Robert Dye on sun 9 sep 01
Handmade? My hands are tools for my mind. Everything I make was made in
my mind first. The choice of tools for my hands comes from my mind too,
and depends on what in takes to make what was imagined. Someone on the
list said that he/she had never seen a "handmade" tag, I have and my
reponse is the same as when someone says "trust me." Like many words, this
one is overused. If I want make an amphora like one I have never seen, I
will do whatever it takes. Even making a mold and slipcasting. Mostly I
make slab pots, no tools except the wire I use to form the slab, my hands
and my mind. My pots then have sculptures made on one side, usually a
plant in which I have found beauty and wish to share it with others who do
not see with my life experiences. I also make metal sculptures, many of
which are insects, "bugs", sometimes nasty bugs, like mosquitoes. I see
beauty in them, and have had some success in showing that beauty to others
who hate "bugs". I think of myself as an artist, because I have something
to communicate, and have had some success in completing that
communication. My sculptures are not handmade by any of the definitions I
have read on the list, but they must be handmade, only my hand/mind could
have produced them. Only my mind made the choices of what to abstract,
what to leave out, and what to reproduce as faithfully as I could. Someone
else could certainly copy my work, but it would just as certainly not be
the same. "Handmade" is not important, unique, one of a kind with an
intent to communicate something, that's important. Being true to yourself
as a craftsman, that's important. If you choose to make a mold and
slipcast hundreds of duplicates, so more people might receive your
communication, does that mean it is no longer art? They can be sold for
less, perhaps, but if it was art to start with, it must still be art. Hey,
who says that all that an artist produces is art?
| |
|
