{"id":460,"date":"2014-03-29T10:15:00","date_gmt":"2014-03-29T10:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glitteringshards.com\/blog\/2010\/what-is-our-work-about\/"},"modified":"2014-03-29T10:15:00","modified_gmt":"2014-03-29T10:15:00","slug":"what-is-our-work-about","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glitteringshards.com\/blog\/what-is-our-work-about\/","title":{"rendered":"What is our work about?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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(Some re-posts of my favourite past posts for new readers…life is busy – good, mosaic, creative busy – and the pics will come soon…)<\/p>\n

I am trying to understand why making\u00a0 <\/em>is so transformative<\/em><\/strong>. I am sitting in my studio, cutting and laying tiles, placing them, moving them a millimetre this way and that until my eye is satisfied. I am making colour choices and pondering the reflective qualities of material. Materials given to me by the Earth and shaped into squares by human cleverness and by machines so that I may have the privelage to be a mosaic artist.<\/p>\n

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I step back from my work, look from a distance, admire the image that is emerging, that is taking on its own life, sometimes (often) feeling disatissfied and trying again with a new colour or flow of tiles. I complete a piece. I stroke it, like stroking a child, in awe that it exists when once it didn’t – that I have bought this ‘something’ into being. <\/em>Something that is a work of my hands but also of my heart.<\/p>\n

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I ponder all these thoughts while I work alone in my studio. As I work, I listen to some podcasts by John O’Donohue<\/a> and am struck by his words “When we are making, we are on holy ground”. <\/em>Yes, this place where I make is sacred. I remember the title of a book by Elizabeth O’Connor “<\/a>Eighth Day of Creation”<\/a>\u00a0 <\/em>and consider that I am a partner with the Creator, continuing the work of creating, of filling the world with beauty, wonder, whimsy, depth and reflections of the vast inner and outer worlds we experience.<\/p>\n

But still I grapple, trying to understand the power of making<\/em>, of creating anything – be it using words, sounds, tiles, paper, colour, food, plants, yarn, fabric, your body or voice…<\/p>\n

Then, like an email sent by One who sees my thoughts, these two quotes arrive in my inbox this week.
\n<\/em>
\nHe who works with his hands is a laborer. He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman. He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist.<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 St Francis of Assisi<\/p>\n

Our work is more than work. It is enchantment. A divine act of creation and re-creation, which is also recreation. It is compassion on the loose.<\/em>
\nMatthew Fox<\/p>\n

I am still pondering….<\/p>\n

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(Some re-posts of my favourite past posts for new readers…life is busy – good, mosaic, creative busy – and the pics will come soon…) I am trying to understand why making\u00a0 is so transformative. I am sitting in my studio, cutting and laying tiles, placing them, moving them a millimetre this way and that until […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,20,47,12,21,32,18,22,13,31,48,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art-philisophy-debate","category-artful-living","category-creative-blogging","category-deep-thoughts-and-reflections","category-developing-as-an-artist","category-for-aspiring-creatives","category-mosaic-loving","category-concetta-perot-mosaics","category-soulful-life","category-soulful-quotes","category-stuff-about-me","category-tranforming-broken-ness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glitteringshards.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glitteringshards.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glitteringshards.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glitteringshards.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glitteringshards.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/glitteringshards.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glitteringshards.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glitteringshards.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glitteringshards.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}