Art and Artifice

That which is beautiful does not cease to be so merely because we are inured to it. Modern society tends to cauterize ours basic senses and makes us blind, deaf and insensitive to the simple and essential beauty that is inherent in nature, surrounding us every day. It takes a great deal of effort to peel away the veneered layer upon layer of false values and preconceptions that have been pasted over our perceptions and become aware of the simple truths that are self evident around us. It is easy to judge your life, your success, by monetary standards, but those standards are artificial and manmade, not intrinsic or even necessarily real. Nor is it healthy to constantly judge yourself based on opinions of others, for everyone of us has the freedom of thought to define themselves.

I find great joy in simple things. "They" say that "small things amuse small minds", but I disagree. The ability to perceive the magnificence of nature in something as simple as a sea shell, or to find joy and satisfaction in making a coffee mug, or two hundred coffee mugs, is acknowledging ones place in this droplet of life in the vast desolate cosmos. Every day is a miracle, every moment a revelation.

God is in the details, I have heard said, and I think that is true. Nature does not forget the underside of a shell or leaf, each is a masterpeice, no two the same, and yet they are all in harmony with each other. Modern society has set too much value on uniformity, on sameness, and lost the beauty of pattern and rhythm that is a part of nature and traditional craft and society.

The things which we make with our hands, for our hands to use, should be as beautiful and immediate to us as the beauty of nature. They should not be mechanical sterile barriers between us and nature. That is the difference between art and artifice, a difference that is vital to the future of human society.