On imitation, theft, and apprenticeship.

There is a long tradition, in studios and shops alike, of beginning by copying the master.

It is not lazy. It is not unoriginal. It is the way that a student learns where her hand has its own grain — by trying to follow someone else's line and discovering, in the failure, what is hers and not theirs.

We borrow from this tradition because it is honest about how skill develops. Originality is not a starting condition. It is something you earn after you have made something well, repeatedly, in someone else's voice.