Anna Ploszajski is a materials scientist with a first from Oxford, two masters degrees and a PhD in materials science. She can explain atomic structures, graphs about strength and the theory of magnetic forces, but secretly, she knows nothing about what materials are really like. She doesn’t know how to measure the temperature of steel just by looking at it, how to sculpt stone into all kinds of shapes, or what it feels like to blow up a balloon of glass. This is the domain of the makers and craftspeople. Their accumulated knowledge through hands-on trial and error has been built on by generation after generation of experimenters and tinkerers, and they understand the materiality of objects far more than any bookish nerd with a textbook.
‘Till You Make It is an exploration of materials through making and doing. Each chapter is dedicated to an everyday material and features Anna’s accounts of learning from masters in craft. Along the way she will build a fuller picture of materials and their place in society. She’s visits a female blacksmith artist to see, hear, smell and strike steel herself, explores how working with one of the most primal of materials, clay, has brought about some of the most advanced technologies and will delve down to the atomic scale of glass to find out what makes it ‘glassy’.
This book will offer a fresh and entertaining perspective on materials science through the eyes of a young woman who is at the forefront of the field, as well as the craftspeople who have built their careers around working with certain materials. Emphasis will be given to the importance of making and craft throughout history and how this has shaped our culture and technology.
