Blog No 4. Is Looking Back, A Rout To Newness!

Is Looking Back, A Rout To Newness!

SPRING is a time to move forward, step into the year and start afresh. For me it is generally a time of planning and renewal!

If 'newness' is the goal in my work, then what does that look like compared to this time last year, where can it be seen and what is its messaging?

Searching for meaning these days, even in the mundane, seems somewhat hard to find in this complicated and unsettling time, but the small stuff, the this’n’that’s of life, are perhaps where a little joy can return!

It appears that retail (especially apparel) is currently devolving into a meaningless, even joyless pursuit for may, though the goods are often beautiful, well made ‘on-trend’ (whatever that means these days) there is something (lacking) missing! Do you feel it too!
Sales are down, shops are empty and despite mass communication infiltrating every aspect of our lives, simple joy seems to be few and far between!

After 25 years as a University tutor, freelance designer and maker, I can see, all to well, how we got here, but for the first time, the roadmap for how we move forward is less clear to me!

Where is ‘newness’ coming from right now?

Human civilisation has evolved over 10,000 yours. Years of learnt behaviours, muscle memory, vast tomes of established thinking and tried and tested systems! Though evolution is inevitable, it was, till very recently, a slow burning and unnoticeable shift!
Now we march into the fires of change with no thought for what came before it, all too busy to listen to the ghosts of time for wisdom and guidance!

We appear to have collectively abandoned many of the lessons of our past! Is the method of looking to our yesterdays worth taking more seriously again, as a guide to progressing past our current creative malaise!

Is looking ‘backwards’ to move forward really such a bad idea!

The creators and makers that have made the tools, machines, objects and the less stoic, yet just as important, ephemera, that make the world go round, are so often overlooked, under funded, unsupported or respected by those tasked to run the country!
Those who made their names in times of abundance now gatekeep the progress of the true voices of tomorrow. Using their wealth and power to block the next generations work from exposure, while professing to champion the 'new' as a device to sell their tired unsellables, like a relentless parade of 'The Emperors New Clothes'!

Although the golden chalice, that is, ‘progress’ can look like the remedy for societies many difficulties, it is perhaps a testament to my old age (though I have a suspicion it is not) that, for me, the claims of ‘many new jobs and opportunities’ due to the rapid advancement’s in AI, the paradigm shifting discoveries (if found to be true) emerging through quantum computing, the mass production of robot ‘assistants’ set to hit the market in a few short years, or Starlinks 7000 working satellites (one of 10 other such projects in the pipeline) to ensure we all stay online 24/7 really, is not it…

Of course, progress and innovation have a powerful role to play, and I am not advocating for the return of pre-industrialised living, with rationed powdered eggs and the meagre sustenance of hardtack (ships biscuits) to replace sugary treats!
Nor am I a fan of the quaint connotations of the privileged ‘poverty lifestyle’ aesthetic that sees eye-wateringly expensive 'premium'  retail spaces that look like the set of Arkwright & Granville's "Open All Hours' 70's TV show, selling £2000 bonfire pokers to those who can afford it!

We simply need to buy things in a different way, step away from some mass produced goods, retain and preserve our cherished pieces and curate our lives.
A balanced return to attainable and ethical, hand crafted labours, valued not for their availability or affordability, but as life long objects, with a real and necessary role to play...

The hairbrush handed down by your Grandma, with its wear and tear of a life or a generations owned, makers tool, that you sharpen once a year, at the arrival of spring, just in time to revive the garden, or that piece of furniture your grandparents used to play on as children!
Though no one may know it’s true monetary value, it is cherished, it becomes an object of pride, an investment, a hand-me-down!

Spinner - Tailor - Dress maker Embroiderer - Dyer - Milliner -  Weaver Upholsterer - Quilter - Leatherworker  Tanner - Cobbler - Carpenter - Cooper - Mason - Potter - Glassblower - Candlemaker - Basketmaker - Bookbinder - Calligrapher - Luthier  - Sculptor - Stone carver - Sign painters  - Shipwright - Wheelwright - Bowyer - Fletcher - Thatcher - Tiler - Blacksmith - Goldsmith - Pewterer - Clockmaker - Jeweller -  Knapper - Vintner - Distiller - Rope maker - Brush / Comb Maker - Gardener - Cartographer - Perfumer - Scribe...

What I am proposing is a balanced ‘made to order’ even personalised, approach. Building anticipation and participation into a purchase. Creating meaningful, hand crafted acquisitions, where it is not in the presentation of a logo or the reliance of prestige packaging and expensive retail spaces to telegraph 'value'.

We once revered our thinkers, innovators, artists, makers and teachers to predict our future realities and furnish our landscapes, to offer a roadmap to follow, a story to share, an object to collect, an idea to ponder, a culture to pride in!

Have we abandoned this idea, or is it just 'unfashionable' and if so, for what and why?