On Community and Solitude

A friend recently gave me a link to the PBS series Craft in America and I've been sucking it up like an elixir.  The series has connected some dots for me in a rather unexpected way with regards to my sense of Community. 
As craftpeople we often toil in solitude with the vague hope that what we're working our fingers to the bone on, might in turn provide us with some cold hard cash if only the right person happens to lay eyes on it.  This is the mindset that we're groomed culturally to pursue.  But most often the drive to create exists anyway, regardless of the marketability of the finished object.  There is a deep satisfaction in expressing oneself through the crafting of a tangible product unlike anyone else's; definitely unlike anything that comes from a factory.  And the very presence of that mindset, as I found was clearly evidenced in the Craft in America series, validates for me an intangible but immensely valuable sense of community amongst craftspeople.

Solitude is a state I've come to recognize as being most comfortable.  It allows me the space, mentally and physically, to feel at peace.  And that is the crux of where my creative energy grows from.  Finding satisfaction in solitude comes from recognizing that a connection still exists with all the Others out there who are making, creating, & fabricating from their own sense of identity, objects of Craft that fulfill their personal desire for tangible expression.  A Community exists of solitary people that are
crafting objects of beauty and contemplation that serve to help define our cultural identity.
On that note, I will leave you with a link to an inspirational blog whose post for today coincides nicely with this topic.  (And there's beautiful photos!)  Enjoy:
Solitude & Silence, Steve McCurry