Adding, subtracting, transforming.

 Mmm, London, love it! Today I met the vibrant 'hanging committee' of Southwark Cathedral, regarding the exhibition of things yet to be created (aaargh!) for next November, after my success in the Lancelot Andrewes art comp. Some prize - a year's hard labour; but for me, this is a real gift. Lots of things seemed to 'happen' today.

 

The nave of the cathedral was full of clergy, recognisable by a band of white around many of the visible necks. There was some interesting-sounding lecture going on when I arrived, so I asked the bod on the door what it was. In the manner well known to me from visiting many cathedrals, I was treated to, 'The Clergy of the Diocese are Having a Talk' - which I had in fact noticed! And despite being dressed in the pink hat and various give-away what you might call 'artistic' garments and accessories, I was addressed by the man-on-the-door as though I were a  trainee in  counting envelopes, and only 5 years old to boot. So I stayed on for 15 minutes or so and heard some 'Blah blah.. theological reflection.. blah blah artists....' and thought it was really up my street, though in fact it seemed to be arguing the case for taking art seriously as a medium in which to exegete the Bible, and I think I'm a fully-persuaded practitioner now.

Southwark Cathedral peeps in here just R of centre

So after a discussion of what I might produce for next November, I went on to the V & A museum for the afternoon, and was disappointed to find that the fashion and textile stuff is very much Not There, as it is being reshuffled and will not be available until some time next year. But there was an interesting exhibition on called 'The Power of Making', celebrating, well, making! My reactions were mixed. Great that the exhibition is taking place, and I couldn't agree more with the basic premisses of it, and the blurb - see link below - talks of

http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/exhibitions/power-of-making/power-of-making/ 

making involving adding, subtracting or transforming; for embroidery, the process is mainly is adding, combining. Sculpture would involve subtracting, and ceramics, transforming. Geddit? I liked this bit of blurb:

Old holiday place for bishops of Winchester

"Thinking by making: Many people think that craft is a matter of executing a preconceived form or idea, something that already exists in the mind or on paper. Yet making is also an active way of thinking, something which can be carried out with no particular goal in mind*. In fact, this is a situation where innovation is very likely to occur.
Even when making is experimental and open-ended, it observes rules. Craft always involves parameters, imposed by materials, tools, scale and the physical body of the maker. Sometimes in making, things go wrong. An unskilled maker, hitting the limits of their ability, might just stop. An expert, though, will find a way through the problem, constantly unfolding new possibilities within the process."

*Jez was once making something with scrap card etc; his gran asked 'What are you making, Jeremy?' 'I don't know', he replied, 'I haven't finished it yet'. Out of the mouths of babes...

Timber Wave at the V & A

So what didn't I like? Mainly the fact that this exhibition is necessary, that these things need to be said. I have a weary sense of 'I have always said that the demise of all kinds of making in this country is a very Bad Thing, and now it has become fashionable to Make, and to do so is out of the reach of many people. Well, it isn't totally, but it is not now part of the everyday; it has been driven out by the ruling classes, and then sold back to us now that it has become unavailable to ordinary folk'; (for this analysis of just about everything from weddings to looking after your own kids, thanks to t'Owd Man.)

Timber Wave again

What I like about London is that round any corner, you find a view that combines something old and something new.  Thus at the V & A, here is a brilliant wooden structure calle 'Timber Wave' designed by AL_A, and made IN LINCOLNSHIRE by Cowley Timberworks. http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/index.php?fuseaction=wanappln.projectview&upload_id=17592I love it! (Remind me to get some new coathangers too when I get home.) While I was photographing it, I dropped my notebook, and a few things fluttered out, business cards, a pressed leaf. A line of young adults sitting on the steps nearby failed to bother to leap up as I think I would have done, to help me gather it up. I got the paper bits, but I clutched at various dry leaves forlornly, as none nearby was the right one. But then an elderly man about to get into a taxi approached me with The Leaf, a pale green dotted with white flecks - no idea what it is - and said he thought I'd dropped it. This made me feel sad, that the young people had just left me to flail after my stuff, but this man had followed the leaf that fluttered away from me, and he knew it was precious, even though he didn't look as though he had ever been a hippy, and he did something to help. I hope that young people of now will be able to 'be bothered' to master the skills of making with a bit more application than the sample before me who didn't bother to get off their bums to help a poor little old lady whose stuff was blowing away in the wind.

There are certain ways of smoothing and manipulating cloth when you're working with it that you just can't teach people, you have to find it out by having an aim in mind and problem-solving as you go along.

So how do I feel at the end of this day? What have I learned? What concerns do I have? Mmmm. There seemed to be a lot of shops selling food ready made (restaurants, they call them) and none selling any of the raw ingredients for me to sew. Even The Globe theatre had no Tudor straw hats in the shop, only baseball caps. I feel uneasy. Can the young - and I mean a larger swathe than just those attracted to art colleges etc -  be given the time and the wherewithall to be able to 'make'? Or will they tire quickly and get back to the Blackberries, iPods etc? The idea of 'craft' as the book of the exhibition says, is a bit of a tea-cosy over present-day Anglo-Saxon thinking, as though we are trying to get back to Old Ways; and yet if you really try to make anything, you find that it is far from a blood-pressure-lowering activity taking you back into the days of yore. I 'make' while I read the Bible and listen to Radio 4, and the making has the effect of making me think more sharply about the here and now. No way is it some form of escape into the past. I'm both optimistic, but also not at all optimistic; uneasy in fact. I hope my pessimism is unfounded.