In today’s fast-paced world, taking time to explore and express our personal creativity is a powerful way to add value to our lives. Perhaps the most powerful.
While there are conceptual differences between the two, they seem inextricably linked. In fact, while craft is usually the result of using our manual skills to create tangible and useful artefacts, art allows us to use them to express our feelings, thoughts and dreams.
As we have said, the beauty of art and craft comes when they meet. The wooden frame in a painting, the patterns in a piece of woven work or the colours in a ceramic plate… Each can be studied from either perspective, but what makes them even more meaningful is their unity.
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That’s why I don’t stress their meaning too much. It is necessary to understand that the most important thing is the realisation of this production. Just as you create a work of art when you write according to your feelings and show your emotions and the limits of your imagination in your story, the organisation and management of elements such as the effective use of language, the structure of the story, the development of characters with the responsibility of literature also show that you are doing justice to the craft of the work. The two act as a whole in your work.
The rhythm they create between them accompanies both our knowledge and our emotions. In other words, it offers the most appropriate form for realising what we have in mind. Participation in a production is therefore also a source of spiritual therapy. That is why it is not enough to consider the event only as the production of a clever or interesting work.
To cope with daily stress and difficulties, immersion in a creative endeavour has a calming effect. Standing in front of a canvas and contemplating, or thinking about the necessary measurements and use of key materials before starting a carpentry project, can bring not only a work of art, but also inner peace and happiness. It completely changes your focus and makes your problems disappear for the moment.
This is the point I often think about, I think this is definitely the purpose (at least one of them) of a human being. To be able to carry your own productions into the future, to evolve and to leave something of yourself behind. This is the product of the only form of education that both reminds you of your existence in life and shows you who you are, what you think, feel and can do. After all, mankind has always felt obliged to leave behind important artefacts, both individually and socially. Thanks to them, we can analyse the stages of our development of mankind.
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From another perspective, I find the collections we make similar. They do not belong to us as a production, but the value we attach to them (perhaps a little obsessively) means that they have a place in our lives. The reason we attach value to the producer (perhaps a painter or a writer) or directly to the product (perhaps a letter, a photograph) is, I think, the instinctive sense of production. Add to that the urge to preserve it or carry it into the future, and I think we have the phenomenon of collecting.
On the other hand, there is the factor of time. That famous time that intervenes in everything, yes. As you can imagine, it is very likely that any art or craft product takes time (which varies). In our increasingly disconnected lives, it is always our time-related activities that suffer.
However, the current problem on everyone’s minds, that of not being able to generate financial income, is often enough to curb our appetite for art and craft endeavours that could perhaps change our lives, or at least make us feel good and bring out our talents.
I’ve found that the older I get, the more I tend to adopt this anxiety, and I think that’s understandable. A younger person’s desire to live a fast and changing life should be seen as normal. This means that it can be inconvenient for them to commit to a two or three year project, let alone a five or ten year project. This is a situation I have experienced personally and I suspect it has happened to many of you. I wholeheartedly congratulate anyone who can achieve the dreams they had at the age of eighteen.
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Let’s finish with this topic. Yes, we want to dedicate ourselves to our chosen career and be good at it and show our skills. But what if we cannot stick to it? Unfortunately, throughout my life I have had the feeling of trying many things and giving up quickly. Different instruments, drawing styles, sports… The areas in which I have dabbled for a short time and failed to stick with them have created the opposite situation. Instead of stimulating my interest, the feeling of not being able to stick with something began to spoil my appetite.
When the thought “I’ll give up anyway, or I won’t succeed” envelops the person, we can become more stagnant and reluctant. This was the inescapable problem I saw in most of my friends when they were young; not feeling that they belonged to something or somewhere and not being able to find it.
This negative feeling caused me to be so blind that I could not see and (I think more importantly) appreciate the activities I used to do frequently and enjoy. Writing, reading, researching, being interested in different languages have been my interests since childhood, but I have never done anything concrete with them. I think the reason for this is the urge to earn a financial income as soon as possible and to get a stable job, which is traditionally imposed on us. I am not sure.
In the end, let’s repeat: the production of art and craft is a necessity. It is a process that people must engage in in order to feel alive, to taste the feelings that no one else can give. Everyone will create a piece according to their own feelings and skills. Although time is an important value, it is never too late for anything. The important thing is to realise that you are in the moment of quality as you create.
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