Science and Arts

By Cheryl Cobern Browne

It is Science week 2018.
I am sitting here at the Dáil listening to presentations from community members presenting one minute talks to politicians on how science should matter in their decision and policy making.
I am happy to see the Arts represented. Yes, arts and science go together well and that includes Makers, and everyone is listening.

When we skilfully execute a tangible object reflecting craftsmanship with artistic talent, the creative process runs deep. We may not know the science, but we feel it, we know it is there.

One of the first speakers is a poet and playwright from Donegal, Andrew Galvin. He expresses how the arts communicate meaning and can generate a vision which fuels the conversation between art and science.

As makers, the objects we make can do the same; a pleasing form, a provocative shape, a dark recess, a colourful splash, a line that flows into a mass, can all reflect something of the human experience, if we allow it.
Perhaps not all our work calls for this in-depth look at life, but there is another process at work here. The act of making is in itself a process of majestic science as hands carefully produce an object and define its shape and context. This is not as simple as it sounds, but here during science week, evidence based science is what our speakers are talking about. The politicians have our attention. How can we, as makers, show them the value of our work?

As makers we are already familiar with the healthy evidence our work provides. We know that in the making, creative works heals. How it can lift depression, unite communities and inform symbolically.
Makers need to know that what they do matters.
Science defines everything, it organises knowledge and knowledge organises wisdom and it is innovation that drives it.

Makers are natural innovators, always pushing boundaries and expanding the limits of their work. They challenge themselves with each new piece. But to inspire the public, a deeper reflection must be shared. Make your art speak, generate a discussion, strengthen an argument. In the end, appealing work calls for someone to want to buy it for one reason or the other.

What you make is not just an object, but a representation of your voice. Know that whenever it is sold, or gifted or placed in a strategic place in someone’s house, your voice was heard.

 Science informs and delivers.
Art delivers and informs.

Cheryl and Inca at Mulranny Pier

Lora