Meet Aaron Williams | Cooking Tool Craftsman

We had the good fortune of connecting with Aaron Williams and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Aaron, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking

Every precious moment of our brief lives is rife with risk. We are all generally quite good at ignoring this fact, and for the most part we are able to maintain a sense of secure well-being and personal invulnerability which allows us to get on with the business of living. We happily hop into high speed vehicles and climb mountains and eat at dodgy restaurants and we think nothing of these especially risky pastimes. At the same time, we are a culture quite keen on insurance, which we believe somehow mitigates the risks that we so carelessly take. For the most part, all of this works quite well. 

The thing to bear in mind is that simply by being alive we have beaten the most staggering odds. It is very, very improbable that we should exist. In this sense, we have already won a sort of cosmic lottery, and we ought to rejoice. Still, at every moment we risk losing it all, but this is such a constant danger that we are mostly inured to it. 

Considered in this light, why should we shy away from carefully considered risk? It is at the very center of a life well lived. When we fall in love, when we bring forth children, when we truly believe in something worthwhile and beautiful; these are moments when we venture our little all in the hope that our inherently wondrous lives might bring forth something even greater. This is the beginning of human flourishing.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
Professionally? I work. I labour. I heat and I pound and I grind and I split and I shave and I file and I plane and I carve and I polish and I do a hundred other things besides. I do all this using mostly hand tools, and perhaps that is foolish, but I think that it is right. What is ultimately more important than what I do is why I do it. 

 My background is in fine wood working and metal work, so why cooking tools instead of some other custom object? Well, we all eat, most of us cook. It could readily be argued that food culture is the cradle of all culture. More than any other human endeavor or activity, eating is a thing that we do together, and that brief and fleeting meal binds us to one another in our memories and our hearts. Culinary traditions provide continuity through generations and help us to know who we are to understand our place in the world. It is worth noting how an old skillet, a set of dishes, a wine glass, or even Great-Grandma’s spatula can serve as an anchor point for these memories, able to bridge generations. Sense memory is strong, and I believe that it is essential to our understanding of home and of belonging. I believe that this feeling of belonging is essential for human flourishing. So to my mind culinary heirlooms do not represent the transfer of material wealth so much as they do a gift of cultural and emotional wealth. They are an evocation of who we are and what really matters. They remind us to hold the course and pay it forward. My hope is that the tools that I make might become one of these heirlooms.

I feel very strongly about tools. A good tool, one that has been carefully and thoughtfully designed and beautifully made from choice materials, that is a wonderful thing! Working as a luthier with my father for nearly a decade, I developed a keen love and appreciation for fine tools. I found that it is not enough that a tool be strong and able to perform its task. A tool ought to speak to its user – it must provide feedback, which allows for understanding and therefore growth and excellence. This is perhaps more important for carving the sound plate of an instrument than for flipping an egg, but the principal stands. To be sure, it takes time and practice to understand what your tools are telling you, but once you do it will be a source of joy and real pleasure, because as humans we are tool users. Most of our daily lives are spent using tools, and whether we are aware of them or not our experience of the world is shaped and strongly informed by those tools. In this sense much of what we actually experience is dictated by the tools, which is to say that we largely experience the tools themselves. So a bad tool will not bring you joy, but only frustration. Most of the time you will not even be aware of it. One really only begins to pay attention after using a good tool. After having spent most of one’s life using bad or indifferent tools, a good tool is a revelation – like waking from a dream. We are creatures of extraordinary sensitivities. A good tool speaks to those senses and, should we allow it, fills us with an immediate and visceral understanding of the world just beyond our fingertips. So, yeah, I think good tools are important. 

I am hopeful that what I am doing is aiding in what I might call our humane inheritance, that the work of my hands might enrich the lives of others. 

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I would likely take them to see a movie at The Lyric Cinema in Fort Collins, a cycle down by the river, and a beer at Equinox Brewery.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I owe many thanks to my father from whom I learned so much, growing up in his shop and working with him as a luthier for so many years. I also learned a lot from my time at Raw Urth Designs where I worked as a polisher of amazing, glorious, and often quite menacing custom metal work. Co-Owners and founders, Amy and Stefan Sasick encouraged me to start my own business and to them I am grateful. Of course my kind, talented, and wonderful wife deserves the most thanks of all. My sister has also been so very helpful, and I am grateful.  

Website: https://www.theendeavorworks.com/

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Image Credits
Photo Credits: Tim White, Dillon Cole, Natalie Scarlett