Knowing when to stop. When is it done?
In misattribution mythology, when Picasso was asked how he knew when he was done with a painting, he said “When I can’t reach it any more”.
But making crafts is different. Despite the confusion and apparent blurry distinction between the terms Art and Craft, they have and always will be distinct.
To begin, the Craft I am talking about is born from utility. The practice of spending resources by embellishing and decorating objects is inconsistent with the values of craft. Attempts to make an object more unique or expressive are on the off-ramp of the craft highway. As accessibility (i.e. quantity, cost and availability) is a defining quality of crafts, all activities that reduce the accessibility (i.e. increase cost) of a useful object reduce it’s craft character.
What is exalted as craftsmanship is often a mark of obsessive and fetishistic refinement in an attempt to exalt the object, it’s maker, the consumer or all three. The word fine is a popular adjective for work in this domain that may or may not be described as art but is a clear departure from craft.
Steve Jobs insisted on making the unseen parts of a product design beautiful along with the exterior. Sometimes the metaphor of “painting the back of the fence” is used to describe this practice. While I can’t defend the merit of painting the back of a fence for the sake of beauty alone, I can defend it as a woodworker as it is well known that wood will bend undesirably if a non permeable finish is applied to only one side of a board.
We can only perform a limited number of tasks each day…so we must choose. The Shaker philosophy is clear on this point. A chair is made to be strong and comfortable and that is all. Nobody spends hours carving decorations on a Shaker chair. Instead, they get to work on the next chair. Leaving the chair at this point is rational and humble. It’s done and there are other chairs to be made.
Should we be painting the back of the fence? Yes, you are adding value. The fence components will remain straight and will last longer.
Should we be working to make all of the unseen parts of our design beautiful? I don’t think so, at least not for too long. Instead I think you should get to work on the next thing. Time is money and less money means a more affordable product that is accessible to more people. And there is a good chance that your efforts to make something beautiful will lead to an item that is trendy or contrived and not beautiful at all.