Abstract
Taking a psychological and philosophical outlook, we approach making as an embodied and embedded skill via the skilled artisan’s experience of having a corporeal, nonlinguistic dialogue with the material while working with it. We investigate the dynamic relation between maker and material through the lens of pottery as illustrated by wheel throwing, claiming that the experience of dialogue signals an emotional involvement with clay. The examination of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of habit, the skilled intentionality framework, and material engagement theory shows that while these theories explain complementary aspects of skillful engagement with the material world, they do not consider the dialogic dimension. By way of explanation, we submit that the artisan’s emotional engagement with the material world is based in openness and recognition and involves dialogue with the material. Drawing on the intimate relationship between movement and emotion, it promotes an open-ended manner of working and permits experiencing with the material, acting into its inherent possibilities. In conclusion, we suggest that dialogue, whether verbal or nonverbal, constitutes a primary means for making sense of the world at large, animate and inanimate.
Highlights
Taking a psychological and philosophical outlook, we approach making as an embodied and embedded skill via the skilled artisan’s experience of having a corporeal, nonlinguistic dialogue with the material while working with it
Making refers to the multi-scalar and dynamic process of producing something skillfully by hand relying on custom and long-established methods
The latter sources give insight into the artisans’ own conceptions and reflections about making and its phenomenal or qualitatively felt aspects, and function to complement the perspectives from sensorimotor cognition and pre-reflective phenomenological consciousness that are prevalent in much contemporary research on skill and practices in the crafts and arts
Summary
Making refers to the multi-scalar and dynamic process of producing something skillfully by hand relying on custom and long-established methods. We rely on potters’ first-hand experiences of making in the form of personal statements and interviews published on personal websites, the official websites of ceramics associations and pottery studios, and in craft journals and magazines of the trade. The latter sources give insight into the artisans’ own conceptions and reflections about making and its phenomenal or qualitatively felt aspects, and function to complement the perspectives from sensorimotor cognition and pre-reflective phenomenological consciousness that are prevalent in much contemporary research on skill and practices in the crafts and arts. We go on to compare two accounts of skilful action with respect to how they can explain the potter’s involvement with the clay while working it: Merleau-Ponty’s (1945) theory of habit including an extension of it into ecological psychology, and Malafouris’ (2008, 2013) theory of material engagement
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