Barefoot garden

Garden of Stories

Kew on flicker https://www.flickr.com/photos/kewonflickr, Creative commons licence

Take off your shoes and explore stories about the creativity of touch.

“The ideated sensation of touch heightens our sense of reality in a way that ordinary visual sensations do not.”

Bernard Berenson on Goethe

“Touch is so powerful a healer that we go to professional touchers (doctors, hairdressers, masseuses, dancing instructors, cosmeticians, barbers, gynecologists, chiropodists, tailors, back manipulators, prostitutes, and manicurists), and frequent emporiums of touch—discothèques, shoeshine stands, mud baths.”

Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses

Dancing bodies, moving touch: Textiles, materiality and touch in Indian dance - Krishna P Unny from the MAP Academy finds in Briana Blasko's photographs a testament to the intimate relationship between textiles and dance.
Peter Hawkesby ✿ Building a heart basket - Lucy Hammonds writes about a New Zealand ceramicist whose work is grounded on the land he walks.
Lest we forget the skillful touch - Curtis Benzle argues for the need to appreciate the work of the hand in a digital age.
Touching art - Jane Théau's work reflects the primordial role of tactility in the way we think and feel.
A wall of dreams from southern Bahia - Maria Fernanda Paes de Barros constructs a free-standing wall for a Pataxó village that reflects a hands-on cultural dialogue. 
Crafting entrails to recover forgotten worlds - Dana Falcini recounts the alchemy in the hands-on transmutation of hog intestine into unique and precious objects.
Holding walnuts, like life, in the palm of their hands - Yunmeng Jia remembers the scene of her childhood, with venerable elders restlessly fondling their pair of precious walnuts.
Duncan Meerding ✿ A light touch - Duncan Meerding's furniture and lighting are crafted with a precise touch, reflecting his vision of frayed light.
Touchstones:The sensual work of studio potter Jane Sawyer - Carolyn Leach-Paholski reflects on the pleasures at hand of a slow ceramics.
Marta Figueiredo ✿ Elementary Abacus - Marta Figueiredo tells us about one of her remarkable multi-sensory works that brings together all five senses in an experiential feast.
Komboloi: A solution at hand for worried times - How Greek worry beads evolved into a secular celebration of freedom.
Tactile stations at the Seoul Museum of Craft Art - General Director of SeMoCA, Soo Jeong Kim, about the story of this iconic new craft museum and how it teaches by touch as well as sight.
Inner Traces: A dance of three rings - Inner Traces is an elemental dance of metal and flesh. It was performed by Michaela Pegum using only her two hands adorned by three gold rings. She explains how this work came about and what she learnt from it.
The use of function - Rob Barnard argues for the value of use in ceramics as the door into a multi-sensuous experience.
Bilums and bilas: From bags to jewels in PNG - Jessica Cassell writes of her time in PNG and the opportunity she saw to add value for local women by evolving the bilum bags into jewellery.
Castlemaine Currency: Towards a grounded economy - Dale Cox and Jodi Newcombe explain the origins and aims of producing coinage from clay for exclusive use within the town of Castlemaine.
Benn Gritt ✿ Beauty by hand - What kind of beauty emerges when the hand rules the eye?
Cupinzeiros: Back in touch with childhood - Lidia Lisbôa creates her cupinzeiros (termite mounds) as a way to stay in touch with her childhood home.
No touching – A curatorial reading of contemporary ceramics on Instagram - Yasmin Masri explores the new genre of ceramics emerging in the medium of Instagram.
And They Lived Happily Ever After: Object narratives from a land far away - Sahr Bashir reflects on the uncanny material adventures of Pakistani artists Masooma Syed and Affan Baghpati.
Knot Touch: From greenhouse to gallery - Jaqui Knowles explains the ways in which the NZ Maritime Museum has unraveled the potential of Jae Kang's tomato plant installation.
The social lamellophone - Gary Warner guides us through the journey of a lamellaphone, from its history in Africa to its urban reconstruction in Sydney as a social object. This article betrays a unique interplay between art, craft, music and community.
An invitation to look but not touch: The Rigg Design Prize 2015 - Maurizio Toscano on the tantalising paradox on the display of liveable design in a white cube art gallery.

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