[TheForge] Craft work (was Disgusting Ironwork)

[Andy Vida]

"Michael H. Murphy" wrote:

> The problem here is that the public's entire concept of craft work
> has been debased. 

	Yes.  "Craft" has come to mean the quaint, amaterur efforts
	of elementary school children and bored housewives.

> We are in dire need of education, not only in the hard
> sciences, but also in appreciation of the arts: music,
> literature, and yes, craft works such as blacksmithing
> and wood carving.

	By and large nobody wants to be educated.  If it takes
	as much effort as changing the channel via remote control
	to go from reruns of Married With Children to reruns of
	The Simpsons, people just aren't interested, for the most
	part.
> 
> That being said, I'm probably just pissing in the wind; as long as
> there are people who prefer Boone's Farm to burgundy and think that
> a picture of Elvis on black velvet is a high art form, it's a losing
> proposition.

	For the greater mass of people, you are dead on.  For those
	who are even just open to the notion, though, it is worth
	keeping on, though doing so as a business becomes more and
	more questionable with each passing year.  Anything can be
	"art".  As the standard slips, so with it the eye of the 
	ignorant ever downward into inevitable blindness, and the $1 
	garage sale Elvis takes its place over what for some might 
	be seen as more worthy fare.  

	And how can you blame them when it is the very men whence
	those people have issued forth into the world have failed
	to see to the care and feeding of those eyes now gone blind?
	And as of late it seems that that same world of men would even
	deny access to the money with which to provide more acute 
	seers with anything better than a burning frustration such 
	that they would wish to have their eyes plucked out from 
	their skulls, rather than to know they stood beyond the 
	reach of heaven's hands?  We have done this to ourselves
	through the complacency that is born of too much wealth and 
	ease.  We have forgotten what keeps us alive and strong and 
	makes our lives	vibrant and worthy of another day's effort 
	in the breathing.

	I think we are in a lot of trouble.  My evidence of this
	is the fact that we could fix it this very day, yet we 
	choose not to.  And here I mean the collective "we".

	Regards,

	-Andy

	If you have any room in your heart, pray for Jack.  I think
	his end may be coming.  I'm hoping he's just having a bad 
	day today.  I'm so not ready to let my dog go.