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

"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

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

sit down, stand up

Can you get up and down off the floor without “touching” anything?

" My oldest client ever was a woman named Myrle. She was 89 when she started seeing me and we worked together for 5 years. When we first met, I asked her to get down on the floor and back up. I wanted to get a sense of her functional strength. It took her about 2 minutes to get down (with the use of a chair) and it took her 72 minutes, 4 pieces of furniture, and every one of MY muscles to get her back up again.
She was mortified and told me how the exercise brought up memories of her mother. She had cared for her mother in the end stages of her life, and when she watched her mother struggle to get off the floor, she swore “I will NEVER be like that.” Of course, most physical goals require some sort of physical practice beyond grand declarations. Myrle, like most people, didn’t get down on the floor regularly the last 20 (or 40) years and so the muscle strength necessary to do so silently slipped away..."

Read the rest of this brilliant blog post from Katy Bowman here.

Touch Tours

Matt Ducklo's pictures of museum "touch tours" where blind or partially sighted people are able to take private tours of museums so that they can touch and experience the art work.

“Touch has a memory.”

― John Keats

Touch