The shape of a forge, the shape of an anvil, the weight of hammer, these are not the same as the thing that emerges from the work of these tools, though, in an important way, it is linked to it. Each forge proposes a range of heat, each anvil, a range of surfaces, each hammer, a range blows, each ingot a temperament of material. From these, the imagination is driven towards the kinds of objects that can be made, and what forms are possible. At first, this range of possible form arises seems to have a limit, a set of standards by which the things made may be engaged, understood, evaluated, and compared. But as a smith gains understanding, when the smith gains fluidity between his or her body, the forge, the anvil, the hammer, the ingot, possibilities arise for made things that seemed, at first, untenable. In this deeper sensibility, which is a desire born from experiencing, a need to modify tools arises. A tried and true hammer must be lighter, and anvil smaller, harder, an ingot, more pure or more sullied, a forge hotter or cooler. New shapes and tools arise, new processes form from the desire elicited by the intimate understanding of older shapes, older tools, and older processes. The new things become attainable and are made, given, experienced. All of this is to say that a tool or process is, in some way, the thing itself, but not, not at all.
When a respected and accomplished smith says, "This is the my hammer, this is my forge, this is my anvil..." the familial and somewhat objective stance of the statements have arisen from a deeply interrelated set of experiences. And we listen. If we could examine their tools, materials, actions, and thoughts we would find that they bear the accumulating marks of making. When a younger (by which I mean experience and not age) speaks securely and assuredly of the same however, saying "This is the only hammer, this the only ingot, this the only..., we might need to pause and examine their tools, watch their process, sit with their thoughts, as we may find that there is no similar mark upon them that evidences the evolution of process and form in the more accomplished smith. And if the younger smith holds to tightly to a the absolute idea of a particular tool or process over time, he or she will not be able to make the modifications necessary by which their imaginations may grow out enough in their making to desire the forms that cannot, at first, be made.
If we turn to photographic practice we find this as well. The ideas and the images an artist creates arise from the process of work that is available through the tools and material (subjects) that artist has used or encounters. At first the tools, the process, and therefore the ideas and images, are heavily governed by the weight of the tradition that introduces one to them. One is learning his or her way into form. But as intimacy is achieved, and fluidity marks the body with breadth, then desire arises and imagines us into modification. C.S. said this well...it is evolution, necessity being its generator. Precedence is in the necessity and therefore essentially in the new thing, whether image or idea, that arises. One has to then, I think, make room for modification and see it happening at all these levels of interactions erotically. Practice is not more essential than idea, and idea is not more essential than practice, but rather both, tugging at each other, generating form. The artwork is not the tools, but cannot exist without their instance. The artwork is not the material, but is made from it. The material is not the process, but shaped by it, just as process is in turned shaped by the materials willful acceptance or resistance. Things are messy in this way.
To secure too tightly a sense of the 'right' way to do things, the 'right' tools for the job, or the 'right' materials, may preempt this process. Purpose may be served, objects made, sight had, but no or little evolution.
Evolution is a trusting act. It is not like a rule, or a doctrine that is set up like a rule. It always carries with it the potential of extinction, which we may see here as doubt, the potential not to be (to be right, to be finished, to be whole). But this is not to say it lacks confidence. In fact, it had fidelity with many things, and gathers these to strength like leaves muster their strength from the cold air and diminishing light to bring forth their final brilliance. Though a marker of death, they are the last trusting action of the tree, which is already looking beyond itself to Spring.
