METAPHYSICS FOR THE WORKSHOP
Questions & thoughts for students of all ages.

"...there seems to be only one business at hand - that of finding workable compromises
between the sublimity of our ideas and the absurdity of the fact of us."
- Annie Dillard
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Don't work to make money.
Make money so you can work.
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As you design, remember that the trashcan is your most excellent tool.
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"Perfection is reached, not when there is no longer anything to add,
but when there is no longer anything to take away."
- Antoine de Saint Exupery
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If you love their work, do not be afraid to copy a dead artist or designer for a time.
But close the book and work from your own memory.
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Digital is the new plastic.
Treat it like the tool it is, not the solution it is not.
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Principles and procedures may bring you into range - or not.
Only looking and responding to what you see will
set you on the mark.
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Three essential questions:
What will I make?
How will I make it?
Why am I making it?
Each question supports the other, but a brutally honest 'why?' is critical in moving forward as an artist.
This is a scary question which always reveals my superficiality.
But I welcome it - it awakens me to the secret place where good design begins.
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There is something haunting, sorrowful, hopeful, and full of longing (all at once) about great minor key Music.
I often wonder if there is a Design equivalent of the minor key.
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An artist spends some time in profound remorse and awe that his work
will never equal the uncanny fractal structure of the Grand Canyon
or the ugliest little bug for that matter.
Allow yourself this long, very interesting humiliation.
Then get up and go to work.
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To learn a craft, your precious illusions must be destroyed without mercy:
"A table has 4 legs."
"Metal is a solid."
"You need lots of tools."
Walk away from your opinions.
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Two opinions every artist/craftsman must walk away from:
"I know how."
&
"I don't know how."
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Often, more attention needs to be given to the process than to the results.
Nevertheless, an eye on the results enables us to correct a process.
Never question the value of either.
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"One must be faithful to oneself, almost believing in what one does,
yet faithful to the knowledge that the truth is always somewhere else."
-Peter Brook in The Shifting Point
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Tools are ideas.
Ideas are tools.
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A shop without a few thoughtful books might as well be without a screwdriver.
("How to" books don't count.)
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We are artists only to the degree that we can linger in that space where
' Art isn't Art' and 'Artists aren't Artists'.
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Quiet yourself and feel the inner life of every work, every detail.
You will then see that some detail here is pure joy,
while the same there is a deadly pretense.
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Don't make a habit of playing the radio while you are working in the shop.
Too many things are trying to get through to you.
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Don't make objects.
Make windows and maps.
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They say that you cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.
But the truth be known, half the time you can.
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Serious, veteran craftsmen resolve a dozen philosophical and theological paradoxes by lunchtime.
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"The artist is not a special kind of man, but every man is a special kind of artist."
-Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy
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Listen to your material. Listen through your material.
Build. Study. Deconstruct your work.
Allow the work to deconstruct your mind and open your heart.
Begin again. And again.
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The spiritual key to craft is to understand that it is all about the transformation
of raw material into finer material,
early assumptions into understanding,
emotional reaction & sentimentalism into true feeling.
Working on a craft always implies working on yourself.
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But what is it that can do this inner work?
Does it not take a nearly devastating honesty about myself & my projects?
Does it not require great longing & expectation?
This almost contradictory interplay between vigilance & openness
forms the inner hand (the prehensile opposition) that guides the outer hand.
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At first there will be all this excitement about mastering tools and forcing wood or metal around.
You should work hard at this, but someday you will notice that it is just as much about
watching, waiting, and relaxing - learning to follow the wood, learning to listen to the tool.
You must do this with an eye to your place on this earth, under these stars.
Find the poet and find the engineer. Introduce them and get them talking.
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Don't love art.
Love what makes for art.

- D. Orth