"Through art, mysterious bonds of understanding and knowledge are established among people. They are the bonds of a great community. Those who belong know each other and time and space cannot separate them." I visited my friend T. yesterday. We had a long chat fuelled by coffee, enthusiasm and trust. How nice that is! How rare! She said, "I am a craftsman; I don't call myself an artist, but a craftsman". Grayson Perry, that great street philosopher of our times, put on that exhibition in the British Museum called "Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman". For me, the whole exhibition was an adventure in discovery. The tile itself explained to me that, though I have been trying to be an artist, I have a long way before I can aspire to become a craftsman. Put this way round, it makes perfect sense; it explains perfectly what I see happening when I work. Conceptualising and taking risks is what we all can do; expressing innermost spaces of our soul is what we can do on a good day. But finding a way of expressing this and making it happen is a much taller order. It is not just about having the dexterity and the experience of your materials; not just of knowing tricks and secrets; not just overcoming the obstacles of time and space and self and knowledge and fear. It is about having the talent and then having the forbearance and then giving it the entire attention and time it takes. In the bringing of it all together, in stopping at the right moment, in excluding what should not be there; that is what a craftsman is: the complete artist, the complete maker and the complete person poured into a simple object.
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