[WWI] AMS and food for thought

[Collins, Graham]

There is an interesting ongoing a thread on another mailing list to
which I also subscribe. There have been several discussions here on
similar thoughts and I thought you might enjoy these "thoughts".

I suspect that many are like myself; while I enjoy having a display of
things that I have built, the act of building is what I have finally
come to accept is the real reason that I like to build models. Whenever
I finish a project, whether it has taken a week or 6 months, the project
is complete and that brings joy but there is also a feeling of loss.
Maybe that is why I always seem to have too many projects on the go at
once.

So, here are a couple of postings from this "other list" for your
thoughtful enjoyment:

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Creating something with our hands? That makes us the right kind of
people.

How do I know? It says so in a book we discovered and bought a while
back, and which I finally got around to leafing through . . . then had
to start reading every word of from the front.

"The Forgotten Arts & Crafts" by John Seymour (ISBN 0-7894-5847-0,
Dorling Kindersley) explains how important it is for people to do
something other than punching computer buttons or doing repetitive,
uncreative tasks in some factory assembly line. He sees the return to
interest in handwork, craftsmanship and the like to be a potential
healer to what he calls our present Age of Plunder -- our throw-away
society. He quotes an acquaintance:

    That good craftsman, Eric Gill, once wrote: "leisure is secular,
work is sacred. The object of leisure is work, the object of work is
holiness. Holiness means wholeness."

I'm now doubly glad my wife and I share a studio trying to create and
modify things using our hands, and hearts.

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 Subject: [sherline] Making things
 
 I'm interested in the postings on this subject.  I haven't told you
before, but I'm an "art expert" - a retired museum director.  :-)
 
 I believe the interest in processes is biological.  We have this brain
and these hands, and we have been making things, including art,  for a
very, very long time.  In fact, art is one of the indications  of the
emergence of our species.  Deprived on this ancient and  integral
acticity, we miss it dearly.
 
 I am suspeicious of the guy who says he "can't do anything with his
hands".  Actually, he can; he just doesn't.  
 
 The intense interest in physical processes cam home to me one day long
ago in a dime-store.  There was a carnival barker type dipping
elaborate candles.  Aweful looking things, but it attracted a big
crowd.  It occurred to me it was the process, not the product which  was
the attraction.  Ever since, I've notice that all you have to do  to
attract a crowd is to set up a little bench and start making  something
- anything.
 
 Museums have long ignored this as a means of access to the nature and
meaning of finished works of art, but when they do utilize it - via
videos, etc., it works wonderfully well.  
 
 A work of art consists of a presence, a process and a context, where
context is the values and ideas of the artist's time; process is the
manipulation of materials (as wll as social process); and  pesence is
the intensity of the resulting object.  
 
 Whithout a strong peresence, the work fails because no one pays it any
heed.  That's why a well made and well finished piece of machine  work
is so attractive!!!
 
 Why we react to objects the way we do is another story from which I
will spre you for the moment.
 
 That's your art lesson for the day.
 
 
 

Cheers, Graham in Embrun near Ottawa Canada