08/11/2024
From a comment on my recent Substack
Growing Our Hands Back
Had to share an excerpt from "Horace's Hands" by Barnaby Stone - Found in 'Playing for Time : making art as if the world mattered' a collective work by Lucy Neal (a definitive resource in communal craftworking - well well worth looking into)
"Our hands shape the intellect as they feel for the form of what we make. They sense the consistency of the mix, the weight and proportion of each ingredient. They handle, caress, stroke, fo**le, grasp, wipe, ply, manipulate, turn, paw, scratch, push, pull, tap, sweep, wield.
The artist comes with his or her own agenda, marrying a construct of materials to a certain reflection of the world. The relationship to the process is the same however. The skill of crafting is about understanding where things come from and where we are taking them. We have to be aware that our every action is made at the fulcrum of impending history. It is about adaptability in the face of difficulty and how that capacity to be responsive and flexible is, and always has been, part of the crafts person's art and the artists craft.
We nurture the future of things.
My hands are still now.
They are empty.
Nothing."
I can’t wait to get this book!
