The Art of Insight

Chapter 5A Mindful Artisan

with Sonja Kuijpers

Figure 5.1: “Weather Eindhoven 2014”

http://www.studioterp.nl/weather-eindhoven-2014/

During the making life feels uncharacteristically centered, and the calm that comes with clear intent sustains the uncertainty of creating something new.

—Mary Jane Jacob

Flow and the joy it brings about are a constant presence in books about artisanship. In The Craftsman (2008), Richard Sennett quotes sociologist C. Wright Mills:

The laborer with a sense of craft becomes engaged in the work in and for itself; the satisfactions of working are their own reward.

Sennett also discusses how craft is supposed to differ from art. He explains that a common view—which he challenges as simplistic—is that we act as artisans when we work outward, toward our communities, while we become artists when we work inward, turned upon ourselves. The difference is one of intention, agency, autonomy (not being limited by expectations or conventions), and also sociological, dependent on how the work is perceived by the society where it's undertaken.

If we accept this view, are the designers I'm showcasing in this second part of the book artisans or artists? Like Sennett, I don't believe in essences, or in sharp categorical boundaries between fields so, at the risk of offending those who are knowledgeable in the philosophy of art, I'll tentatively take the pragmatic ...