Explored more the WHY of building with natural materials like we did in the 2006 Joy of Making.
I worked with two skilled assistants: Jim Caufield, an architect and rustic maker of objects and devices and Olivia Baldwin, an artist-painter and executive director of a Surrealism Center.
Three Characteristics of this Workshop
1. The tone of the workshop is "responsive". It is meant to support and help elaborate the concerns you bring and the interests you may develop. That's the "people-in-transition" part. It's related to the alchemical practice of meditatio: the engaging in an inner dialogue with someone unseen. So, I am starting from the assumption that you -we- are all, always, in some conversation. We are always reviewing and revising our Story. That Story is rooted in our personal and collective past as well as in the creative unconscious. This week is a chance to try out a few new ways of learning more about all that... and do it as wordlessly as we can, by Making Objects as ways to help us understand.
This aspect of the workshop did lead to a less directive and assertive role on my part. I'm not sure of the value. I'll ask the participants. The teacher temptation is to say:
"Now for the next hour we will all make Cards, or Masks, or or or"
2. As another part of the "responsive" approach, I tried to allow for alternative learning styles. We all don't learn or explore in the same ways. Some of you may need and thrive in this group of pilgrim people that are coming together; Some may enjoy the daily set of prompts, exercises or "portals" I'll offer; Others may yearn for opportunities for some solitude or private adventure, with Omega as the safe home base. I know a lot of the special,"thin" places in the area.
3. Another twist in this workshop is its gaze away from art-making as commodity or utility or even just "self-expression".
So what's left if it's not the Marketplace or Gallery or Museum?
Hmm, good question. It'll be interesting to explore the alternatives. I can assure you there are many. It has something to do with what's called the Middle Way in Buddhist teaching. There ARE other ways and motives for making things: Fetishes, charms, allurements, adornments, totems...
A break from prose
Working Together -- David Whyte ** see video **from The House of Belonging ©1996 Many Rivers Press
We shape our self
to fit this worldand by the world
are shaped again.The visible
and the invisibleworking together
in common cause,to produce
the miraculous.I am thinking of the way
the intangible airpassed at speed
round a shaped wingeasily
holds our weight.So may we, in this life
trustto those elements
we have yet to seeor imagine,
and look for the trueshape of our own self,
by forming it wellto the great
intangibles about us.Written for the presentation of The Collier Trophy to The Boeing Company marking the introduction of the new 777 passenger jet.