backCRAFT, QUALITY AND ECOLOGY: THE
FABRIC OF THE WORLD
Seminar held at the Schumacher College
Seminar held at the Schumacher College
This
course is about the central importance of 'making' and an understanding of
quality, both in personal life and in encouraging a sustainable society.
The Dartington Hall Trust has been actively involved in these issues for sixty years. The varied discussions will be focused around an intensive experience of making with one's own hands during 45 hours of small-group tuition in one of the following: Carving and Woodturning; Bookbinding; Printmaking and Open Forge work. The tuition will aim to provide a serious, useful level of skill. Contributions will also be invited from local craftspeople. At the same time, this natural experience of intimate attention of hand and eye, heart and mind, to particular materials without any psychological agenda will lead to the widest possible exploration of quality, ecology and true economy. Most directly, we live in a society which depends largely on manufactured goods, and too often on a throw-away mentality driven by fads and fashions.
Reawakening the instincts for quality and substance will immediately reduce our demands for raw materials and energy, as well as encourage us to explore our individual relationships with the systems which support human life. This issue will be examined through field trips to wilderness (and even a scrap-yard) and through talks on deep Ecology and Gaia Theory by Stephan Harding (Estate Ecologist and Schumacher staff member).
The delicate relationship between genuine personal requirements and the impact on the ecosystem of various ways of meeting these needs from manufacturing to hand-making will be explored. More generally, there will be consideration of the way less developed societies (whether medieval Europe or a society such as Ladakh's) depend on 'making' and minimum resource consumption; the place that the 'crafts' play in a modem Western economy; and the realism of hopes for sustainable economies in the future with more emphasis on quality, on making and on recycling. The direct attention to materials and environment which 'making' implies cannot help also raising the most profound questions about the philosophical basis of our culture. The historical roots of art, craft and religion were deeply entwined with everyday life, however separate they now may all be. One series of lectures will explore these relationships in different cultures throughout history, concentrating on the Western tradition but with reference to the illuminating experience of countries such as India and Japan.
(The whole course starts from ‘making’ rather than a sharp distinction between art and craft. "Nothing can be a work of art which is not useful; that is to say, which does not minister to the body when well under command of the mind, or which does not amuse, soothe, or elevate the mind in a healthy state." "That thing which I understand by real art is the expression by man of his pleasure in labour" William Morris)….
As religious language loses its power, we can still be moved by the words from Ecclesiastics on the work of craftspeople: But they will maintain the fabric of the world. And in the handiwork of their craft is their prayer.
Today, many can find a sense of belonging and a sense of wonder through immersion in making, in human-scale activity, in seeing the world in a grain of sand, which cannot easily be found amidst the normal traffic of society nor in religious traditions. Talks and workshops by Schumacher staff, Rod Jenkinson and others will take this understanding further, considering the relationship of Self to Environment and the nature of attention.
To quote Maurice Ash in 'The Fabric of the World': "How, then, is everyday life to be resumed as a form of prayer, and to be plucked out of the bearpit in which it is now lived? The answer to this boils down to curbing the scope of the metaphysical Self…. Right Livelihood, then, by leading towards recognition of the mystery inherent in environment, is a necessary step in the deconstruction of the Self." Skill in an art or craft requires a disciplined, caring, attention. It may be that it is exactly the same quality, no more and no less, which lies at the heart of skilful living - caring attention to the behavior of thought, the ideas of Self and the movement of the body….
The Dartington Hall Trust has been actively involved in these issues for sixty years. The varied discussions will be focused around an intensive experience of making with one's own hands during 45 hours of small-group tuition in one of the following: Carving and Woodturning; Bookbinding; Printmaking and Open Forge work. The tuition will aim to provide a serious, useful level of skill. Contributions will also be invited from local craftspeople. At the same time, this natural experience of intimate attention of hand and eye, heart and mind, to particular materials without any psychological agenda will lead to the widest possible exploration of quality, ecology and true economy. Most directly, we live in a society which depends largely on manufactured goods, and too often on a throw-away mentality driven by fads and fashions.
Reawakening the instincts for quality and substance will immediately reduce our demands for raw materials and energy, as well as encourage us to explore our individual relationships with the systems which support human life. This issue will be examined through field trips to wilderness (and even a scrap-yard) and through talks on deep Ecology and Gaia Theory by Stephan Harding (Estate Ecologist and Schumacher staff member).
The delicate relationship between genuine personal requirements and the impact on the ecosystem of various ways of meeting these needs from manufacturing to hand-making will be explored. More generally, there will be consideration of the way less developed societies (whether medieval Europe or a society such as Ladakh's) depend on 'making' and minimum resource consumption; the place that the 'crafts' play in a modem Western economy; and the realism of hopes for sustainable economies in the future with more emphasis on quality, on making and on recycling. The direct attention to materials and environment which 'making' implies cannot help also raising the most profound questions about the philosophical basis of our culture. The historical roots of art, craft and religion were deeply entwined with everyday life, however separate they now may all be. One series of lectures will explore these relationships in different cultures throughout history, concentrating on the Western tradition but with reference to the illuminating experience of countries such as India and Japan.
(The whole course starts from ‘making’ rather than a sharp distinction between art and craft. "Nothing can be a work of art which is not useful; that is to say, which does not minister to the body when well under command of the mind, or which does not amuse, soothe, or elevate the mind in a healthy state." "That thing which I understand by real art is the expression by man of his pleasure in labour" William Morris)….
As religious language loses its power, we can still be moved by the words from Ecclesiastics on the work of craftspeople: But they will maintain the fabric of the world. And in the handiwork of their craft is their prayer.
Today, many can find a sense of belonging and a sense of wonder through immersion in making, in human-scale activity, in seeing the world in a grain of sand, which cannot easily be found amidst the normal traffic of society nor in religious traditions. Talks and workshops by Schumacher staff, Rod Jenkinson and others will take this understanding further, considering the relationship of Self to Environment and the nature of attention.
To quote Maurice Ash in 'The Fabric of the World': "How, then, is everyday life to be resumed as a form of prayer, and to be plucked out of the bearpit in which it is now lived? The answer to this boils down to curbing the scope of the metaphysical Self…. Right Livelihood, then, by leading towards recognition of the mystery inherent in environment, is a necessary step in the deconstruction of the Self." Skill in an art or craft requires a disciplined, caring, attention. It may be that it is exactly the same quality, no more and no less, which lies at the heart of skilful living - caring attention to the behavior of thought, the ideas of Self and the movement of the body….
*Schumacher College Patrons: Anii Agarwal, Wendell Berry, Bob Brown, Fritjof Capra, The Dalai Lama; Jonathan Dimbleby, John FowIes, Prof Richard Guyatt, James Hillman, Prof. James Lovelock, Prof. Wangari Maathai, Robert Muller, Jacob Needleman, Sir Peter Parker, Kathleen Rame, Anita Roddick, Sir Laurens van der Post, Dr Kapila Vatsyayan