Hand-gripped Materials

Posted on 2021-12-02 by michael3

I’m reflecting on the experience last night at the Collaborative Dialogue Event (ECPN’s put on). The story of Kozue especially on the little children’s grip of ‘things’ they bring to the day care in her experience. She lists several things they bring, and small stones is one of them. Tonight, I’m thinking, that if I was a child again, and had the choice, I would have brought a small pencil (or like stylo-instrument, be it a crayon, pastel, pen). I have had a fettish for these objects since I can remember, and it is not surprising my desk and art studio are cluttered with these materials (evocative objects–so I decided to scan my gripping the pencil as if that is my child’s hand at a toddler age)- I think of adults or older peers prying against the will of the child in many instances, even my own, where something inside one’s hand is forcibly removed because the child doesn’t want to give it up. That was part of Kozue’s realization of having a “relationship with the stone” which she has shared on a prior blog post here and she shared her written story at the Event last night online.

Now, what takes this all further in my query, is not that I am a ‘collector’ of such stylo-like things and love what they can do in terms of their marking the world, the sidewalk, the blackboard, the whiteboard, the paper, etc. but I have on several occasions made paintings in experimental series where I draw, color, and paint realistically a stylo object, a pencil crayon, a pastel, a felt-tipped child’s marker. In fact in the current show at NIA starting this Sat.-Sun. (for the Nanaimo Artwalk) you’ll see at least two of my paintings where I included such an object. Okay, that’s interesting enough. But what really came out tonight, from the unconscious to conscious, was that “I am a pencil crayon.” Yeah, all those objects truly are “me” and they are what and how I want to be handled in the world–artistically, as I and many of us would handle a pencil crayon (or any stylo objective I’ve mentioned above). Wow! There’s a lot there to mine. But, let’s also not forget the stones, as a theme for this artist residency and Kozue’s story, in hand–and, now in her son’s hand. As she told us last night that her son “took the stone” –her stone. What part of her did he take, and apparently has still hidden, even from his mom?

Hand-Gripping Small Pencil by R. Michael Fisher (c) 2021 – photo from scanner

One thought on “Hand-gripped Materials

  1. This article and Replies (including Kozue’s come from the NIA blog)-enjoy:
    kozue on 2021-12-02 at 9:05 pm said:Edit
    Even though I looked for the stone from my story, because I wanted to share how it looked like at the Collaborative Dialogue event, I could not find it. My husband kindly found a stone which he thought fits a description from my story and offered it to me prior to the event. I looked at it and it did not look anything like “The stone”. I thanked him and told him it was not “The stone”, and it did not look anything like it. It was not bumpy. It was a smooth stone.
    I would have had a tight grip on “The stone” if I were a child. I know I should not mess with the kid’s stone after this experience. They are not just a stone. “The stone” is special to the child for their relationship. I hope it stays in the hand of a child as long as he/she wants to grip on it. We do not know what this gripped object will lead this child to. Is this a beginning of an artistry?

    Reply ↓
    michael on 2021-12-03 at 5:57 am said:Edit
    Oh YES! That’s the messaging here in this flow of exchanges, isn’t it? As Kozue, says:
    “They are not just a stone.”

    I wonder how that is related also to the notion of my playing with the fold up cardboard boxes I brought to NIA P.D back a few months, and that I had given to the Forest School to work with the one day I was there …? and, the theme I wrote on the box lid of one of them and Antje really liked it and photographed it out at the stone pile : “NOT A BOX” ….

    Hmmmm… “NOT A STONE” ….

    Reply ↓
    michael on 2021-12-03 at 7:41 am said:Edit
    Oh, I just made a “Stone Teachings” video #4 on and around this experience with Kozue’s story and more about what “art” is for me at this point in my life.
    Go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuDswR3bd1I

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