Update

Hi there tout la gang,

We don't have much to say about research in practice at the Café right now

but we are talking policy and practice over here now: Literacy Enquirers.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

arts and crafts

Last week Nancy Friday commented on the post titled Pennywise. She told us about Artists, Craftsmen and Technocrats by Patricia Pitcher.

Here's a blurb from the book cover that gives an idea of what's inside ...

Pitcher paints the portraits of the three types of leaders found in organizations: the Artist, the Craftsman, and the Technocrat.

The Artist is people-oriented, open-minded, intuitive, and visionary.

The Craftsman is humane, dedicated, knowledgeable, and wise.

The Artist and Craftsman are "fellow-travellers".

But the Technocrat is another story. Detail-oriented, rigid, methodical, and hardheaded, the Technocrat is the enemy of both the Artist and the Craftsman. His/her analytical thinking leaves no room for fresh ideas and new pathways; he/she follows an uncompromising set of rules he/she believes are right.

To the Technocrat, the Artist is out of control, "nuts", and the Craftsman is old-fashioned.

Too many Technocrats are admitted into the corridors of power.

This week Suzanne Ahearne sent me this link to this video about "Cultural Recovery." (There is a text version here.)

Suzanne also told me that Arlene Goldbard and other community artists and craftspeople have been invited to the White House in mid-May to discuss the ways in which art and craft can help heal what the technocrats have wreaked (my words :P ).

No sign of any artists and craftspeople being invited into the corridors of power on this side of the border but Yann Martel continues, unbidden, to send Stephen Harper good books.

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