A RETURN TO THE HANDMADE

In a world of collective screen addiction, Toronto Arts Report Editor Rebeccah Love speaks with four artists/artisans about their spiritual revelations in disconnecting from digital spaces in order to engage with their hands and their imaginations.

Cover painting by Josette Bouchard Muller.

I am lucky to have kids in my life, cousins, the children of friends. I watch them grow up, we play games and do crafts and go on long walks through Toronto's many parks and ravines. Kids bring all kinds of new perspectives and joy that pick me out of my own adult apathies and anxieties. I am lucky to spend time with them.

I have to say, though, that I am disturbed by the role that screens play in the development of their imaginations: when I was kid I played outside, played make-believe games, sports, theatre and dress-up. I played with toys and painted pictures, baked chocolate chip cookies and went scootering with my friends around the neighbourhood. I watched some tv, but for the most part, my spirit was engaged through the real-world, not through fictions on a screen. But for these kids, their ipads, television screens, laptops and cellphones seem to suck them right in, into worlds of vapid Minecraft commentaries hosted by juvenile, coked up gamers. Junk food for the brain, offering no meaningful stimulation or pedagogical riches.

In observing the kids in my life I'm confronted with my own addictions to screens, which are very real: instead of video games and youtube, I'm addicted to sharing images on social media, something about the comfort of immediate community appeals to me as a person who has often felt a little scared and insecure in my own life.

In considering the toxicity of screen culture I found myself thinking about all the figures in my life who have specifically carved out time to get off screens and pour themselves into creative endeavours with their hands, painters and artisans who have found spiritual revelation in dedicating their lives to handmade arts and crafts: what kind of magic can be revealed in this kind of labour? What are the benefits of getting off our screens in order to take a deep dive into the imagination, into the body? 

Jonathan Biro was one of my classmates in my grade six class, and again in my grade seven class. I got to know him pretty well. He was energetic and mischievous, bursting with energy and jokes, a little bit of a class clown. He was also one of the most brilliant students in our class, I remember him delivering the top speech in our grade seven speech competition, talking about our political spectrums with nuanced insight. It's been very cool reconnecting with him recently, learning all about the life he has made for himself as a baker.

Now a 33 year old father of two, Jonathan started his work as a baker 12 years ago, specializing in artisanal handmade breads and viennoiseries produced using traditional methods and techniques. In his work, he sources raw materials, mixes, shapes, ferments and bakes bread products, cultivates yeast cultures, manages teams, describing his work as physically and intellectually challenging, a "cross between playing chess and weight-lifting simultaneously...the work itself is a full mind-body experiences to which the baker must yield themselves over."

Jonathan Biro in his bakery.

Jonathan speaks about a physical high related to his work as a baker: "I just felt so damn good in my own body after a full day's work at the bakery," comparing the experience to playing the drums, rugby, judo. The emotional high of his labour connects to the spiritual idea of "making honest food for people to put in their bodies", reminding us of the sacredness of this practice:  "food is love and the act of making food for others is an expression of that love," a tradition that connects us to 10 000 years of our ancestors labour and traditions. The strange hours do not bother Jonathan, instead he seems deeply grateful for the unique working environment that allows for a focus on the hands, describing "an entire universe of sensitivity, dexterity and strength" found within his digits, a place where he can enter into a flow state. The bakery, a safe haven where Jonathan can escape from the oppressive din of self-talk and normative lines of thinking. "My only other true haven from that din is when I'm in a canoe."

Jonathan contrasts this world with more digital spaces: he pines for a life that predates the internet, though he admits the appeal of following the world's best bakers on Instagram, noting how exciting it is when they respond to private messages. His feelings about the digital world contrasting deeply with the enthusiasms he shares for his baking world.

Another figure from my youth whose imagination I wanted to examine was one of my favourite high school teachers, Josette Bouchard Muller. Josette, who I referred to always as Madame Bouchard, is one of the most inspiring women I've ever met, she is just bursting with big enthusiams for all the big ideas of the day. When I was a a teenager she brought us to Paris, showing us around the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre and Versailles, she taught me French cooking out of my school's teacher's lounge and she delivered one of the most comprehensive History Geography curriculums, complete with the most imaginative slideshows and hands-on fields trips to the local ravine. Very serious about engaging our imaginations and pulling us all out of our teenage apathies, Madame Bouchard remains one of my heros, a true inspiration.  When I found out that Madame Bouchard had been developing this secretive painting career on the side of her teaching, I was blown away and very eager to follow her trajectory.

Josette describes a childhood full of drawing and painting, inspired in part by the creative endeavours of her family members: her great-uncle painted, her grandfather, her great-grandfather produced doll wardrobes for each of his daughters, her grandmother did embroidery, her mother knit - sounded like she was surrounded by creative spirits who each fostered their own exciting practice. Growing up in the German city of Baden-Baden. Josette made use of pinecones, paper, wood, yarn to create puppets, doll clothing. She was inspired by the feeling of her community: "In Germany, there were great paintings in every restaurant...just after the second world war. starving artists would sell their paintings for a baguette, and I still have one in my bedroom." Returning to France, near Fontainebleau, Nemours and Barbizon brought Josette to the place of famous Impressionist painters, their works having a profound effect on her.

Josette Bouchard Muller and one of her canvases

Josette paints her canvases out of her third floor studio, or else outside, listening to classical music. Describing handmade work, she writes "there is a big connection with the eyes, the hand. It is a very sensual feeling, to mix the colours, water and oil to obtain. a certain colour, a certain consistency." She notes the challenge of arthritis, but reminds us that Monet continued to paint with brushes taped to his hands."It is a form of meditation, a whole universe."

When asked about social media and digital spaces, it seems Josette is much happier to spend time in her painterly world: "I do not feel that I am obligated to Facebook, Instagram and so on to dictate my life." She notes that collectively we have lost sense of our etiquette when spending time with other people, as we are so addicted to our phones: "Respect for others is not always applied anymore". Our phone addictions are "dehumanizing" and contributing to today's "frustration and isolation". 

Another person I knew I wanted to talk to was my best friend from preschool, Amelia Stea McLaurin. Some of my favourite memories of all time involve sitting in the kitchen of her family home, painting, doing crafts, escaping into our own little world. Amelia is an only child, remembers making dollhouses out of cardboard boxes, mixing food colour in jars, later enrolling in art classes where she engaged in claymation movie making, ceramics and black and white film photography. 

Trained as a designer but pursuing fine art after her degree, Amelia focuses on paintings, quilting and plein air painting while still making space for environmental design and working in community arts for her paid work. Her output is extraordinary, capturing portraits, natural vistas and archiving long-forgotten cityscapes of the ever-changing city. Her workplace is chaotic, often working in more than one medium with different materials set up for each of those processes. She describes a debilitating skin condition that renders her hands useless during flare-ups, but this condition doesn't prevent Amelia from throwing herself into her imagination and into her art: she puts on music by Alt J or Tycho, "once beginning, time floats away."

Painting by Amelia Stea MacLaurin

In considering our collective overuse of our phones, Amelia says "It breaks my heart, I find most of my friends are pretty good at not getting too lost into their phones while surrounded by friends. But I see the youth I teach really fall into social media void, and they really struggle to chat once their phones are out."

The consensus, amongst all these artists and artisans, is that a new little universe is created when engaging with their hands, one that leads to spiritual fulfillment, new appreciations for the body and the magic of the present moment. In contrast with their experiences, I wanted to speak with a friend whose work was strictly digital, so I turned to my pal and collaborator Daniel Haack, who works as a digital editor in the film industry. Spending most of his working hours sitting in front of a screen editing videos, Daniel talks about his interest in journalling, painting, collaging, climbing, cooking, bread making, all these activities making use of the hands as escapes from "the digital drudgery I'm otherwise experiencing, day in and day out." 

Daniel describes his hands as "damn strong, calloused from climbing." In thinking about hands he shares his memories of his father, working with his hands on houses in far-flung Ontario towns. "It's meditation, simplicity, focus. Tunnel vision, in a good way, definitely day dream, an opportunity for wandering, definitely therapeutic." 

In discussing digital spaces, Daniel states that "the internet makes him sad. I'm quite cynical about it, even though I find it indispensable...Humans just want connections, so we’ll take what we can get despite the distance. But we all know face-to-face is best. Actually organic interaction, baby. Looking into someone’s eyes looking into yours. No phone will ever replicate that....I've been spending time in digital spaces for decades, now. Could be more reason why tactile, physical, messy, real work with the hands is so special. It’s more fundamental."

My community is full of exciting artists who launch themselves unapologetically into their imaginative worlds. Across the board, it seems that a creative headspace that removes a person from their screen into their studio to get working with their hands creates a meditative, spiritual experience. If the benefits are infinite, why is it that collectively we have been moving away from handmade work, diving deeper and deeper into our digital worlds? The practical advantages of screen-based work cannot be ignored, but maybe there is some future where the historical power of the human hand, in all its imperfections, can be celebrated in equal measure: our handmade labour offers a richness of process and product that will never be rivalled in the digital sphere, leaving us with an almost religious experience that a computer will never be able to emulate.

Lets just hope that our younger generations will learn the beauty of disconnecting from their screens in discovering the joy of painting, breadmaking, climbing and all the other joys of working with the hands!