“For many people, touch is a menial thing near the bottom of the hierarchy of senses. This attitude prevents us from creating things as deaf blind people”.

Lewis Jones 1992

The Touch Principle

When we were children, my father Lewis used to send us off on our favourite beach in Criccieth to find 2 identical stones. I believed it possible and ran about the place searching – because as a girl with 20/20 vision I thought I could ‘see’! Then having found what I was after, I’d place the stones in my father’s hands, satisfied as I watched and waited eagerly for the verdict. Time seemed to stand still as he explored, turned and held the stones in his hands. I felt both impatient and fascinated, as part of me surveyed the beach planning my next stone hunt, whilst noticing that his pace had slowed and the stone had become very very still….Then I could see a smile break across his face as he spoke:

“I can feel a rough patch – there – on this one” and “notice, there is an indent on that one”.

Then I’d look again and question, because I was sure there had been no difference between the stones. Then he’d encourage me to hold one stone then the other with my eyes closed, and I’d search with my hands….sure enough, there was the indent, and yes, I could feel that rough patch clearly now. Feeling a little down hearted I’d then try to pin him down to choose the ‘best’ one. But my father seemed to find interest and beauty in each and every stone we found, and often in the stones that seemed the least remarkable. My eyes weren’t a match for my father’s hands. He ‘saw’ something that I couldn’t see;

like people – there are no identical stones in the world

like stones – people are ‘equal’ to one another

Every day for about 30 years, Lewis held one particular stone which turned from grey to shiny black in his hands. He says that it acts like a kind of mantra, enabling him to access his imagination; an ever increasing sense of inner space and connection with humanity.

My father believed in, and stayed with the moment; somehow entering a parallel time frame to my own. Perceptions were slowed down, enabling him to ‘sense‘ things that couldn’t be summed up and rejected like I had done in a momentary glance. Yet it seems as though such qualities are rare and undervalued in society today, and in the process of art making.

“For many people, touch is a menial thing near the bottom of the hierarchy of senses. This attitude prevents us from creating things as deaf blind people”.

Lewis Jones 1992

Thus, ‘Touch’ is one of the organising principles of salamanda tandem; acknowledging the role of touch and embodied ( physical) experience, in working on ourselves and with others. Where sight is judgemental and can render us numb to the beauties of the world as we attempt to deal with over stimulus, touch can be the stuff of creativity and of appreciation – the means to connect to others and to awaken the imagination.

“The impersonality of life in the Western world has become such that we have produced a race of untouchables. We have become strangers to each other, not only avoiding but even warding off all forms of “unnecessary” physical contact, face-less figures in a crowded landscape lonely and afraid of intimacy. To the extent that this is so, we are all diminished”

The Human Significance of Skin page xiv 3^rd Edition 1986 ©Ashley Montague

Modified twice, last modified by Salamanda Tandem on Tue 18th January, 2011 @ 9:53am