Taking a break from working in my studio this afternoon, I browsed in the local bookshop. One book caught my attention. A hard backed book called ‘Cradle to Cradle’. As I turned the pages I discovered it speaks about ‘Re-making the way we make things’, so they last and have enduring value.
I thought how timeless our art work is. Using the best of artists quality paints on time tested materials such as canvas, paper and wood, well mounted and suitably framed, they will endure the march of time for years measured in the hundreds.
As I strolled back to my studio well wrapped up against the cold wind and rain, I glanced in the windows of the shops along the way. Televisions, kettles, computers, clothes and tools. Our oil paintings will hardly be fully dry when the first of these things find their way to the dump as landfill or to be recycled. The shiny new 2009 registered cars, wet in the afternoon rain, slowly making their way down the narrow street originally designed for horse driven carriages, will be crushed into blocks the size of our kitchen tables well before Grandchildren inherit our work from their Grandparents.
There are relatively few objects that will last as long in their original state and give pleasure to unborn generations as our art.
Art endures.
So must we as artists.
(Cradle to Cradle by Michael Braungart and William McDonough)