Why I'm not like Damien Hurst.

Factory processes in Art as in all other arena’s of life are crippling because they are intrinsically and notoriously deskilling:
Henry Ford’s famous quote being a fine example, “You can have any colour as long as it’s black.”

I believe classical artists such as Leonardo da Vinci believed in apprentices as a form of skilled specialisation, as a route to becoming a “Master” in a chosen field, as many of the Guild systems.

I think we are maybe missing the point of an apprenticeship, a term I have heard used in association with particular practises in art at present. Then again I am also aware that many, though not all, actively and effectively employ nepotism as a means of furthering their career. In this singular light, maybe we are all guilty by association.

We live in an Globalised Industrial age... why shouldn’t we? Good question. We have, as I have suggested earlier, made a bit of a mess of things, and as such we have a choice. There are other more intimate methods of preservation and production, older, and what is more cleaner, enriching, sustainable and far more importantly enskilling. So that the means of production are very much in the hands, eyes and hearts of the reskilled.

"The highest reward for man's ( or Woman's ) toil is not what he ( She ) gets for it, but what he ( She ) becomes by it." John Ruskin English critic, essayist, & reformer (1819 - 1900)



John Ruskin explored this and his work considers itself as a devotion to nature through observation. Ruskin as many other of his contemporaries believed the division of labor as the main cause of the unhappiness of the poor and he discussed this in his book Unto This Last; published 1862, taken from his original essays for the Cornhill Magazine published 1860.

I would take this a step further and say that it is also a cause of unhapiness in the wealthy or rich because they to are also alienated from the means of production, often turning to alternative methods to ease their bordom. It either leads to rehab, the gutter or clutter.

We have a choice.

Aleination it's a bit of a problem.

Oh and by the way I like what he does but thats not to say that I understand it fully because I've not had the opportunity of a good chat.