“The sight of action is an incentive for action. When people can see into spaces from the street, their world is enlarged and made richer, there is more understanding, and there is the possibility for communication, learning”
-Christopher Alexander, A Pattern Language
One of the reasons I’m sharing my work so regularly, openly, and in such a raw state is in respect to Christopher Alexander and his patterns; in particular, this pattern – openings to the street. The Pattern Language is a book of templates – meant for architects, but applied equally well to anything created.
This pattern refers to a physical opening in a business – a large window overlooking a workshop, for example – that creates a connection between the person working and the people passing by.
My blog is this window – a way of looking over the wall and seeing what’s going on in this particular workshop. My primary reason for making an opening in the wall is selfish – I work alone, and I want to feel less lonely while I go about my craft.
But my second reason – the reason why I’m sharing very rough drafts or even failed work – has to do with these openings to the street, and, in particular to the passage below. It’s worth reading through, although long:
“It must be remembered that it is not the action of the skilled alone that is to be seen in the Centre, but every degree of proficiency in all that is going on. This point is crucial to an understanding of how vision can work as a stimulus engendering action in the company gathering there. In ordinary life the spectator of any activity is apt to be presented only with the exhibition of the specialist; and this trend has been gathering impetus year by year with alarming progression. Audiences swell in the thousands to watch the expert game, but as the “stars” grow in brilliance the conviction of an ineptitude that makes trying not worth while, increasingly confirms the inactivity of the crowd. It is not then all forms of action that invite the attempt to action; it is the sight of action that is within the possible scope of the spectator that affords a temptation eventually irresistible to him.” – The Peckham Experiment
As a decidedly non-brilliant star, then, I share my fledgling steps in this, my opening to the street.
Enough text! Next week Rosie has a big adventure and it’s pictures all the way down!