Group ONE: Writer's Craft

image from the Museum of Fine Arts website

I have just returned from visiting Boston's Museum of Fine Arts current show on conceptual crafts. Whenever I see something like that, my first inclination is to cross-reference the aspirations and skill of the artisan across the spectrum of my own activities.... How does this guy's approach to, say, glassblowing compare to my approach to, uh, brushing my teeth, to give a good example. The point of this exhibition (if, in fact there has to be a point) was to demonstrate the directions that craftsmen throughout the world are taking that are, to put it bluntly, very un-craftsmanlike.

By that I suppose I mean that traditionally (and Craft, by the way, is all about tradition) crafts (as opposed to arts) have focused on functionality. Craftsmen made useful things. Bowls, furniture, cloth. What defined a craftsperson, of course, was the fact that by repetition, one eventually learned all that was involved to produce the object. Where to find the clay, how to shape it on the wheel, how hot to bake it, what made the pretty colors. What changed this time-honored approach to making things, of course, is industrialization.

Still, our eye discerns the craft in objects: the care, the love, the knowledge. And in today's world, it is that aspect of Craft we value.

Okay.... you wonder.... what's this got to do with ME? (and by that, I mean with YOU). Plenty, it turns out. With the advent of Gather and all of its pretenders (and just so you don't think I am pandering to the Gatherfolks--who basically hate me anyway for making so much fun of their honorable ADVERTISERS, not to mention my continual rants about their LAME PUBLISHING TOOLS.....where was I??.... just so you don't think I am pandering: even GATHER has become a pretender to itself, most would agree)..... with the advent of Gather, Writing as a craft fundamentally changed. Sure, there were BLOGS. But who, really, reads blogs of a non-specific nature? No. Gather changed writing because it changed PUBLISHING. It changed AUDIENCE. Look at you: you're reading This; two years ago you would not have bothered (nor known HOW).

So Gautami ponders what it is about writing that compels us so, and all I can answer is that two years ago, I would not have even thought to write it down. Gather writing is contemporary writing.... it is rarely functional, there are no publishers, it has a built-in audience... blah, blah, blah. Use the power wisely, Grasshoppers.

TODAY'S CRAFTSPEOPLE


Magi the magical poet gives us Azrael's Shadow, verse that is not quite lament, not quite forlorn, not quite soliloquy, about loss and distance. It is the beginning of a new series. Read and stay tuned.

Nippy Katz publishes simultaneously to the inspired group GNN: Digger Burrows Interviews #1, Nippy Katz AND to Group ONE. Digger Burrows pulls no punches in this get-down-and-dirty interview wherein Nippy takes the wise course in NOT mentioning his favorite Gather writiers... a strategy I have yet to follow. Oh. There is also a plug for the Aleatoric Party Presidential Ticket. Read and get out your checkbook.

Racheline Maltese posts Wish You Were Here, a tribute of sorts to 9/11 while offering the incisive social commentary we have come to expect from her regarding the present state of land development on Manhattan (and elsewhere, I might chime in). Fabulous. Compelling.

As mentioned above, Gautami Tripathy pens Belles-lettres....all about writing. An essay on essays and other genres.

And Magi, in the true tradition of Group ONE posts a SECOND article: Our Eyes Spoke, a re-posted article on the harrowing witnessed events of 9/11.

Madame Donna C. takes a break from writing on the Craft of Cooking to give us The Man In The Sport Shirt, a tightly woven story of tension and mystery, ironically staged in a dry-cleaning establishment.

And Kathryn Esplin-Oleski posts her An Insider's Pocket Guide to Montreal Part 1 - East End - Photo Essay, a colorful look at some of Montreal's lesser known neighborhoods. It is the introduction to the longer, more bookish part 2 wherein we learn perhaps more than we bargained for about Ville-Marie. And what is that odd computer-shaped bulge in your pocket?

(Does everybody notice that if your icon photo is tall it is much bigger than if it is wide?

GAME ON!

Football season is upon us, as my friend Faith reminds me.... here is the game: name the NCAA Division 1 School for each of the helmets.

Scoring:
6 correct: You spend much too much time in front of the TV
3 correct: You spend just enough time in front of the TV
0 correct: You should spend more time in front of the TV

hint: one of these is firesmith's no. 1 poke-fun-at team for 2007.