There’s nothing more appealing than the feel of the crafter’s hand. Every morning when I drink my tea from a cup made by a friend, its two handles resting on porcelain hips, I am comforted. The slight chip in the lip that I’ve contributed reminds me to slow down when I handle what’s precious.

--  Dominique Browning

saturday poem

To flee from memory
Had we the Wings
Many would fly
Inured to slower things
Birds with surprise
Would scan the cowering Van
Of men escaping
From the mind of man

 

Emily Dickinson

"Our bodies physically store our memories. We are the history of our lives, so to be in touch with one’s body is to have access to those memories.”

Janine Antoni

changing skin

These beautiful and delicate sculptures, made of paper and glue, were made by French artist, Mathilde Roussel. Meant to emulate human skin, these folded sculptures serve as a metaphor for everyday human change:

"We imperceptibly change everyday as if we were changing skin. The Mues sculptures make visible this metamorphosis through imprints of a body at the specific time. They are clothing of empty skin that we fold and keep to put on a new one. This skin becomes the trace of the time passing and the memory of an anterior life."

See more on Mathildes website

never leave the playground

This again from Stephen Jepson, because it's brilliant // Never Leave The Playground

I believe in the inheritance of skills and crafts—the inheritance of memory.

 Robert Graves

"For me if a beautiful memory could have a color that color would be light blue."

- Felix Gonzalez-Torres

clay memory

Something I was told this week...

You have to use your entire body weight when you are rolling out clay slabs...unless you have a press...and it is important to move the clay around as you go so that you roll it out in different directions and also turn it around at different intervals so that you roll both sides; otherwise tensions might occur in the drying or firing process leading to cracks. It's like the clay has a memory for the shape it began in and it's always trying to get back to that form. 

Like us! We need to move and be moved in all different directions to prevent tensions.

on handwork

'The use of the hands is vital for the human being, for having flexibility, dexterity. In a way the entire human being is in the hands. Our destiny is in the hands."

 I love the idea that through movement (more specifically here through working with our hands) we come into direct contact with our most human values, with the essentials that must be felt to be known... to be remembered.  I was thinking a lot yesterday about accessing memories through movement, and then about knowledge as memory, so I'm really seeing this video today through that lens.

a little more about Renate and her work here.

image found here

"Touch has a memory.”

― John Keats

On Handwork

'The use of the hands is vital for the human being, for having flexibility, dexterity. In a way the entire human being is in the hands. Our destiny is in the hands."

 I love the idea that through movement (more specifically here through working with our hands) we come into direct contact with our most human values, with the essentials that must be felt to be known... to be remembered.  I was thinking a lot yesterday about accessing memories through movement, and then about knowledge as memory, so I'm really seeing this video today through that lens.

a little more about Renate and her work here.

Found here

Restoring The Body: Bessel van der Kolk

This is really worth a listen...interesting stuff!

www.onbeing.org/program/restoring-the-body-bessel-van-der-kolk-on-yoga-emdr-and-treating-trauma

"Human memory is a sensory experience says psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk. Through his longtime research and innovation in trauma treatment, he shares what he's learning how bodywork like yoga or eye movement therapy can restore a sense of goodness and safety. And what he’s learning speaks to a resilience we can all cultivate in the face of the overwhelming events that after all make up the drama of culture, of news, of life." 

Read on here.

Thank you Jill for the link.