Art Journal : Residency, Part II

In the focused immersion of the residency, I’ve been able to observe the inner workings and limits of my own practice. I am trying to accomplish certain things —to bring life to specific ideas that have been maturing for some time—while also leaving room to experiment. Those are two very opposite dynamics, but they create a balance that will leave me, hopefully, content in the end. Only a few weeks are left to finish up, let things dry and document the final work. This process has allowed me to reflect deeply on the idea of Craft, and what I found so compelling in it.

Let’s start there: there is nothing that makes me feel more alive than working on something that connects both my thinking and the use of my body, my hands more specifically. I’ve come to summarize to those who ask me what my artwork is about, that it is my way of ‘thinking through the body’, an attempt to translate consciousness into a material experience.

In this journal, I meditate on the meaning of craft in theory, in practice and all the places in between, not as a perfectly structured essay, but rather as a collection of thoughts on the subject.

Concept Sketch over “Invisible Hands’, work in progress sculpture to be glazed.

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Like many people in my generation, I was not raised into a culture where manual labor was valued, there was an implied superiority for the work of the mind, the ability to build an identity based on your knowledge, critical thinking and come up with original ideas (as if that was absolutely possible). The flaw in this way of thinking seems increasingly obvious, as qualitative physical labor is proving difficult to replace: human care for living beings remains essential, and artisanal goods have become luxuries.

Once again, technological changes, now threatening knowledge work, raise the question of where human values lie if machines can also ‘think’ (and what we mean exactly by that) but cannot ‘feel’ the way humans can. If these times are so unprecedented, it might be because we are put in front of a very existential question in new and urgent ways: what makes us human? Does it need to be redefined? Is there even such a thing as an innate humanity? As uncomfortable as it is, it is also such a fertile ground for creative expression, exploring new ways of thinking, and discussing with others.

Craft, for me, is one of those things that intersect perfectly within the realm of the acquired knowledge and the intuitive knowing, the thinking of the mind and the feeling of the body. It leaves behind a human trace that is as unique as each individual. I see craft as the handwriting of any human creation, a dimension where authenticity can be fully expressed in the most subtle ways, but perhaps some of the only ways left when it is no longer possible to authentically express ideas with words.

I keep wondering: in a culture that keeps flattening stories (by consolidated technology and globalization), where is creativity escaping? May new languages of expression be born in unexpected spaces: materials, interpersonal relationships, connections to nature…anything bridging us back to the physical world, to a shared reality. I’m interested in thinking about how digital culture, despite all of its magical and unimaginable upsides, has also disconnected us from our bodies and our senses, by inserting machines between ourselves and the physical world, and alienating us from an ecosystem we fully depend on. How often do we see the light of the sun before the light of a screen or recognize the smell of dirt in a garden (all of which have direct impact on our biologies)? I fundamentally believe that nothing can fully replace the human touch, as soft, nurturing and healing as it can be.

What if ‘feeling’, meaning the reaction of the body to the sensitive world, was the most powerful thing left to the human experience. I feel, therefore I am. It is the unique history of feelings and emotions that constitute our identity, individuality, richness, diversity, etc. It is through that subjective history that our craft develops alongside our ability to recognize it elsewhere. I want to make room for the Homo Sentiens or Homo Sensibilis inside of me. What if a renewed emphasis on craft was the gateway to reclaiming empathy?

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Focusing on my craft is a meditative and embodied process that forces me to be present with the experience of reality. It creates a dialogue with the physical world. In odd ways, I can become obsessed with the possibilities to bring ideas to life in some shape or form. I find I am no longer interested in doing hundreds of things; I want to spend hundreds of hours on one thing. For me this is the real challenge, the heart of the process. In more tender parts of myself, I will always feel too crafty to be an artist, and too heady (or untamable) to be a real craftsworker.

Practicing means patience, precision, coherence between what’s in the mind and what’s unfolding through repetition, weight, pressure, and time. Sculpting, coiling, modeling, polishing, painting, all become both structure and rhythm. It is as if repetition leads me toward a void. The mind quiets, finally at peace; time suspends itself. In that state, something larger has room to emerge — perhaps even a search for truth. Can embodiment become so full that it dissolves into disembodiment?

In her essays ‘Art on My Mind’, bell hooks opens with the quote:

“Art is a habit of the intellect, developed with practice over time, that empowers the artist to make the work right and protects him... from deviating from what is good for the work. It unites what he is with what his material is. It leads him to seek his own depths. Its purpose is not his self-enhancement, his having fun or feeling good about himself. These are byproducts. It aims solely towards bringing a new thing into existence in the truest manner possible. It is about truth and, as such, has to do with ultimates and, as such, posits self-sacrifice and consecration.

This passage by Nell Sonneman specifically addresses the work of the artist Martin Puryear, yet it names a philosophical approach to art making that shapes the way I think, dream, feel, and imagine art. - b.h.”

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There is also something deeply humbling and grounding about working on a craft. It might be the most vulnerable part of the process, the part when the creator has to actually ‘try hard’ (always harder), to make a vision come to life. How will they do that is the key question. Ways of seeing develop alongside ways of making, and the bar slowly gets pushed higher and higher. There are no shortcuts, no final destination, just experience, a lifetime of work; no magic talent, just desire to try again and again, pure devotion.

If craft is defined by the labor of the body to create skilled work, I like to think about it in the broadest sense. Even intellectual work, such as writing involves the traces of the body: building up attention, taking pause, breathing. Through it, the voice emerges.

Making with my own hands confronts me with the power and limits of the human touch, in all senses. It confronts us with forces beyond our control: the weather drying the clay too quickly, the ‘kiln gods’ deciding whether to bless the objects of our worship… No matter the skill and technique, there is always room for mystery and alchemy. Perhaps craft - through the body - is the pathway to experiencing reality again.

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‘It’s just craft until a man says it’s art’, a slogan on a t-shirt reminded me that the debate about the hierarchy between the two isn’t new, and the origin of their definition was always arbitrary, ancient, and very western, although the perceptions are shifting slightly.

Why am I so drawn to artwork where traces of the hand or the body remain? I was recently in a reading group discussion that brought to my attention the fact that artists that tried to ignore craft, either proposing a version of acceptable ‘lazy art’ or outsourcing production to other people entirely, were most often western male artists ‘entitled’ enough to do so. Perhaps it was only masking a lack (or fear) of vulnerability.

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Tending to my craft is also a form of ritual, to step out in a parallel dimension that reaches the soul, and fill the spiritual cup that modern society has lost. I am really fascinated by the power of traditions, rituals as a way to experience and celebrate life milestones, and simply come together. My son recently gifted me a makeshift bracelet made at school for Mother’s Day, reminding me of the very same ones I used to make as a child, a true rite of passage into a new chapter of my life.

Why are so many rituals experienced alone? Aside from pseudo-religious holidays, most ‘rituals’ promoted in our capitalist culture are individualistic, self-care-based for the most part, reflecting a model where we must care for the self because the community, ‘the village’, has been destroyed. Today more than ever, we see that exhausted model is digging its own hole, trying to hold on so tightly to its last breath, while so many of us are impatiently awaiting the new. Reading to my three-year-old a (simplified) story about prehistoric times, I explained to him that people would gather in their huts at night inside a circle of fire, to protect themselves from wildlife and keep it alive. People would take turns every night to stay awake and keep it alive. In a different picture, families were gathered in a cave at night, with one person painting animals on walls: ‘Mom, is he telling a bedtime story before the kids go to sleep?’. In these precious scenes, craft, art and caregiving seem to merge together, and it still makes sense millions of years later.

I keep thinking about the transformative power of rituals for the collective, and ways that art can undoubtedly fulfill these gaps. I’m more and more interested in art that involves a social practice, dipping my toes into the work of Lee Ufan, or performance projects, where a body performs in front of other bodies. In this form, craft takes an entirely new meaning: repairing, mending, tending to others. I don’t know that I’ll ever have the courage to explore those routes, but the seed has been planted.

In her essay ‘Art Song’, Maggie Nelson argues that art should resist filling a role of moral goodness or ethical repair, but perhaps it does provide care in indirect ways. Not as comfort, but by creating a space for shared attention, discipline, responsibility. Without a doubt, there is craft in keeping the village alive.

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Bibliography

‘Art on My Mind’, bell hooks

‘Permanent Red’, John Berger

‘Ways of Seeing’, John Berger

‘On Beauty’, Agnes Martin

‘How it Feels to Be Alive’, Megan O’Grady

‘Caliban and the witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation’, Silivia Federici

‘Against Breaking: on the power of poetry’ Ada Limon