What Makers Makes Me Think

In our Rhetorics of Craft course, the last reading of the semester was Chris Anderson’s Makers: The New Industrial Revolution. At first glance, it seemed to be appropriate to read this book, based on our focus on making. However, the book did not really delve into theoretical understandings of making and what that means for a study of arts and crafts. Instead, Anderson draws from his experiences working for The Economist and as a current editor in chief of Wired to expound upon the economic possibilities that makers in the digital age have to contribute to a “new industrial revolution,” wherein micro-manufacturing techniques are changing from the landscape of large factories targeting mass consumers to a more specific and customized niche-production processes. In spite of the thorough reliance on the digital, Anderson uses a variety of examples and is able to express his views on a sort of ‘American dream’ ideology that is afforded by making.

He starts his book with the story of how his maternal grandfather, who emigrated from Switzerland, was able to invent a timer for water sprinklers back in the 1940’s. This allows him to personalize his views on entrepreneurial ventures in modern-day U.S. specifically, but his consideration of crowdsourcing and the main manufacturing contexts necessitate a consideration of international contributors to the production of particular products, mostly electronic inventions. Not only is he concerned with the software, or bits, but also in the hardware, or atoms that go into the production of products such as the iPhone, customized cars, and new credit card payment systems, among many others. Overall, these are all products that produce capital, and that contribute to the capital system in which we live (for better or worse). It was hard for me to read about the development of all of the inventions that he refers to, as fascinating as the process can be, without thinking about critiques of an exploitative system that favors consumerism over humanitarian projects. Still, Anderson refers to Clay Shirky’s “cognitive surplus” to explain the rise of new models of design and production that prefer open-innovation communities and connect them to latent supply and demand. Recognizing the name from a reading that I assigned last summer, I went online to look for more information on Shirky’s concept.

In this TED talk, Shirky makes a more nuanced argument about the potentials of creativity. He provides the example of the development of Ushahidi, a web source that can track reports from the Web and SMS messages, aggregating them and putting them on a map, which has been used to map disaster relief in Haiti after the earthquake, among other humanitarian endeavors. He also refers to creating lolcats, and indicates that both of these are examples of cognitive surplus in action. Both of them are example of the potentials of creativity. This reminds me of what Jana asks in her blogpost about the book. Her focus on materiality and the potential of making, and of the potential of using objects to make is one that I find extremely relevant for the purpose of this course, and for our teaching in general. By using Shirky’s example, I am simply trying to extend her question to ask: what kind of potential are we thinking about? How are we going to use that creativity? What is the goal of developing our craft?

Non/human Ecologies

After reading the work of Bruno Latour and Ian Bogost, I have been thinking of the relationships that nonhuman agents have with particular ecologies. Someone who is not familiar with their work might not really grasp what these concepts mean, or why a graduate student in rhetoric and composition would be interested in such concepts. The truth is that I am still grappling with these concepts myself, so I will attempt to make some sense of them here. In “Composing the Carpenter’s Workshop,” James J. Brown, Jr. and Nathaniel Rivers provide several insights about how these terms are being worked in the field, and even suggest a potential scenario for their impact in future composition courses. They refer to the work of the authors I mentioned above, but also to Collin Brooke’s Lingua Fracta. Brooke’s book was my first exposure to the term ecologies, so I will begin there.

It is my understanding that the concept of ecologies comes from the scientific definition of how things are part of a larger system, and that its components affect each other in a variety of ways. This implies that there needs to be an attention to context. It also implies that it is necessary to consider the things that are doing something. And there should also be a consideration of the connections between such things. Seems simple enough, if we substitute the noun things with humans. But Latour has made me aware that our constant attention to humans have closed off opportunities of exploring other nonhuman agents. That is, everything else that is not human but that has the potential to exert change or that would in one way or another affect other nonhumans, or to go back to our preferred paradigm, how they affect humans, which is why I used the term things. In Lingua Fracta, Brooke is using the concept to create an ecology of new media, by refashioning the five canons of rhetoric: invention, arrangement, style, delivery and memory. It is convenient for him to call it an ecology because of the focus on connections that new media bring up/cause/entail.

Brown and Rivers helped me understand Bogost’s concept of philosophical carpentry, but also to consider it in relation to rhetoric, specifically:

For Bogost, carpentry is both a description of how objects fashion one another and also a practice of doing philosophy. We extend this one step further, suggesting that such making can be undertaken in an effort to do rhetoric...Constructing these strange conversations means that the rhetor must attune herself to complex ecology of human and nonhumans. (2)

They go on to describe the ethical implications of this kind of making, one that is aware of how one situates oneself in relation to a topic, while critically examining this position in regards to human and nonhumans that influence/impact her understanding. If I am to apply the concepts of nonhuman ecologies for some of my friends in the Puerto Rican indie rock scene, I could ask: what kinds of texts (musical genres, songs, music videos, artists) have played a role in the kind of music that they are producing now? How did they engage with these texts? Did they actively seek them out, where they passed on from person to person, did they randomly interact with them in their media consumption practices (listening to the radio, watching television)? How do they think that their location (northwest of PR) has allowed these interactions to occur?

Perhaps these questions might elicit some new understandings of how different humans interact with nonhumans in a particular ecology. The ultimate question to ask after these have all been considered would be: What kinds of rhetorics are being promoted/created in these exchanges?

Back to the Body and its Knowledges

As I read “The Laboring Body: Suffering and Skill in Production Work” by Shoshana Zuboff, I am reminded of how my own body has suffered/is suffering as a consequence of work. While Zuboff’s chapter from In The Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Work and Power deals with the physical labor that went into the production of different materials since the Middle Ages, through the Industrial Revolution and early 19th century American industries, she hints at how information technologies call for a “reskilling,” which I am curious to learn more about. However, there were a couple of concepts that drew me in from the beginning which I would like to focus on briefly.

It seemed to me that the kind of language that she employed at the beginning of the chapter reads as if she wanted to have the reader have a kind of embodied experience, that of going through the bleach factory. This move reminded me of Sondra Perl’s concept of felt sense. Then I wondered, what would it look like for students to describe an hour of their writing process in this way, focusing on how they feel in each ‘step’ they take. Even though this isn’t something new, I wanted to mention my thought process to get to the point that Zuboff has got me thinking about. In discussing new information technologies, Zuboff indicates, “‘work’ becomes the manipulation of symbols, and when this occurs, that nature of skill is redefined” (23). So what I’m curious to know more about is the duality of the physical work and the abstract work. That is, even though intellectual work is always though of abstract, and dealing with knowledge in the abstract, there is a toil on someone’s body when that person is engaged in intellectual inquiry for a long time. Take as an example a graduate student who is forced to sleep a few hours a night, eat on the run, stay still for hours while reading/typing. And that is just the physical capacity that is suffering… add to that the constant questioning and made up dialogues that occur in one’s mind. I guess that what I am trying to get at is, can we talk about the skills that are required in order to write a paper in terms of technique, but also account for the body?

The kind of know-how of craftspeople that other authors have referenced was also discussed in this chapter, as Zuboff writes,

“The work of the skilled craftsperson may not have been ‘intellectual,’ but it was knowledgeable. These nineteenth century workers participated in a form of knowledge that had always defined the activity of making things. It was knowledge that accrues to the sentient body in the course of its activity; knowledge inscribed in the laboring body–in hands, fingertips, wrists, feet, nose, eyes, ears skin, muscles, shoulders, arms, and legs–as surely as it was inscribed in the brain… Such skills were learned through observation, imitation, and action more than they were taught, reflected upon, or verbalized.” (40)

The examples that she goes on to provide include swimming, biking, and playing the guitar, three things that I enjoy and can relate to! So in addition to giving her two thumbs up, I would also like to point out how she makes the disclaimer that without a conceptual understanding of process in which they work, it is difficult for workers to “make a contribution to that domain of more comprehensive functions typically labeled ‘managerial'” (56). The connection I am trying to make here is that in addition to the embodied knowledge, that know-how that can only be performed and not verbalized, there should also be an understanding of the logics behind the work, not just for technique but also for a conscious participation in activities that are developed in particular contexts and for particular purposes. Maybe we can think of this as encouraging students to become aware of their own writerly moves (technique), but also be critical of their content (product), while paying attention to the rhetorical situation they are creating (purpose), but also the one in which they are working in (institutional context)?

Maybe?

Latouring: Philosophizing Realism

In his book Pandora’s Hope: Essays on the Reality of Science Studies, Bruno Latour seems to be philosophizing about how different sciences conceive of reality, attempting to trace where we place our emphasis depending on the kind of science that we practice in academia. This is especially the case in his opening chapter, “Do You Believe in Reality? News from the Trenches of the Science Wars,” where he starts with the question that inspired the title of the chapter. His psychologist friend asked him this question while they were in an academic gathering in Brazil which united a larger number of scientists with a third of ‘science students’ that sparked in him a curiosity about disciplinary focus on reality, objectivity, mind, the abstract, human, nonhuman, and other categories. The clash between his psychologist friend and his philosophy background puzzled him to the point that he realized that “adding realism to science’ was actually seen by the scientists at this gathering, as a threat to the calling of science, as a way of decreasing its stake in truth and their claims to certainty” (3). Throughout the rest of the chapter he goes on to explore how this divide had occurred, and deeply questions each of the positions he deems relevant in the way.

He takes a detour to explain his misunderstanding with a colleague about disciplinary intent. This detour is important, he claims, in order to “measure the extraordinary form of radical realism that science studies has been uncovering” (4). From Descartes to Kant, to Phenomenology, to an exchange between Callicles and Socrates in Plato’s Gorgias, Latour is able to trace our values in an understanding of knowledge, or truth, in a brain-in-a-vat, social construction, Darwininstic survival of the fittest mentality respectively. Cynically, he questions “Why shout out of our mouths these two contradictory orders: ‘Be absolutely disconnected!’ ‘Find absolute proof that you are connected!’ Who could untangle such an impossible double mind?” (12). I am not doing any justice to the intricate historical account that he traces in reaching to the kind of modernist settlement that he critiques, but what I can do is pose his settlement to try to understand the kind of ‘realistic realism’ that he aims to posit.

“The modernist settlement. For science studies there is no sense in talking independently of epistemology, ontology, psychology, and politics–not to mention theology. In short, ‘out there,’ ‘nature’; ‘in there,’ the mind; ‘down there,’ the social; ‘up there,’ God. We do not claim that these spheres are cut off from one another, but rather that they all pertain to the same settlement, a settlement that can be replaced by several alternative ones.” (14)

In the diagram that he provides above this explanation he separates each of these components in the way that is described above. So, in his questioning of humanity, nonhumanity, objective reality and the Right and Might dichotomy, he aims to decipher how come to understand ourselves, and other things, in the world. His radical realism has made me ponder about “magical realism,” especially through the work of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, whose work I’ve read the most. The kind of political critique that he makes in mixing elements of fiction with that of his journalistic work in works such as “Amor en los Tiempos del Colera” or “Cronicas de una Muerte Anunciada” can be read as a study of an exploration of human experience within a specific context that was faced with a variety of hardships caused by people, but also bacteria that caused the cholera disease. Because Latour seems to be making a plea for interdisciplinarity, I take the opportunity to ask: can Marquez be considered a philosopher of realism? does the ‘magical’ component come from the element of fiction? If we are indeed valuing the work that comes from the brain-in-a-vat so consciously, then can we value fiction the same way? Does this mean that we could incorporate this kind of reading/writing in our classroom?

 

Last Set of Craft Project Notes

For my last practice session, I combined both the private practice guided by the book, and a social interaction with another musician friend. As I’m getting ready to close my project, it seems like I’ve made it back full circle. My first blog post on this project was titled “Gathering Materials Socially,” which recounted my experiences trying to acquire a bass guitar. Once I acquired my bass guitar, however, I resorted to my own private study of this musical craft. Unaware of what I was supposed to do, I went online to look for ideas. I considered playing the song “Money” by Pink Floyd based on an instructional youtube video, but was discouraged when the person in the video stated that it was a really difficult and odd time signature, not following the standard 4/4. Therefore, I decided to use the book that I was given to learn the basics.

I’ve already learned to play notes on the fourth, third and second string, attempting to unite some of these as the instructions in the book prompted. The last lesson involves learning notes on the first string and a review of all four strings. It’s been established that my end product would be to be able to play the C scale, in which I would need to unite all of the notes that I’ve learned thus far. Armed with confidence from a very productive session last week, I attempted to go over the first string notes hurriedly. I’m not sure if it’s because of the spacing between the second and the fourth fret, but going from playing A with my second finger to playing B with my third, was a little challenging. Still, I went ‘by the book’ and was able to get in the rhythm of the pattern specified. Because of the similarity of the patterns that I played in the previously learned notes, my ear was attuned to the times that I was supposed to strike each string and the shifts of notes that were caused by it.

The Four String Review, however, was not as easy as I thought. Because the notes weren’t going from the lowest to the highest as I was beginning to get used to, I found myself looking at the previous lessons to determine where each note is played. This means that I still have not memorized the location of each note on the page. Nonetheless I played the pattern I was supposed to play. Not giving myself enough time to practice the C scale (in order to have the “final” product) I still went to my friend’s house to record myself playing. Once I was there, he “let me do my thing,” which entailed me going over all of the lessons I had done in a chunk of twenty minutes.

As I was getting ready to record my scale, he came up to the attic. He asked me to play the scale several times and then noticed that one of the strings was out of tune! He picked up the bass, tuned the string, played the scale that I was playing and then played it backwards. “So that’s what it’s supposed to sound like!” I realized out loud. He then prompted me to do it on my own. And prompted me to do it again. Then he said: “let’s try it with a drumbeat,” and went to his drumset and started playing. I didn’t know what I was doing, so I just resorted to playing the notes that I was most comfortable with. The ones that I had practiced the most. In this short, ten-minute, interaction I learned more than I had in the last couple of weeks!

This interaction allowed me to consider the question of the conception of a solitary learner vs. the socially situated skill acquisition process. In my paper, then, I aim to explore how learning this craft has provided me with insights into the process of learning a craft, specifically one that involves music.

Aurora and The Body of the Artisan

This week we’ve been reading the book The Body of the Artisan: Art and Experience in the Scientific Revolution by Pamela H. Smith. In it, she is trying to trace how knowledge was made based on Naturalism, specifically in 16-17th century Europe. Instead of resorting exclusively on the kinds of knowledge making typically referred to in academia, that is, those found in books and attributed to an abstract thought process, or theory, she also attempts to trace how in the process of making “ars” different artisans constructed their own epistemologies of the world around them. In the first four chapters she makes four claims:

“First, nature is primary, and certain knowledge resides in nature. Second, matter is active, and one must struggle bodily with and against this active matter to extract knowledge of nature. Third, this process of struggle is called experience, and it is learned through replication. And, finally, this imitation of nature produces an effect–a work of art–that displays the artisan’s knowledge of nature and in itself constitutes a kind of knowledge” (Smith 149).

Considering this brief synopsis, I would like to focus on the connections she makes between artisanship and alchemy in her fourth chapter, “Artisanship, Alchemy, and a Vernacular Science of Matter”. After discussing alchemy and craftmaship in their connections to Greek mythology, specifying that “Daedalus, whose name in Greek signifies ‘clever craftsman’ or ‘adept,’ symbolizes the devotee of alchemy” (135) she goes on to elaborate on late 15th century craftsmanship and its connection to alchemical methods. Smith continuously relies on Paracelsus’ texts to determine the relationship between artisans, their body, and the constructions of knowledge, for example: ” Paracelsus used ‘alchemy’ to denote the active knowledge of artisans; they practiced knowing that involved doing, and more than this, knowing that constituted a bodily engagement with nature” (142). Thus, she is focusing on the artisans’ vernacular epistemologies based on their use of alchemical procedures for making ars, but also in their early medicinal experimentation. I learned that the first cesarean section performed on a pregnant woman, wherein both  mother and child survived was performed in the 1580’s! Interesting factoids.

What I’m most interested in, however, is her attention to medicinal herbs. This reminds me of a statement made by Gesa Kirsch in her talk on “Mindfulness, Strategic Contemplation and Feminist Rhetorical Practices” as part of the Rhetorical Listening series yesterday. She stated, very enthusiastically, that she found that some scholar was trying to study the rhetorics found in medicinal recipe books, which is just another example of the kinds of knowledges that are disseminated and passed down from generation to generation. Her statement, in conjunction with Pamela Smith’s chapter, made me think back on a book written by Aurora Levins Morales, a Jewish Puerto Rican who wrote a book titled Remedios: Stories of Earth and Iron from the History of Puertorriqueñas. In it she uses the format of the kinds of medicinal herb formulas our abuelas handed down to us, based on our need to survive from environmental disasters and colonial oppression, but also to male dominance of our minds and our bodies. This is an example of the kind of alchemy that Puerto Rican indias had to elaborate in order to survive.

Since Pamela Smith spends most of her time tracing the craft of craftsMAN from the 15th and 16th century Europe, I am curious as to why she didn’t devote as much attention on the work of women at the time. Could this be because there weren’t any examples to draw from? At one point she recognizes that there is a lack of texts or artifacts from the time, thus making her endeavor a more arduous task. Smith also recognizes, at the end of her book that “the story of local modes of cognition and the vernacular knowledge systems such as those of the ‘old women’ and ‘herbalists’ mentioned by almost every early modern botanist as the basis of his specimens and local plant knowledge has yet to be written” (240-241). If this is because of a lack of texts, are we left with methodologies of fiction, like Aurora, in order to trace such a history? Hopefully there are some archeologists out there who are interested in looking for these kinds of histories. But if it is simply because it is still ‘yet to be written,’ then maybe it’s about time we start.

I See/Hear/Experience a Pattern Here

As I move on to work with the third string, I engage in the same process that I’ve started with the last few times I’ve practiced, but, as always, it makes me aware of other factors that play into learning this craft.

Functional Adornment

First, I make sure that my nails are not too long, otherwise there’s a weird sound every time I strike a string with my right hand. Also, it is kind of uncomfortable to press my left fingers on top of the appropriate fret position. This reminds me of my mom’s functional nails. When I was a kid, my mom worked as a secretary in a company that was in charge of helping people with different disabilities. Although a lot of the other secretaries at her job had long nails, which they paid for every other week, my mom rarely ever got a manicure. I asked her why, and she indicated that it was just so much easier to type with shorter nails. Not that she would have the time to simply go and get a manicure, with her two other jobs, night school, and my brother and I to take care of. Regardless of my working class background, what is important here is that I’ve learned that functionality is more important than adornment… which is a statement that I’m sure John Ruskin would have agreed with.

After making sure I have “good enough” nails, I go on to review what I have already done the last few times. I challenge myself to look at the pattern that I’m playing and do it as quickly as possible. But I also remember Sennett’s discussion on the Suzuki tapes. So I wonder, can I play this without being visually prompted? Sadly no. Not yet. I am certain, though, that with another six months of practice, I probably will. I also noticed the dates that John, the previous owner, wrote in each of the pages. It seems like we both took two months in the same progression. Maybe John was able to repeat the process more often.

Second String Practice

In spite of the number of times that I’ve repeated each lesson, I’ve been able to notice that the pattern of notes that the book provides for each string lesson is similar. Once again, I am reminded of Ruskin, who mentioned how repetition is necessary in order to improve, as I indicated in my post a couple weeks ago. In the book that I’m using, they seem to have come up with a series of formulas that are making it easier for me to learn each string. As I play the set of notes for the third string, I felt as if I had experienced doing that before. Although this was a new set of notes, the number of times I would play each note, and the sequence in which they were placed was the same as with the last two. I was able to notice this because of the review that I did at the beginning of my practice session. The sounds were still fresh in my mind.

At the end of the lesson, I noticed that the notes that I was playing sounded familiar. Once I finished, I quietly celebrated… I was playing “Mary Had a Little Lamb”! This has made me think about the context of this book, how old it is, and who its intended audience is. There are other songs, like “Careless Love” and “Cielito Lindo” that make me think that they are trying to cater to a wide variety of people, but it was still a humbling moment to find out that I was playing something so elementary.

In this short practice session, I was forced to go back to memories of my childhood in several occasions. This was not something that I had anticipated, but it was definitely welcomed. It was a sort of emotional embodiment of skill. I wonder where playing the C scale will take me.

My Kind of Journeymen

While the title of this post may sound romantic, it isn’t. Here, I attempt to connect my understanding of how crafts/trades cause people to move based on my previous experiences and the reading of “The Circulation of Labor” by Reinhold Reith in Guilds, Innovation, and the European Economy: 1400-1800. As evident by the book’s title, the chapter provides an expansive consideration of the kinds of mobility that journeymen engaged in, how they were received and how they would affect particular crafts that they were practicing. Reith also explores how technique affected this mobility, and how mobility affected technique. Some of the descriptions of these groups and their travels made me think about the large migrations of Puerto Ricans to the U.S. at the turn of the 19th-20th century, once the island passed from political possession from Spain to the new imperial power, and once again in the 1950’s when we became a Free Associated State, and in many other times, even if to a lesser degree.

There are many instances in which Reith is describing the reasons why journeymen moved that made me think of the migration patterns that have created a Puerto Rican diaspora, of which I am a part of. For example, “its main driving force was not technological but economic, since the choice of route was based largely on the need to find a job” (Reith 125). Although Reith is focusing on trampling in the middle ages— and trampling refers to travelling on foot, which is not a possible form of travel from a island in the Caribbean to the U.S. mainland—  the notion of travelling for economic improvement is shared by all of the Puerto Rican citizens who decided to try their luck with the guagua aerea (airbus). The guilds that Reith describes developed a shared identity, which was “reflected for example in clothing and drinking patterns” (118). The kind of brotherhood that these guilds engaged in is also similar to the different migrant groups that came to New York City in the mid twentieth century. Neither being fully accepted in the politics of the place, they had to create their own brotherhoods, or guilds. This is something that Sennett began to explore when he was talking about improvisation. I could go on and on about the significance of these constructions of identity and the social conditions that created them, but I should return to my original intent.

In describing different types of labour markets throughout Europe, Reith states that there was one applied to “small-scale trades in the food services, like bakers, brewers, millers, and to some extents, butchers” (128). Having worked in restaurants for most of my twenties, I can definitely attest to the availability of mobility in such a trade. I could also provide examples of how “Guilds exercised the right to exclude journeymen from other regions, often with the excuse that they hadn’t served a long enough apprenticeship” (128). Trying to get a job in NYC restaurants was almost impossible because most of them required you to have NYC experience. How could I get that experience?! So I had to start small– as a hostess and coat check ‘girl’. This demonstrate the kind of control that the political/cultural/market structure will have in order to keep people out. This was also evident in the description of the customer service that was relegated to the master’s wives, daughters and servants back in the 1600’s.

To close, I want to end with a quote that struck me as relevant in the kinds of decisions that migrants, such as myself, have to struggle with, and that I would like to receive some kind of feedback on. What do you think about the suggestion that:

“it is more useful to distinguish between permanent migration on the one hand, and the circulation of tacit knowledge and skills through journeyman tramping on the other – for ‘journeymen migrated for the most part voluntarily and with the major objective of gaining valuable technical experience and learning something about the world, in the expectation at some point of returning home’.

Would you want to go back home after acquiring a particular set of skills? Is the objective to return home to put those skills into use for the betterment of your people? How does this translate to writing instruction?

 

My fingers hurt… How Risky is This?

This time I spent a lot more time using my left hand than I have previously. Attempting to play both the fourth and the third string in the progression suggested by the book was both challenging and rewarding. It took me a long time to figure out which note was which, as they were laid out differently than the first set of exercises. To speed through a review of the last week’s exercises, I wasn’t paying attention to time counts… 1, 2, 3, 4… It also felt like I was playing punk music. Fast, yet simple. So, even though I’m speeding up because of time constraints (midterms!) I enjoyed doing so.

 

I decided to place the book on top of the amp this time, as opposed to the floor. If I had the time, and the money, I would buy a stand to place the “music sheets,” but I won’t. One reason for this is style, and another one economic. I am also reminded of Sennett’s discussions of the workshop. In this case, my workshop is a tiny corner in my room. I’m sitting on my desk chair, which might not be as comfortable as possible, due to the armrests. My other option is to sit on my bed. I remember that back in high school, I would resort to the latter. The reason why I resorted to the desk space might be because this is work. That is, although the process of learning the bass guitar is a fun endeavor for me, it still counts as research, and being close to the computer makes it easy for me to type down notes once I’m done.

Perhaps I’m just trying to get everything done as quickly as possible. This may also be the case as I did not attempt the left page pictured above. Now I wonder how many craftsmen would cut corners, or do a bad job. Pye would probably refer to my workmanship as that of risk, in which I am not following the design and aiming for certain perfection. Still, I have been able to see some progress, and have also noticed that in improvising (playing really fast), I was able to get a different product (punk), which is good. It also seems like I will be able to get to a finished product soon. That is, after I’m done trying the exercises for the second and first string, there is an explanation of the C scale. That will be my product.

John Ruskin- “The Two Paths: Lecture III”

John Ruskin (1819-1900)

• English Art Critic of the Victorian Era
• Environmentalism, Sustainability and Craft
• Social Theory critiquing Industrialism

Before going into the discussion of Lecture III, I would suggest we consider a passage from Lecture II that I came across and deem relevant to Sennett’s discussion of the hand…

“ART is the operation of the hand and the intelligence of man together; there is an art of making machinery; there is an art of building ships; an art of making carriages; and so on. All these, properly called Arts, but not Fine Arts, are pursuits in which the hand of man and his head go together, working at the same instant. Then FINE ART is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together.”

Lecture III was delivered at Bradford, England on March of 1859 and is addressing students at a school of design. He posits several points that are relevant for our discussion of craft, writing, and social critique.

“No person is able to give useful and definite help towards such special applications of art, unless he is entirely familiar with the conditions of labour and natures of material involved in the work; and indefinite help is little better than no help at all.”

He also suggests that Decorative art is always fitted for a particular place and subordinated to a specific purpose in that place. Then he goes on to describe how a general definition of conventional ornament is consistent on material, place and its office. These categories affect how “good” the ornament turns out to be. Its truer form will always be based on Nature and the Human form.

“all great ornamental art whatever is founded on the effort of the workman to draw the figure, and, in the best schools, to draw all that he saw about him in living nature”

After providing examples from Greece, Egypt, and the Byzantine, Norman, and Gothic eras, even a reference to Bayeux tapestry, he focuses on the human features/aspects of social life that are highlighted in the examples.

We begin to notice his “activism” as he exhorts the audience to “raise your workman up to life, or you will never get from him one line of well-imagined conventionalism”. This is reminiscent of our discussions around valuing students as agents of change, more than capable of producing papers that go beyond the mere attention to grammar concerns. In fact, he goes on to suggest a pedagogical methodology:

“Encourage the students, in sketching accurately and continually from nature anything that comes in their way… and so far as you allow of any difference between an artist’s training and theirs, let it be, not in what they draw, but in the degree of conventionalism you require in the sketch.”

Although he admits to not having tried the experiment himself, he still promotes this kind of training, to practice sketching nature everyday. He kind of contradicts himself, though, in saying that design is not teachable a claim that we’ve come across in thinking through tacit knowledge in relation to writing. Still, he does provide useful advice:

“Inform their minds, refine their habits, and you form and refine their designs; but keep them illiterate, uncomfortable, and in the midst of unbeautiful things, and whatever they do will be spurious, vulgar, and valueless.”

After describing the middle ages landscape, specifically in the beauty of the pre-industrial environment where the great painters of other European countries were in, he clarifies that these great arts were “supported by the selfish power of the noblesse,” thus paying attention to the conditions of the workmen in England. On the contrary, he asserts a purpose in the modern study of design:

“…for us there is the loftier and lovelier privilege of bringing the power and charm of art within the reach of the humble and the poor; and as the magnificence of past ages failed by its narrowness and its pride, ours may prevail and continue, by its universality and its lowliness. “

Lastly, considering the thin line between forming a market and supplying it, on the one hand, and creating “wasteful and vain expenses” he states:

“it only rests with the manufacturer in every other business to determine whether he will, in like manner, make his wares educational instruments, or mere drugs of the market. You all should, be, in a certain sense, authors: you must, indeed, first catch the public eye, as an author must the public ear; but once gain your audience, or observance, and as it is in the writer’s power thenceforward to publish what will educate as it amuses—so it is in yours to publish what will educate as it adorns”

Questions

1)   Based on the last quote, is Ruskin placing literature, and thus writing, as a fine art? What is the loftier purpose of this art?

2)   Although unable to teach it to perfection, do you see a value in considering the materials used by the worker, and for her to practice her craft on a daily basis? Can we think of concrete examples of how this would look like in our classroom?

3)   Ruskin clearly demonstrates environmental concerns in his descriptions of the different landscapes that the designer is/should be immersed in. Can we incorporate this concern in our classroom by considering context? Should we focus more on the present context in which we are or should we prompt students to study their original contexts? Are there other suggestions that you can think of?

4)  How is Ruskin using “power”?