As we find ourselves in the throes of a new world order, making small and beautiful things becomes a most positive and powerful act.
Well folks, we made it through a most topsy turvy year of worldwide political turmoil. It seems we, the people, become ever less significant in this Bully-Boy, high stakes world where our lives have become their game. But the dark night of 2016 gives way to a new dawn. These bright, January days bring with them fresh hope for more generous, more tolerant times, and I look to see how I can make my simple desires (peace, love – you know, all that hippy stuff) carry forward to have real impact in 2017.
Since this is what I do with my time, I have been thinking a lot about the act of making.
Why make jewellery?
In a world full of STUFF one might wonder what value there could be in producing more of it in any form. Of course there is immediately appreciable value in the quality of an object produced by the singular maker; a hand made object will always win over mass produced, cheap design. But there is far more power to jewellery making than the beautiful and precious outcome might suggest.
Let no-one trivialise your maker – soul.
When you pick up a tool you connect with first and last of humankind. Primal instinct combines with rolling lifetimes of honed skill to perfect the action you are about to perform. In that place of mighty intelligence there is no room for prejudice, nor space for war. Mind, spirit and body draw together in unison to express, reveal, create. The result might be hideous – but that process of creation is truth itself and it is exquisite!
Whatever your medium, there is quiet integrity to the processes of making – and a simple truth in engaging with the creative flow; it is a small but powerful (beautiful) act of rebellion in a world of chaos. And clearly there is a need for more truth, more beauty in this world.
And so to Flux
Flux exists as a place to explore, develop and perfect jewellery skills, to make beautiful/challenging things. At the door you can leave behind the troubles of the world, not in a state of denial or therapy, but as a positive act of rebellion against all that would blind us, control, cripple and debilitate.
So if you have a rebel heart, a maker soul, an urge to construct, I invite you to join us for another year at Flux. Why make jewellery? It’s a true act of resistance to the world order. Let’s solve the world’s smallest problems together. Like pennies in a jar, each act or engagement is made greater by the ‘doing’ of the last. And so we can change our world through the making of beautiful things.
You can find a list of all our courses here