Our new project, crit day is April Fools!
I want to use special objects that I cannot leave the house without, for instance, an old silver teether, battered and dented by my two children, a lapiz lazuli dowser on a chain, assortment of crystals and objects like erasers given to me by my children and one more thing, a lock of hair that was from my good friends daughter before she died, these are the things I shall use, I shall make models of each, possibly much much bigger and use them for a sculpture, maybe using prints from some or imprints to give texture, currently experimenting!
Hi, Helen
ReplyDeleteI believe, from what I know about connections between the word 'fool' and the title 'context is everything' that you've got a great pairing there!
I recall reading that the origin of our word 'silly' is in a Germanic word 'selig' meaning 'empty'. Along with that, there is also the matter that in aiding communications for a person with hearing problems or other communication difficulties, making the person aware of the CONTEXT is an essential aid to increasing understanding of the CONTENT.
Linking all this to matters related to Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group by analogy, there is a story of a scientist and a flea, as told in Lyall Watson's book 'Supernature'. The scientist starts with an intact flea and tells it to jump and the flea jumps over the obstacle and the flea succeeds.
Then the scientist amputates one pair of the flea's legs and tells it to jump, and it still clears the obstacle.
Even after the scientist has amputated a second pair of the flea's legs, it still manages to clear the obstacle when told to 'jump', but removing the final pair of the fleas legs leads the flea to immobility and the scientist to conclude that removing all pairs of the flea's legs makes the flea go deaf.
That conclusion is somewhat similar to Tony Blair's investment banker David Freud -- now Con-Dem Welfare Reform Minister and life-peer Lord Freud -- reckoning that the way to solve the unemployment crisis is to 'incentivise' private companies with huge bonuses for getting disabled people off benefits and into waged employment while sanctioning benefit claimants who cannot 'make the grade' when pysical, social and economic structures work against them. Also, of course, imbalance of bargaining power between employers and workers, coupled with shareholders' greed and alienation from workers leads to workers' burnout.
And class and income hide the truths that disabled people have a real full-time job on their hands surviving against a backdrop of disabling structures, while every parent has a vital role in helping to build society from the bottom up.
The late American educational psychologist Dr Haim G Ginott who was of Jewish extraction pointed out that the true role of parenting was not to raise children to 'make [attain] the grade [as set by others]'. He asked: "What have we accomplished if we have reared a child who is brilliant — at the top of his class — but who uses his intellect to manipulate others?
"And do we really want children so well-adjusted that they adjust to an unjust situation? The Germans adjusted only too well to the orders of the Nazis to exterminate millions of their fellow men.
"Understand me: I'm not opposed to a child being polite or neat or learned. The crucial question for me is: What methods have been used to accomplish these ends? If the methods used are insults, attacks, and threats, then we can be very sure that we have also taught this child to insult, to attack, to threaten, and to comply when threatened.
"If, on the other hand, we use methods that are humane, then we've taught something much more important than a series of isolated virtues. We've shown the child how to be a person — a mensch, a human being who can conduct his life with strength and dignity."
(Extract taken from Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish's (1973, 1990) 'Liberated Parent, Liberated Child: Your Guide to a Happier Family'.)
Of course, had the scientist not assumed the right to interfere with nature in the way outlined, and not assumed that everything depended upon the flea's ability to obey the scientist's will, the flea would have managed to continue to function as it was designed to do.
Your colleague
Swheatie of the KUWG
PS: Spike Milligan started off a concert at Cambridge University with the words: "Nothing is organised for tonight, and so nothing can go wrong."
Oops! Re "Tony Blair's investment banker.." that should read: "Tony Blair's investment banker turned Welfare Reform Minister..."
ReplyDeleteSwheatie
The reference to context here is related to the story behind the objects. I am doing a sculptor or installation of objects dear to me.Rather like the objects archived at the Foundling Museum that were sewn into the abandoned child's clothes..what was the story behind the circumstances? My objects will be enlarged and used to somehow translate something to the viewer, maybe a sentiment, a lucky charm or talisman or just an object given with love.
ReplyDeleteThe reference to context here is related to the story behind the objects. I am doing a sculptor or installation of objects dear to me.Rather like the objects archived at the Foundling Museum that were sewn into the abandoned child's clothes..what was the story behind the circumstances? My objects will be enlarged and used to somehow translate something to the viewer, maybe a sentiment, a lucky charm or talisman or just an object given with love.
ReplyDelete