Conversation

Sometimes we make things up as we go. Imagine the process of bringing all that dreaminess together - there’s a lot of recognition in that work: recognition of materials, of skill, of purpose. I call this back and forth “conversation” simply because I enjoy the visual of turning together, like falling leaves. Things that are made, along with makers themselves, are constantly engaged in a reciprocal conversation that shapes each of them, as if in a spiral.

The creative process is a combination of learning and doing, un-learning and un-doing through a cycle of thought and sensation. In this way, conversation is an active answer to the world’s questions.

But you’ve got to pay attention. You wouldn’t interrupt somebody else’s story half-way through, talk over them, scroll your phone… Part of holding a conversation is honouring the other speaker. Honour in the sense of attention, but also in accepting the shape of things as they are and going from there, building each moment, each action, from the last.

Making exemplifies a sentient ecology, where human relations exist in the larger context of ecological relations. Legitimizing the phenomenal non-human through conversation with materials may help us to participate as part of a broader ecological system. Makers are excellent listeners. Through a combination of imagination and sensation they participate in soulful conversation with the world around them.