Thursday 9 November 2017


I wonder what I expect to get from writing?  Like art I'm not that bad at getting going when I have a clarity of purpose.  Art could be about sense-making, it could be elevated to near spiritual levels, the Shaman or Mystic who becomes the embodied figure around which the people of a community cluster.  The great signifier regardless of what is signified or not signified.  This is one role of the artist in generating social cohesion, the Joseph Beuys role where a life becomes art and the relationship is mutual.

Talking to Andrew McMillan yesterday and we were thinking about art forms.  How important is it for a poet to present as a poet? What does having a poet in the room do to help people who do not see themselves as poets write poetry?  We thought about this in relation to the idea of a workshop and I think we decided that having a poet in the room can legitimise peoples' writing.  It is hard to say this without sounding full of ourselves but if it is true, at least for some people, then it needs to be said.

So in taking this seriously and not reducing things to a list of ingredients then culture plays a role in social cohesion.  A breakdown of the culture we have in common can present problems as we rub closer and closer up against each other.  Artists' role in developing social cohesion is then the interplay between a number of individual facets that resonate in a complex field of actions and reactions.  Firstly artists can be critical and question givens, they can break down existing structures and come between people by presenting singular or binary world views.  I often say we do not sign the Hippocratic Oath, we can do harm.  Secondly they can introduce robust forms such as poetry that can allow for people to be heard over other more accepted forms such as "consultation meetings".  These forms are only robust if they are constructed with integrity within a framework that allows them to be aware of themselves and the edges of their forms.

For me on my project at the adventure playground I am isolating myself from the 'form of sculpture' and thinking of it more as making.  I am making something useful that is seen as having value and ambition.  I am trying to re-kindle my own ambition and this is an ambition for art to be of use.  This is not instrumental it is a search for relevance in a chaotic world where making play equipment has an authentic and relevance use value.

I have just listened to Ivor Cutlers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkKnnAK7E-U  I think this is the art I really like.  It's about whimsy which is a good word.

Friday 3 November 2017


When I make things with my hands a difference kind of sense gets made.  It is not 'better than' just 'different to'. People who do not make things don't really understand how difficult it can be, making things is sometimes taken for granted.  At other times when people really need something making it gets valued. Yet we in the first, developed, global South, would rather pay children to sweat and assemble our throw away ephemera. Unless of course if it's artisan cheese carving, crafted by bearded-bald-hipsters and sold from a 1970's caravan.

There is a craft to writing and a craft to making, words and wood are cut and hewn to shapes that fit together and support structures, pirate ships and texts.  My brain works in modes, the space between my ears that cannot remember where I fitted the support beam, so every time  I walk to my car I bang my head, has to switch between modes or both writing and making feel clumsy.  That's why I haven't written here for a while, because the craft of writing requires an attention and a spirit.  It's probably more important that I concentrate on making for a while as if this writing has holes in it nobody except me will care, the pirate ship however will need to be water tight and ship shape.

This is my favorite quote from Heidegger.  I say balls to all your New Materialism and Carnal Knowledge.  Heidegger is described by Hanna Ardent (his former partner) as a child when it comes to totalitarian regimes but he captures making and thinking well here;

Building and thinking are, each in its own way, inescapable for dwelling.  The two, however, are also insufficient for dwelling so long as each busies its self with its own affairs in separation, instead of listening to the other.  They are able to listen if both...belong to dwelling, if they remain within their limits and realise that the one as much as the other comes from the long workshop of long experience and incessant practice.
(Heidegger 1962: p. 362; see also Latimer and Munro 2009).