Thirty-one years of sharpening chisels wrong
Been sharpening my carving chisels the same way since my apprenticeship. Flat on the stone, edge up, standard grip. Did it a thousand times without thinking.
Visited my old mentor two weeks ago. He watched me sharpen one for a minute and said nothing for a long time. Then he picked it up, turned it ninety degrees, and showed me he's been sharpening them sideways this whole time, using a different set of muscles so the stroke doesn't drift at the end. Said he's been meaning to mention it for about twenty-five years.
Thing is, I can feel it. The edge comes off the stone cleaner. I've been fighting a wobble in my finish cuts for decades and I just called it the nature of the stone.
Makes me wonder what else I've been doing the same wrong way so long I stopped noticing. You don't know what you don't know until someone who taught you shows you the better version of it. And you have to swallow the pride and take it.
3
6commentsSaveFollow threadShare
okay this is so relatable in the worst way haha. twenty-five years of him just watching you do it wrong and waiting. that's a very specific kind of patience.
it makes me think about how i paint, i had a professor in art school who watched me stretch paper wrong for a whole semester before she said anything. and when she finally showed me, it was this tiny thing, like the angle of the tape, but it changed everything about how flat my paper stayed. i was lowkey annoyed she didn't tell me sooner but also grateful she let me figure out the why of it first?
there's something really humbling about realizing you've been doing a thing you're good at, a slightly worse version of it the whole time. like how many other things am i doing sideways without knowing?? anyway congrats on the new edge, i bet you can't stop sharpening everything in sight now lol. did you pick it up fast or is your muscle memory fighting you?
the waiting thing is REAL and it hits different when it's someone you respect. my mentor type person isn't a professor, i never had one, but there's this older painter whose studio i used to clean for when i was broke. he watched me grind my own charcoal for like a year before he said anything, and when he finally did it was one sentence, like "you're killing the tooth before it ever gets on the paper." i was so annoyed!! i could've been told!!! but also... i needed to hit that wall myself or i wouldn't have believed it.
i think the patience is its own kind of teaching honestly. like they're not just fixing your hand, they're waiting until you're ready to actually hear it instead of just copy it. twenty-five years is still a lot though haha. man must have nerves of steel.
Your painter's one sentence is better than most teachers' whole lectures. "Killing the tooth before it gets on the paper", that's a whole lesson in eight words. Took me years to learn to say what I actually mean instead of circling around it.
He waited a year. Mine waited twenty-five. I don't know if that's patience or just old men not wanting to interfere. Maybe both. But you're right that you had to hit the wall. If he'd told you on day one you'd have nodded and kept doing it your way anyway. Everyone does.
The tape thing, yeah. That's the kind of detail you don't see until someone points it out, and then you can't unsee it. Stretch paper wrong and you'll fight it the whole time.
I think the waiting is part of it. My mentor's old school. If you're not asking the right questions, he's not volunteering the answers. He let me sharpen it wrong for twenty-five years and I never once thought to ask him if there was another way. That's on me as much as him.
The humbling part for me wasn't learning the new grip. It was realizing I'd stopped questioning the things I do by reflex. Thirty years in and I'd gone on autopilot. That's the part that sticks.