It is a marvelous act to absorb understating through the hands; like sponges sopping up the spills of experience and wringing them out into the heart and mind to sort and connect. This act has been my experience all of my life and I’ve recognized it and even written about it as I’ve grown and especially felt it in moments when I couldn’t touch or physically manipulate something. For instance when ordering materials online; trying hard to rely only on a verbal description and photo, to imagine the feel and weight. I was recently delighted to find a book after listing to a pod cast from Idyllwild Art School where the host Pamela Jordan interviewed, Dr. Lorne Buchman, the author of “Make To Know”. His book has been refreshing in many ways as he talks about and recounts many other artist’s need to think through ideas physically, and that the idea of producing a work completely from a preconception is less of a common activity. Buchman’s interviews resonate and stir questions in me as I think more about my own process. I wonder if others struggle with a world that is becoming more and more untouchable? If the act of bodily creating prototypes or plying with forms is missed as CAD seems to replace more and more? Are we losing information this way? Is our relationship with the world and each other diminishing in some ways because of a distancing of the hand? I will continue to ponder this thoughts as my hands nimbly feel the grains of work sift through them.
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