But a thought.

Apprentices were given tasks to do, or chose tasks for themselves, to prove they had finished their apprenticeship. That’s the origin of the term “Masterpiece”. A Master piece, is the piece of work you do to prove you are a Master of your art, and no longer an apprentice.

I could have been a master cabinetmaker. I could probably have been a master farrier. I am a master millwright, and industrial electrician. those two courses of stufy, I did finish, and have my journeyman’s cards to this day. My masterpiece as a millwright was a robotic system that makes the timing gears for the Ford power Stroke engine. I designed and built it from the ground up, programmed it, tested it, and put it in operation. What, twelve years ago? A long time ago. My masterpiece as an industrial electrician was a similar system which also included random part capability. That too is at least ten years behind me. I still have those skills, still improve on them and develop them- but I have literally hundreds of other skills, or sub-disciplines, and I use them all the time.

So looking on my life, not as a series of apprenticeships but as a master jack-of-all-trades, I think, if I were to use all the skills I have, at which I’m better than average, what would my masterpiece be?

I can pour concrete. I could build a house. Roof it. Plumb it. Wire it. Furnish it. Paint it. (I’ll leave the drywall work to someone else) carpet it. Put in a fireplace.

I can cast steel and Iron. And machine it. And assemble it into an internal combustion engine. I can do some forging, though I’m rusty at it. I can weld, burn, cut. I can braze and solder.

I do my own gunsmithing. I have repaired/rebarreled/reblued firearms, I’m in the process of building a rifling lathe. I can reload my own brass, and I have cast my own bullets on many occasions.

I have some knowledge of computers, networking, interfacing. I can program a robot or machine tool. I can wire them, test them, make them work, write code that is line-by line written for maximum efficiency.

I can do leather work- in fact, I’m looking hard at making myself a pair of handmade boots. I learned to do ropework so young that if you hand me a four foor section of rope, and talk to me for ten minutes, I’ll put half a dozen splices into it and hand it back as a sling, or bridal, or rope harness, and not even think about it.

I have a lot of skills I have accumulated over the years- so many, now, that as I write this, I cannot think of them all. Every time I think I have it down, I remember something else- and in fact I’ve already truncated this post by five paragraphs.

I started writing this post to ask others, if you used all your skills to make a “Masterpiece”, of what would it consist? And now, I realize, the masterpiece you create, is your mind.