Embodied Knowledge in Glassblowing: The Experience of Meaning and the Struggle towards Proficiency

Abstract

Becoming a proficient glassblower involves an indispensable shift away from cognitive readings of practice towards corporeal readings, marking the development of proficient practical knowledge. In learning glassblowing myself in the course of an ethnography of handicrafts in New York City, the subtleties of apprenticeship, the modes of reading and understanding the practice, both cognitive and corporeal, have emerged, complexifying our understanding of the transmission, development, and modalities of practical knowledge. Such ethnographic dissection brings phenomenological considerations to bear on the question of achieving proficient practical knowledge, and enables us to sharpen our understanding of the role of meaning in practice.