Satisfactions through Work?

The idea that to satisfy the soul a person must work. They must create objects and change there surroundings. I must have an influence over the objects that I interacted with and this in turn creates emotional connection. There for products embody my emotion and provide satisfaction through work. This could be through farming the land to grow crops that I can eat or forging metal to make tools to cut my crops down. These are the ideas and thought of Karl Marx.

Karl Marx came up with the idea of socialism the idea that through self motivated and emotive work that we could work together to create communities that flourish and produce diversity individual who are happy and satisfied. This idea comes from the belief that work is not an instinctual raw animal thing but it is considered and well understood. So when people are forced to work with out there own emotional content or thought they loose this sense of satisfaction. They become disheartened and seek destruction in other whys like possession, entrainment and others.

But this sale of labour for moneys creates problems for the crafts person creator because if they are to survive they must sell there products. Does this idea of creating to survive in a capitalist community still allow use as individuals to be satisfied. And this is where I'm at I believe that as a skilled person I cannot be satisfied by just money. I need more, I need to be able to create and produce products that contain my emotions and self. Can I achieve this in my work and newly sort after practice???

The writer must earn money in order to be able to live and to writer but he must by no means live and write for the purpose of making money.

Karl Marx 1848

It’s all in my head it’s just how to get it out.

It seems to be all about tutorials this year and my last tutorial with Del and James Has started the ball rolling again. I have produced quite a bit of work so far this year and everything seems to be going well but I’m having real trouble with coherency. I have made Maquette’s produced drawings both sketches and technical which I have made into CAD files and then laser cut and water cut. So I feel that all is well but something isn’t working. Not only do I use a lot of stored data from my apprentership and working career but I have real trouble showing people the path from idea to finished piece.

One of the main reasons for this lack of coherency is my complete disorganisation. I need to collect my work together in one media that show my work in order and with clarity. So I hope to do this by editing the way I use my sketch books. I have been thinking about this a lot and I need to do this constructively. So I have come to the conclusions that I’m going to do away with my sketch book and just work on sheets of A3 paper of all sorts of type. Tracing paper, Graph paper, Carbon paper and cartridge paper.

I hope to use these different types of paper to allow me to add some coherency to my work along with high quality A3 print outs that use text and primary and secondary images. And place them in order, using some type of binding. I don’t have a problem with using different sketch books but I do seem to get carried away with ideas. I also need to find away to get my technical data across. I was thinking about creating stories about the piece I make like schematics or documentation that cover concept and theory. It’s all in my head it’s just how to get it out.

In a state of perfect balance

An instrument to find the weight of an object or objects “scales”. This device simple balances two opposing objects that have an equal weight this can vary depending on the mechanical advantage that an arm may have over its counterweight. This is my concept for my Design development module at college.

We have been asked to create work in response to a location. I have chosen to use Berrington Hall and an idea that talks about social divide. I have some strong ideas about humanity and what and who we are I’m not going into it now cause I have done so in an earlier post but basically together as one we are better. This work will allow me to talk about my ideas in quite a literal way. I originally wanted to make a bench that was going to at one end have a 3 meter diameter but I have come to the conclusion that this might be a little ambitious and hard work in a none academic and vocational way.

The bench was going to be based on the arms of a balance type scales but one arm would be disproportionally longer than the other in fact 6 to 1. This ratio represents the number of staff to house members at Berrington. People were saying how the staff members had money and jobs but I don’t believe that these people were given lives to live but forced to survive. Yes they were paid but just enough to keep them alive and satisfy the idea of having been paid. As for the type of work well it’s not like they had satisfaction. So what if this place allows them to survive that’s not living and if these people had their own community and worked as a village they could do so much. They would still be surviving but they would have a quality of life that you can’t get when you are owned.

That’s why I’m at Hereford College of Arts I want something more, something better. Give a man a job so that he can feel accomplished and he will be happier than any rich man. I don’t want to work for the man so that I can buy their homes and car so that they can keep me in a job to pay for them. It means nothing to me and I hate it, I want to create, design and make so that I can feel alive; A sense of self accomplishment from start to finish.

This piece will let me talk about the way I feel in my style aesthetically and conceptually it can use the social structure at Berrington to reinforce these ideas. The miss balance of the arms must be compensated for a massive influx of weight. This will represent the weight of money and how without it the scales don’t work. In a balance beam type scale there is an even distribution of load and the weighing of objects isn’t constrained to the usage of fixed measures. In fact two items of equal weight work just as well. Or trading for goods that have come from open communities that have quality of life not just survival.

1. Trader’s steelyard, French, 18th century
11. Candy scale by Henry Troemner, Philadelphia,1926
2. Chondrometer or grain scale by Payne of London, c1820
12. Letter steelyard by unknown maker, English, c1880
3. Bread scale by W. & T. Avery, Birmingham, patented in 1885
13. Coin steelyard, as advertised by John Joseph Merlin, London, c1780
4. Guinea scale, known as “folding gold balances” by T. Houghton, England, c1780
14. Double-beam steelyard by Fucoma, Berlin, Germany, 20th century
5. Unusual steelyard by A. Prutscher, Sonthofen, Germany, 20th century
15. Jeweler’s estimating balance by W. & T. Avery Ltd, Birmingham, 1916
6. “Shelf-edge” type of coin balance by Bradford, Derby and Hulls, England, patented in 1753
16. Coal scale by J. White & Son of Scotland, c1910
7. Sovereign balance by F. Sheldon, Birmingham, c1845
17. Westphal laboratory balance to determine specific gravity
8. Letter scale by unknown maker, British, marked S. TURNER’S PATENT, postage rates for the period 1871 to 1897, patented in 1871
18. Counter scale by E. & T. Fairbanks & Co, St Johnsbury, Vermont, 1919
9. British steelyard by T. Beach of Birmingham, c1780
19. Prescription scale by E. & T. Fairbanks & Co, St Johnsbury, Vermont, c1910
10. Letter balance marked H.B. WRIGHT No. 130 LONDON Dec. 20th 1839
20. Laboratory scale marked CENCO Triple Beam Balance by the Central Scientific Co. Chicago