What Becomes

I have always feared doing any sort of production work. I worried that it would be too much focus on a specific set of work and that it is easy to get caught up in valuing the work by numbers of sales and customer response.

And that which I feared occurred. This month, seven months into starting my production line, I found myself focused on my sales.... focused on how many people were interested in my work, how many views, or if anyone has made any comments on my blog, or if I was on any front pages... or whatever. And I was well aware of my obsessiveness about these things.

This morning, I knew I needed to post something here - after not posting anything for over a month. I really didn't think I had anything interesting to say. It's been all business... just not interesting.

I grabbed the camera and started walking around the studio. I ended up here. This is the welding table, and the dark area is where I always work.


Each mark indicates a weld that I've made. As I stared, I realized how many thousands of spots there were. That, although the work made here has been sent out to customers, I am left with the evidence of that work. Tiny melted spots of metal - bits of gold, silver and steel fused on the surface. So much information, and really, a work in itself.



I could just make these spots on a piece of metal. But this holds the history of something other than itself - kind of like a book. And these marks will continue to accumulate the more work I do.



I have found something to obsess about the accumulation of other than sales and views.




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