Something I remember from being in England 2 years ago (!! the passage of time is alarming!!) is being in cathedrals, and I can't remember exactly which one we were in when we talked about this or what the Big Point even was, but I remember talking about how Gothic architecture has this inherent individuality that none of the other styles can really match, because in all that detail work, all that carving and the gargoyles and Jacks-o'-the-green and Green men and just all the STUFF that is EVERYWHERE, NONE of it is ever identical--it is all done by different artisans just doing their thing in their own time, and so the whole cathedral ends up being this sprawling, metamorphosing mass of CREATION wherein really no attempt has been made to induce order or regularity or machine-like precision, it all just IS. I realized this morning that that is something I've been thinking about a lot these past 2 weeks, as I've been artisan'ing it up book-style, how there's not much that can match the inherent individuality of something that is hand crafted and toiled over by just some human being, doing their best to make something beautiful. As I look at the two finished books from these two weeks, I'm sort of torn because on the one hand I love them, like, LOVE them, and every part of their completion just makes me HAPPY, but on the other hand there are some pretty obvious mistakes and blunders I made that even to an untrained eye are pretty noticeable. So I guess all this ruminating on human creation is just a way of justifying to myself that even though I messed up on some stages of the execution, the fact that I just love the everloving shiz out of these inanimate objects still can have meaning for me and (maybs even I can convince myself) elevates them as hand crafted objects in their own right. Okay? I'm willing to buy it.
So of course I woke up this morning to the melancholy click of the front door as Susan left for the airport, and I was thinking all of these things and decided that the only thing for it was to google William Morris pictures. Sometimes, most of the times, that is the only recourse we have left.
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| Sometimes, if I let myself think about it, I get SO MAD that I never had the chance to even TRY to woo either Edward Burne-Jones or William Morris here. I mean, give a girl a CHANCE to live her dreams, amiright? What thing is left us that we linger here? |
3 comments:
ps had an england gathering recently and your absence was both noted and lamented. that is all.
so I must be blind? I saw both the loved books and I didn't see any blunders--obvious or otherwise. You have a discerning eye!
I hope you continue to post from your studio!
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