I was very lucky to kayak over the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct at the weekend on a trip with our local kayak and canoe club.
It is a magnificent structure testament to what humans are capable of. An aqueduct carries water over a valley, road, railway or river. Pontcysyllte crosses the Dee Valley. It is over 300m long crossing the river Dee and 39m above it. I can confirm that it a long way up.
I don’t have much of a head for heights but the encouragement and support of club members made it possible.
So other than the bragging rights, er hem, what has that got to do with art?
It took 500 men, 10 years and I can’t even imagine how many bricks to build the aqueduct. In this era of instant gratification, it can be easy to forget that mastery in the arts is also a long and involved process. We do not arrive as master artists, we arrive as curious dabblers. Just as every brick counts so do all of our small artistic steps, the one that go well and the ones that we need to knock down and start again.
In fact, the finished product doesn’t really exist at all. We have a collection of the component parts whether that makes an aqueduct structure or a lifetime of art. For artists each work is a component part.
That makes the journey the point of the exercise, the parts, the bricks. This is very liberating because you can turn up with confidence in your art practice wherever you are now. You need only worry about what the next step or brick should be, the speed that you need to build at to keep everything lined up and stable.
Also, just as It takes a team to build an aqueduct (or in my case to cross an aqueduct), it also takes a team to make a master artist. If society does not value the arts for the unique perspective and introspection they bring, if individual artists do not have support in and out of the art world so much is lost to us all.
I hope you have an arts filled week in whatever way that lands for you, that you have your own journey to follow and that you have a team around you.
Best wishes,
Helen
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