The Tinkerer

Marshall Smith is a relatively unknown tinkerer. Living a quiet life, he rarely stepped out of his small, some may say tiny social circle. On most days Marshall is at work in his basement with mechanical devices of different forms and sizes, some of which may bear the name of an uncertain Rube Goldberg if such a man were to be born as some of us expect. But to Marshall, these machines quench a momentary curiosity, an itch that would die only if the idea was molded into a geared-machination and the truth wrung out. As being among the few lucky ones with access to Marshall’s laboratory, it would not surprise me if a two-ton steam engine ultimately punched a hole the size of a peanut in a cardboard sheet.

Some of these cardboard sheets, pigments and other seemingly pointless results from various experiments end up in his house, providing mild amusement to the occasional visitor Marshall has at home. The more inquisitive among them ask Marshall what he is working on and if his work is like that of an artist. They ask these questions for one of two reasons. One, the sophisticated 18th century mind is finally ready to say that art cannot be constrained by a rigid definition and could be anything that enriches our sensory experience. Or two, they just take the little bit of oddity that is Marshall’s life and hang it like a painting on the tiring, gray walls of their own lives. More often, the latter.

So is Marshall an artist? Marshall himself tries to evade answering that question. Any response that involves a deeper explanation merely fans out all excitement in a person who is superficially curious. At times a nod in agreement is all that they are expecting and one should not hesitate to give it to them.

I can tell you what Marshall does. I don’t think Marshall is making paintings, he is making paints. I’d call his work the “Engine for the Grinding of Colours”. It may or may not be art itself, but I can foresee a little bit of Marshall’s art in the work of many other artists.

But remember, this isn’t what every tinkerer does. Just what Marshall Smith does.

Marshall Smith did invent the ‘Machine or Engine for the Grinding of Colours’. The rest of this story is fictional.