it's funny: i found Die Wise in one of the free curbside mini-libraries that people have set up in my neighborhood, back in... 2016, maybe? completely by happenstance. i think that was the first book that really got me looking for something more challenging than Internet Atheism or room-temperature Buddhism. i didn't even realize i was looking for something like that before i found it by accident. haven't re-read it since; i'll have to dig it out again, after traveling this far down the path it started me on.
Ah, those books that create a fork in the road! They often arrive by curious routes, like the curbside library, don't they? Mine was Berger's The Shape of a Pocket, which threw itself off the shelves in a bookshop in southwest London, one lunchtime in the spring of 2003, when I had just fallen through the bottom of my career at the BBC and found myself working as a temp in a nearby call centre. It read like a letter from the older, wiser friend I badly needed at that moment in my life.
Thank you! I remember the first time I heard of Jenkinson's work. A student on a course I taught at Schumacher College, almost a decade ago, told me that I must watch the Griefwalker film. The student was a Swedish man who had been to the Orphan Wisdom school – and, curiously enough, it was his efforts that brought Jenkinson to Sweden at last this summer and made it possible for us to meet.
My father has been visiting this past week. I haven’t seen him in a dozen years which has left me to regularly wonder if this will be the last time I see him as well. I have been trying to give him the grand tour of where I live yet so much of it feels pretty hollow in the context of last visits leaving me searching for gratitude among the many, many heartbreaks. Impeccable timing on the post and introduction to Stephen Jenkinson’s work. Thank you.
I'm off to check out Die Wise, thanks for sharing. A few months ago I was listening to James Finley, a Western contemplative teacher, who talks alot about Thomas Merton, Meister Eckart etc. His articulation of the spiritual landscape was beautiful and evinced a deep understanding of that/this place. A minute later he was talking about his wife passing. "I'm a mess, a complete mess, wondering around, not knowing what to do". Out of all of that audio, it is that moment of vulnerability that stuck with me the most. So transparent; not trying to reconcile or "spiritualise" the insight, just putting both out there, an unconstrued baring of oneself.
Thanks Dougald for this post and links to the videos, it is thrilling to see the work of Vanessa and the corruscating humour of Stephen - what a sweet cheeky dude!
Also, very interesting to see your own talk - I love this call to creativity but I'm also a painfully aware of the colonial roots of the artist, and the art market as an appendage/advertising agency of and for capitalism. To be fair, I'm sure you have acknowledged this and for ease of communication you are using this title, but for me the actions, of which art encloses, need to be redistributed into the practical crafts from which they have sprung - to the innate skills of the human animal and situated in the land which is the material.
I'm not one to make over complicated definitions but 'artist' is super loaded with 'man genius' and sits strangely within the decolonised context. Surely this position will also be broken - not least because you can't eat, wear or shelter under art - or then you can and it is a distributed title; artist cook, artist tailor, artist builder. I follow your argument and have traced it myself through not least Joseph Beuys and William Morris. It seems part of giving up this world is giving up the glamour of fame that the artist necessarily inhabits and perhaps seeing it in the people round the table.
I make a living carving for the artist Anish Kapoor and have a ring side seat at the ersatz spectacle of true endeavour within monstrous commercialism, I'm not complaining. My own work has been a journey through social communal projects, into free feasts, foraged and swapped - within and without the context of the gallery. My partner and I are sketching out a space sort of underneath and beyond art, like you say at the edge, but all around. A kind of commons of skills that will make up the provisioning of fantastic clothes and furniture, rugs and bedspreads. This, like food will become a communal endeavour where everyone will necessarily have to take part. Caring for the less able (from our rough calculations will take up most of our time).
Joel, thank you for this marvellous comment. As you may imagine, there's little in what you say that I'd quarrel with. I took the kind of argument I was making in the closing minutes of the Sigtuna talk further in this essay, which you may resonate with:
In the closing lines of that piece, I think I was reaching towards something that you say more clearly in your comment, about the necessity of breaking the vessel of art(ist) and the unbearable/indefensible weight of "man genius" expectations it is still carrying.
In a few conversations I've had lately, it's been brought home to me how far my own perspective – especially when it comes to the last move of the artist-as-trickster in the endtimes of modernity – is shaped by the company I've kept, which has largely been made up of the kind of outsider artists who have been drawn to Dark Mountain, individuals and small organisations using "art" as a cover story, who would be alive to and open to what you and I are saying here.
Anyway, I love the vision that you've rolled out here for that "space sort of underneath and beyond art". At some point, if you're up for it, I'd like to record a conversation with you (and your partner) about these things. Meanwhile, this was one of my favourite comments since I started publishing on Substack, so as some flimsy gesture of recognition of that, I've comped you a subscription to my paid posts. Look forward to hearing more from you.
Here, also is a link to artist as family, a relevant breaking of the artist embodied in the name, and this particular post is a super interesting almost manifesto. I've spoken to Patrick, we had a lovely rambling conversation, also up on the blog.
Thank you Dougald, I'm delighted to accept your kind offer. And so good to follow your thinking through these definitions in the essay, again, thank you. I look forward to trying to articulate our ideas (its ok, my partner is so much better). I share your feeling that 'the maker' (?) Is a key in this next space, in the haptic knowledge ways that yunkaporta pins out - most recently in his yarn with Zina Sarowiwa but importantly as an acknowledgement that all human bodies do this. Or, we are coevolved as makers, we need to grapple and finesse earth materials, its our inherentence and our nature. We love it, it brings us joy and being and is the foundation of all that is good, relational and physical! Give it back to the people! Heh heh
it's funny: i found Die Wise in one of the free curbside mini-libraries that people have set up in my neighborhood, back in... 2016, maybe? completely by happenstance. i think that was the first book that really got me looking for something more challenging than Internet Atheism or room-temperature Buddhism. i didn't even realize i was looking for something like that before i found it by accident. haven't re-read it since; i'll have to dig it out again, after traveling this far down the path it started me on.
Ah, those books that create a fork in the road! They often arrive by curious routes, like the curbside library, don't they? Mine was Berger's The Shape of a Pocket, which threw itself off the shelves in a bookshop in southwest London, one lunchtime in the spring of 2003, when I had just fallen through the bottom of my career at the BBC and found myself working as a temp in a nearby call centre. It read like a letter from the older, wiser friend I badly needed at that moment in my life.
Thank you for this. I adore Stephen Jenkinson. Die Wise is one of the most memorable books I've ever read.
It's wonderful that his work is influencing yours.
Thank you! I remember the first time I heard of Jenkinson's work. A student on a course I taught at Schumacher College, almost a decade ago, told me that I must watch the Griefwalker film. The student was a Swedish man who had been to the Orphan Wisdom school – and, curiously enough, it was his efforts that brought Jenkinson to Sweden at last this summer and made it possible for us to meet.
My father has been visiting this past week. I haven’t seen him in a dozen years which has left me to regularly wonder if this will be the last time I see him as well. I have been trying to give him the grand tour of where I live yet so much of it feels pretty hollow in the context of last visits leaving me searching for gratitude among the many, many heartbreaks. Impeccable timing on the post and introduction to Stephen Jenkinson’s work. Thank you.
Thanks for sharing this, Randall. I'm glad to have made a timely introduction.
I'm off to check out Die Wise, thanks for sharing. A few months ago I was listening to James Finley, a Western contemplative teacher, who talks alot about Thomas Merton, Meister Eckart etc. His articulation of the spiritual landscape was beautiful and evinced a deep understanding of that/this place. A minute later he was talking about his wife passing. "I'm a mess, a complete mess, wondering around, not knowing what to do". Out of all of that audio, it is that moment of vulnerability that stuck with me the most. So transparent; not trying to reconcile or "spiritualise" the insight, just putting both out there, an unconstrued baring of oneself.
Thanks Dougald for this post and links to the videos, it is thrilling to see the work of Vanessa and the corruscating humour of Stephen - what a sweet cheeky dude!
Also, very interesting to see your own talk - I love this call to creativity but I'm also a painfully aware of the colonial roots of the artist, and the art market as an appendage/advertising agency of and for capitalism. To be fair, I'm sure you have acknowledged this and for ease of communication you are using this title, but for me the actions, of which art encloses, need to be redistributed into the practical crafts from which they have sprung - to the innate skills of the human animal and situated in the land which is the material.
I'm not one to make over complicated definitions but 'artist' is super loaded with 'man genius' and sits strangely within the decolonised context. Surely this position will also be broken - not least because you can't eat, wear or shelter under art - or then you can and it is a distributed title; artist cook, artist tailor, artist builder. I follow your argument and have traced it myself through not least Joseph Beuys and William Morris. It seems part of giving up this world is giving up the glamour of fame that the artist necessarily inhabits and perhaps seeing it in the people round the table.
I make a living carving for the artist Anish Kapoor and have a ring side seat at the ersatz spectacle of true endeavour within monstrous commercialism, I'm not complaining. My own work has been a journey through social communal projects, into free feasts, foraged and swapped - within and without the context of the gallery. My partner and I are sketching out a space sort of underneath and beyond art, like you say at the edge, but all around. A kind of commons of skills that will make up the provisioning of fantastic clothes and furniture, rugs and bedspreads. This, like food will become a communal endeavour where everyone will necessarily have to take part. Caring for the less able (from our rough calculations will take up most of our time).
Joel, thank you for this marvellous comment. As you may imagine, there's little in what you say that I'd quarrel with. I took the kind of argument I was making in the closing minutes of the Sigtuna talk further in this essay, which you may resonate with:
https://dougald.substack.com/p/childish-things
In the closing lines of that piece, I think I was reaching towards something that you say more clearly in your comment, about the necessity of breaking the vessel of art(ist) and the unbearable/indefensible weight of "man genius" expectations it is still carrying.
In a few conversations I've had lately, it's been brought home to me how far my own perspective – especially when it comes to the last move of the artist-as-trickster in the endtimes of modernity – is shaped by the company I've kept, which has largely been made up of the kind of outsider artists who have been drawn to Dark Mountain, individuals and small organisations using "art" as a cover story, who would be alive to and open to what you and I are saying here.
Anyway, I love the vision that you've rolled out here for that "space sort of underneath and beyond art". At some point, if you're up for it, I'd like to record a conversation with you (and your partner) about these things. Meanwhile, this was one of my favourite comments since I started publishing on Substack, so as some flimsy gesture of recognition of that, I've comped you a subscription to my paid posts. Look forward to hearing more from you.
https://artistasfamily.is/2023/09/01/artists-and-the-practice-of-agriculture-politics-and-aesthetics-of-food-sovereignty-in-art-since-1960/
Here, also is a link to artist as family, a relevant breaking of the artist embodied in the name, and this particular post is a super interesting almost manifesto. I've spoken to Patrick, we had a lovely rambling conversation, also up on the blog.
Thank you Dougald, I'm delighted to accept your kind offer. And so good to follow your thinking through these definitions in the essay, again, thank you. I look forward to trying to articulate our ideas (its ok, my partner is so much better). I share your feeling that 'the maker' (?) Is a key in this next space, in the haptic knowledge ways that yunkaporta pins out - most recently in his yarn with Zina Sarowiwa but importantly as an acknowledgement that all human bodies do this. Or, we are coevolved as makers, we need to grapple and finesse earth materials, its our inherentence and our nature. We love it, it brings us joy and being and is the foundation of all that is good, relational and physical! Give it back to the people! Heh heh