Saturday 29 April 2017

See it


Most of the pub is at a festival in Bruton, organised by the other half of the pub. I won't be going, not because I am too old but because I hate music festivals. I hated festivals when I was young too - I went to the first Glastonbury on a motorcycle, rode onto the site, looked around in disgust and rode home to Surrey again.

The last day of this particular festival is actually May Day, which this year falls on the Bank Holiday Monday. As much as I like the idea of taking the day off and running naked through a green field wearing nothing but a daisy-chain, I will be working.

For the first time in recent memory, I am actually enjoying my work. I am making a fox from plaster of Paris, which will eventually be turned into real bronze. The fox will be stalking a pheasant (the next thing to make) which will also be in bronze.

I imagined that I would spend my latter years instructing other people to make this stuff for me, but since my glamorous assistant went AWOL, I find that I am the only person I know who can do it, so I am doing it myself.

Part of the fulfilment that this work brings is to let my peers know that I wasn't lying when I said that I have never asked anyone to do things for me because I couldn't do them myself, unless it involves something like landing a plane or brain-surgery. They thought I was in deep shit when Glamorous Assistant went, but they now know I was just being lazy, and my indifference to glory was just that - indifference.

My erstwhile, young assistant trainee who has been turned into a manager saw the photos of the half-finished fox and said, "How did you get the proportions right?"

At that moment I realised he had not learned much in the year or so I had been training him. As with every other activity which could be called 'art', the answer should have been obvious. You use your eyes.

H.I. is constantly telling her students that it is not good enough to simply 'look'. You have to 'see' what you are looking at.

15 comments:

  1. Nothing better than enjoying being at work and what you do. Being creative, as you are, must be especially rewarding, seems your trainee isn't getting the same vibe.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. He is far too busy being a stonemason to enjoy himself. 7.00am till 4.30am. I haven't become lost in my work until I forget the time for years.

      Delete
  2. I used to tell my students that it's not good enough just to see, you have to LOOK at what you are seeing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think that probably amounts to pretty much the same thing, but you and H.I. together would have been confusing.

      Delete
    2. No, we would have doubled the message.

      Delete
    3. My first day on Foundation Course, one teacher said to us not to buy expensive paint brushes as they were a waste of money, then left the room. Another teacher came in and said only buy expensive paint brushes as the cheap ones were a waste of money.

      Delete
  3. You lost me at running starkers with nothing but a daisy chain. I just poured another scotch to help with getting the vision out of my head.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oh I really get the look vs see thing. I try to teach my students not to get lost in the steps of the procedure but to consider their intended outcomes and the principles involved. Then they will remember what they have learned and can use that knowledge to extrapolate to other projects. I live in hope!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Same with cookery - learn how to make one sauce and about fifty others are possible.

      Delete
  5. Bruton is the home of the brilliantly named, co-educational boarding school known (honestly) as Sexey's. Only in Somerset.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I know it. Would you send your daughter there?

      Delete
  6. If you decide to do the daisy chain thing where is the daisy chain going to hang. I need to know this before I book a train journey especially to see it(the daisy chain I mean)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I can almost see the image in your head, Weave.

      Delete
  7. I enjoyed the see/look discussion. Both are good, reminding me of that old song lyric, "love and marriage, love and marriage, go together like a horse and carriage."
    Probably no one else reading the post and comment remembered this lyric.
    Cheers!

    ReplyDelete