, and to do it as a living, so something else is motivating them. Maybe it’s the current image of framebuilding or the idea that some out there think framebuilders are the cool kids in the bike world. I honestly don’t know.
I think Prof. Peterson was dead on. The world is made up of tree house kids and non-tree house kids. Not that one is better than the other but they are different. I was/am a tree house kid and that will never change and no matter how cool I think it might be to be a doctor and have the social status and income of a doctor it’s not in the cards for me………. Even if I’d like it to be. I’m a tree house kid pure and simple and my lot was cast as a 3 year old when I started taking stuff around the house apart………. And I wouldn’t change that for anything.
What I wonder about is why would someone who has never turned a wrench or bent a piece of metal want to suddenly become a framebuilder? This puzzles me to no end. When I put the shoe on the other foot I wonder how my accountant might feel if I were to walk into her office and declare I that I think accounting is cool, and that even though I’ve never done more than balance my own checkbook that I want to now become an professional CPA – right now! I’ll buy Quick Books Pro and then and I’ll do my dad’s taxes to get the hang of it and then I’ll be ready to take your hard earned money for doing yours. What could go wrong?
I try to be thick skinned and not let this kind of stuff bother me but, to be honest, it does. The idea that someone might think that without any fabrication or mechanical experience that they can buy a few tools, take a week long course and then start their business and earn money as a professional framebuilder is insulting to me as a professional and to the trade. It shows naiveté at best and a disregard for the skills needed and the time it takes to attain them at worst. I hope I’m not misunderstood here – I think most of these ‘framebuilders in waiting’ are very nice folks and well intentioned. Most I’d like to spend time with and go for a ride and then have a good Mexican meal and beer. If I could change anything here it would be to educate those who are considering jumping into the fray to the fact that this profession is like any other in that it takes time, sacrifice and dedication to be successful at it and that just because it looks like fun and that some think it’s cool doesn’t mean that a stranger to fabrication can just jump in and be a framebuilder.
Thank you Professor Peterson and thanks for reading.
Dave
The work of Mr. David Peterson.
Post scrip –
After reading a few of the comments I got from readers and then re-reading the above I can see how one might think that I was suggesting that doctors or lawyers or engineers might, by virtue of their chosen profession, not have hand skills or have been a tree house kid. What this shows, if anything, is that I’m a better framebuilder than I am a writer. I never meant to suggest that because one earns a living with their minds that they are incapable of earning one with their hands. I simply do not feel this way. My stepfather Jim is a great example of a trained engineer who has the ability to not only design very cool stuff but also to then go out into the shop and make it with his own hands. I’m sorry if I gave the wrong impression.
Thanks again.
