Thank you for these nourishing thoughts. I will join in the audit of things I touch in a day, I imagine it will be quite surprising. You mention your mum's appreciation of smooth, wipe-clean things: I think feminism is often left out of many discussions about the Machine and it's effects on all our lives. For working class women these amazing new things - washing machines, vacuum cleaners, drip-dry clothing, supermarkets and so on - were nothing less than a liberation from a life spent cleaning, washing, sewing, shopping and childminding. Not that any of these activities are bad, but there was little choice for women to do anything else. My auntie worked in a munitions factory during the war and she often said it was the happiest time of her life: to be working at something so important, in the company of hundreds of other women. Then she had to go back to being a housewife and she resented it deeply. So women were freed economically, to go out to work (and of course there's the whole capitalist aspect of that to consider) and earn their own money. Even if they had to put it in their husband's bank account because they couldn't have one of their own...
Back to tactility! I am going to spend today noticing how many different textures I experience and how they make me feel.
This is so important, and I talked several times with my Grandmother and Aunt about this before they died. I still talk with my Mum about such things. To be honest, these days, 'feminism is left out' of most things... The material conditions of women aren't necessarily better than two decades ago, and in many crucial ways are worse, eg online harassment, death and rape threats, low rape convictions in UK (less than 2%), plateauing of pay equality (and housework share in heterosexual couples). So, I shall never begrudge a woman saving her time and energy via material decisions and devices.
The irony is, when I free my time up by using our very efficient washing machine, say, rather than having to wash clothes by hand as my Nan did, I end up spending my 'free' time crushing rocks, cutting up rags to make laboriously hand made rugs and cooking dishes with many elements from scratch, all for pleasure.
Freedom of choice is a factor, what is chosen is beloved, what is forced is resented. But also, most of my 'work' ends up as gifts, and this is not inconsequential. To be part of a family or community that loves and values both us and our work, whatever good work that is, is what I and many others really want.
Thanks for your comment, my friend. Back to work (meetings online) for me now, fuelled by tea, as is the British way.
Must be nearly 60 years ago a schoolteacher friend loaned me a book about a method that went wider than art lessons. Children and adults participated in a project where they moulded clay, mostly, while unsighted. We could see the results. The representational objects usually showed subtleties, traces contributed by otherwise unattended memory. They reminded me a little of subtleties in Classical Greek sculpture or crafted hand tools, perhaps even cave art. We have inner friends given a chance? (I once had the chance of handling a particularly beautiful bronze axe-head found on a local hilltop - it said 'Greek' to me.)
Thanks for this piece. Lots to ponder on. My artist colleaguie and I have been discussing whether there's a healthy "mental biome" and whether, like the gut biome, it depends on diversity of input. So, ahead of a visit to Iona in January, we each tried to keep a record of every sensation/stimuli we noticed - heard, felt, tatsted and smelt to see if we reached 30 different ones (as recommended for the gut biome!) .We left out visual sitimuli being aware how much they usually dominate our attention. It was easy to get to 30 and I liked the fact that I stopped and just smelt the sea, felt the wind, heard a boat's lines creaking, the 'bing bong' announcement on a CalMac ferry, the feel of walking on sand, the singing in Iona Abbey. If we have a mental biome, it certainly felt invigorated!
I am thinking about the difference between an ox yoke, carved by hand from yellow birch, and the molded plastic of the tractor's steering wheel. We are praying for a well-matched pair of bull calves this July, as we will have the hands and the milk to start walking along side them. Come winter, we will walk the woods looking for just the right trunks for yokes. Thank you for helping us remember, Caro. Steam-bending the bows has become a bit of a specialty craft these days, and most people order them from a few makers here in the States.
You've left me with lots to think about my own art-making, which transforms flat sheets of paper into textured origami tessellations using only my hands and a bone folder. Working with hand-made paper that was a gift from a friend was a special treat!
I also have a habit of bringing paper to fold whenever I'm going to a waiting room to avoid being on my phone or listening to something on headphones - the folding helps me relax and makes a great conversation starter too.
I think this is exactly why I have deeply fallen in love with textile art - since I committed deeply to my yoga practice of turning up at the mat each day, practicing the whole 8 limbs to the best of my ability.
There is something radical about taking the time to make things with our hands and textile art seems utterly decadent, whereas I can 'justify' knitting as I end up with a practical thing which I love wearing.
At the slightest chance I go feral and wonder around barefoot, but not around where I live sadly, it takes a 30 min trip to the woods before I feel safe enough from glass to walk, but walk I do
As a retired university professor of soil engineering, I was "touched" by your section on "Everything We Touch." My field uses "touch" to analyze soils in the field. It's a hard concept to teach to young students today. Your fingers can tell you many things about soil behavior. However, as simple a concept as this is, my students still tend to disregard its importance and don't believe it's relevant in today's world. Nonetheless, the article reminded me of one of the short writings I love from Gabriel Mistral, the Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet and educator, concerning touch.
To My Children
Many years hence, when I am a little heap of silent dust, play with me, with the earth of my heart and of my bones!
If a mason gathers me up, he will make me into a brick, and I shall remain fast forever in a wall; and I hate quiet niches. If they make me a brick in a prison, I shall grow red with shame when I hear a man sob; and if I am a brick in a school, I shall still suffer, because I cannot sing with you in the early morning.
I would rather be the dust with which you play, on the country roads. Clasp me, for I have been yours; unmake me for I made you; trample upon me, because I did not give you the whole of beauty and the whole of truth! Or only sing and run above me, so that I may kiss your beloved feet.
When you hold me in your hands, recite some beautiful verse, and I shall rustle with delight between your fingers. I shall rise up to look at you, seeking among you the eyes, the hair of those whom I taught.
And when you make any image out of me, break it every moment; for every moment the children broke me, with tenderness and grief!
What an incredible piece of writing. Thank you! Also, palpation in medicine, fingertip discernment in woodwork and all the many qualities of touch needed in the myriad fibre arts are similarly struggling to be transmitted to those who only touch frictionless screens. Friction, granularity, tension - these are all like parts of speech and metaphors lost when their contexts collapse for lack of practice.
I would like to know more about soil engineering. Several earth arts colleagues are 'soil science adjacent' so it is always coming up on my radar. All the best slick blue clay and warm sandy loams to you.
I'll send more information later, but as a quick lesson, older geotechnical engineers (soil engineers) can distinguish between silt and clay by simply placing the soil on their tongue. Your tongue is much more sensitive than your fingers. This is important in pottery since pottery needs a fair amount of silt (i.e., small sand particles) to prevent cracking during heating. Your tongue can easily tell if the clay, which should be smooth, has small sand particles, and roughly how much.
I remember having to add 'grog' which adds stability to ceramics (the larger particles you mention, but made from broken old earthenware vessels) when making wild pottery with Ruby Taylor of Native Hands, and learned that 'grog', as in the rum ration for British Navy sailors, was named for these vessels.
Thank you for these nourishing thoughts. I will join in the audit of things I touch in a day, I imagine it will be quite surprising. You mention your mum's appreciation of smooth, wipe-clean things: I think feminism is often left out of many discussions about the Machine and it's effects on all our lives. For working class women these amazing new things - washing machines, vacuum cleaners, drip-dry clothing, supermarkets and so on - were nothing less than a liberation from a life spent cleaning, washing, sewing, shopping and childminding. Not that any of these activities are bad, but there was little choice for women to do anything else. My auntie worked in a munitions factory during the war and she often said it was the happiest time of her life: to be working at something so important, in the company of hundreds of other women. Then she had to go back to being a housewife and she resented it deeply. So women were freed economically, to go out to work (and of course there's the whole capitalist aspect of that to consider) and earn their own money. Even if they had to put it in their husband's bank account because they couldn't have one of their own...
Back to tactility! I am going to spend today noticing how many different textures I experience and how they make me feel.
This is so important, and I talked several times with my Grandmother and Aunt about this before they died. I still talk with my Mum about such things. To be honest, these days, 'feminism is left out' of most things... The material conditions of women aren't necessarily better than two decades ago, and in many crucial ways are worse, eg online harassment, death and rape threats, low rape convictions in UK (less than 2%), plateauing of pay equality (and housework share in heterosexual couples). So, I shall never begrudge a woman saving her time and energy via material decisions and devices.
The irony is, when I free my time up by using our very efficient washing machine, say, rather than having to wash clothes by hand as my Nan did, I end up spending my 'free' time crushing rocks, cutting up rags to make laboriously hand made rugs and cooking dishes with many elements from scratch, all for pleasure.
Freedom of choice is a factor, what is chosen is beloved, what is forced is resented. But also, most of my 'work' ends up as gifts, and this is not inconsequential. To be part of a family or community that loves and values both us and our work, whatever good work that is, is what I and many others really want.
Thanks for your comment, my friend. Back to work (meetings online) for me now, fuelled by tea, as is the British way.
Good thoughts, good links, thanks.
Must be nearly 60 years ago a schoolteacher friend loaned me a book about a method that went wider than art lessons. Children and adults participated in a project where they moulded clay, mostly, while unsighted. We could see the results. The representational objects usually showed subtleties, traces contributed by otherwise unattended memory. They reminded me a little of subtleties in Classical Greek sculpture or crafted hand tools, perhaps even cave art. We have inner friends given a chance? (I once had the chance of handling a particularly beautiful bronze axe-head found on a local hilltop - it said 'Greek' to me.)
Thanks for this piece. Lots to ponder on. My artist colleaguie and I have been discussing whether there's a healthy "mental biome" and whether, like the gut biome, it depends on diversity of input. So, ahead of a visit to Iona in January, we each tried to keep a record of every sensation/stimuli we noticed - heard, felt, tatsted and smelt to see if we reached 30 different ones (as recommended for the gut biome!) .We left out visual sitimuli being aware how much they usually dominate our attention. It was easy to get to 30 and I liked the fact that I stopped and just smelt the sea, felt the wind, heard a boat's lines creaking, the 'bing bong' announcement on a CalMac ferry, the feel of walking on sand, the singing in Iona Abbey. If we have a mental biome, it certainly felt invigorated!
This is it! mind biome, gut biome, touch biome, sense biome, heart biome… Thank you.
I am thinking about the difference between an ox yoke, carved by hand from yellow birch, and the molded plastic of the tractor's steering wheel. We are praying for a well-matched pair of bull calves this July, as we will have the hands and the milk to start walking along side them. Come winter, we will walk the woods looking for just the right trunks for yokes. Thank you for helping us remember, Caro. Steam-bending the bows has become a bit of a specialty craft these days, and most people order them from a few makers here in the States.
Thank you, Caro.
You've left me with lots to think about my own art-making, which transforms flat sheets of paper into textured origami tessellations using only my hands and a bone folder. Working with hand-made paper that was a gift from a friend was a special treat!
I also have a habit of bringing paper to fold whenever I'm going to a waiting room to avoid being on my phone or listening to something on headphones - the folding helps me relax and makes a great conversation starter too.
I think this is exactly why I have deeply fallen in love with textile art - since I committed deeply to my yoga practice of turning up at the mat each day, practicing the whole 8 limbs to the best of my ability.
There is something radical about taking the time to make things with our hands and textile art seems utterly decadent, whereas I can 'justify' knitting as I end up with a practical thing which I love wearing.
At the slightest chance I go feral and wonder around barefoot, but not around where I live sadly, it takes a 30 min trip to the woods before I feel safe enough from glass to walk, but walk I do
As a retired university professor of soil engineering, I was "touched" by your section on "Everything We Touch." My field uses "touch" to analyze soils in the field. It's a hard concept to teach to young students today. Your fingers can tell you many things about soil behavior. However, as simple a concept as this is, my students still tend to disregard its importance and don't believe it's relevant in today's world. Nonetheless, the article reminded me of one of the short writings I love from Gabriel Mistral, the Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet and educator, concerning touch.
To My Children
Many years hence, when I am a little heap of silent dust, play with me, with the earth of my heart and of my bones!
If a mason gathers me up, he will make me into a brick, and I shall remain fast forever in a wall; and I hate quiet niches. If they make me a brick in a prison, I shall grow red with shame when I hear a man sob; and if I am a brick in a school, I shall still suffer, because I cannot sing with you in the early morning.
I would rather be the dust with which you play, on the country roads. Clasp me, for I have been yours; unmake me for I made you; trample upon me, because I did not give you the whole of beauty and the whole of truth! Or only sing and run above me, so that I may kiss your beloved feet.
When you hold me in your hands, recite some beautiful verse, and I shall rustle with delight between your fingers. I shall rise up to look at you, seeking among you the eyes, the hair of those whom I taught.
And when you make any image out of me, break it every moment; for every moment the children broke me, with tenderness and grief!
What an incredible piece of writing. Thank you! Also, palpation in medicine, fingertip discernment in woodwork and all the many qualities of touch needed in the myriad fibre arts are similarly struggling to be transmitted to those who only touch frictionless screens. Friction, granularity, tension - these are all like parts of speech and metaphors lost when their contexts collapse for lack of practice.
I would like to know more about soil engineering. Several earth arts colleagues are 'soil science adjacent' so it is always coming up on my radar. All the best slick blue clay and warm sandy loams to you.
I'll send more information later, but as a quick lesson, older geotechnical engineers (soil engineers) can distinguish between silt and clay by simply placing the soil on their tongue. Your tongue is much more sensitive than your fingers. This is important in pottery since pottery needs a fair amount of silt (i.e., small sand particles) to prevent cracking during heating. Your tongue can easily tell if the clay, which should be smooth, has small sand particles, and roughly how much.
I remember having to add 'grog' which adds stability to ceramics (the larger particles you mention, but made from broken old earthenware vessels) when making wild pottery with Ruby Taylor of Native Hands, and learned that 'grog', as in the rum ration for British Navy sailors, was named for these vessels.