CULTIVATING THE CRAFT
2013

Before the idea of ‘work’ takes shape and affects the imaginary/ imagery, it is the
preliminary germination of a flimsy thought that begins work. The state before ‘work’ begins is the 
stage that is replete with theatricalities, embedded in delicate forms and obscure materiality. The 
mind enters into various debates and conversations with tools at hand, with materials, skills, 
possibilities and impossibilities.  Cultivating the Craft is a series of five sculptural panels 
that immerse the viewer within this theatrical stage of delicate conversations. The work is brought 
to shape (cultivated) in the mind as a series of disparate images, which represent the tedium of 
any skilled craft. Often, the tasks are broken down into a series of infinite steps hinging on 
absurdity and non-meaning (abstraction).
Through disparate processes and their repetition, acquiring ‘skill’ is a slow, weary
process. The tools at hand become prosthetic devices that embody desires within the body. Their 
form, as representation, is embedded within the fragility of sculptural surface.
Opticality hinges on associations between psychic and somatic accumulations. Light becomes a 
metaphor that reveals the drama behind ‘work’, which here, is an in-between membrane that produces 
meanings from dark, obscure zones towards clarity and meaning. Intimacy and immediacy are conveyed 
through the fragile textural surface of kantha (quilting) to represent the hide (skin/cover). Its 
repetitive yet simple technique easily draws the non-skilled, semi-skilled or untrained into
fine craftsmanship.