A little off the top

After looking a little more closely at the downsized facade of the rightmost building it was clear that I should have removed a little more from the top to make it closer to the prototype. That was easily fixed with another cut with the razor saw. Now all the decorative trim has been removed. It might be maybe 2 brick courses too short, but I think it's now a little closer to the prototype, and the newer, more modern bit on the top will look a bit better.

Skill, a little more

Skill gives you the wherewithal to execute whatever occurs to you. Without it, you are just a font of unfulfilled ideas. Skill is how you close the gap between what you can see in your mind's eye and what you can produce; the more skill you have, the more sophisticated and accomplished your ideas can be. With absolute skill comes absolute confidence, allowing you to dare to be simple.

Analyze your own skill set. See where you're strong and where you need dramatic improvement, and tackle those lagging skills first. It's harder than it sounds (most useful habits are), but it's the only way to improve. In A Book of Five Rings, the sixteenth-century Japanese swordfighter Miyamoto Musashi counselled, "Never have a favorite weapon." Warriors know they need to enlarge their arsenal of skills in order to avoid becoming predictable to their adversaries.

Some thoughts from Twyla Tharp on skill in her book, The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life, A Practical Guide. I bought this excellent book many years ago from the remainder bin outside a new age bookshop - don't ask :-)

Miyamoto Musashi's The Book of Five Rings: The Real Art of Japanese Management is one of the few business books I've bought - although, strictly speaking, it isn't a business book. It was reprinted in paperback in 1982 with some commentary. Back then understanding what made Japanese companies so successful was all the rage, and since at the time I was enthralled with Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and quality, this book seemed like something I'd be interested in. It was. 

While not calling out skill specifically, the following passage from TBFR about the skill of selecting what to use where has stuck with me all these years.

In building a house, the lumber is sorted. Straight, gnarless lumber which is beautiful to behold is used for the external pillars; lumber with a few gnarls but which is straight and strong is used for inconspicuous pillars; lumber which may be a bit weak but which is gnarl-free and beautiful to behold is used for the threshold, lintel, doorways and shoji ("sliding panels"); lumber which is gnarled and slightly distorted but which is strong, is used in places appropriate for such lumber after careful study has been made for such places, thus resulting in a house which is solid and long lasting. There is also lumber which is heavily gnarled, distorted, and weak, and such lumber can be used for scaffolding and later as firewood.

When I had cable and watched its infinity of home reno shows it was clear that sort of skill wasn't a consideration. Demolition and replacement with new commercial materials was standard procedure - don't get me started about the hackneyed scenes of homeowners swinging sledge hammers :-) The above seems more applicable to a society where materials aren't abundant, but I think it's a good principle to always keep in mind. In scratchbuilding I've found it a useful principle for thinking about how to use my scrapbox and accumulated materials.

Abandonment - Part 3

You're cooped up. You've streamed so much, water is coming out of your tv. You've eaten more macaroni-and-cheese than is humanly possible. Friend, take a break on the electric streets of New Toronto. Missed part 2? Then take a detour here, otherwise, let's get on with the action. 

I couldn't sleep. Hospitals put me on edge at the best of times and especially at night. During the day they ran their tests on me and later told me my head seemed ok, but said I should stay over night so they could observe. Just in case. I didn't have anywhere to be, and I didn't want to risk some blow-out in my brain. I stayed.

But I couldn't sleep. I think it's the sounds. The only free bed they had was up on the seventeenth floor in the geriatric ward. During the day it was ok, but now there were all manner of disturbing noises. I decided to walk around the floor awhile and try to burn off my edginess. There was a small lounge near the nurse's station. It had a coffee machine that dispensed some fluid they referred to as soup. I walked over, dropped in some coins, and out squirted something steaming into a cup. I reached down to remove it from the machine's output slot and felt a cold grip on my left shoulder. I turned to see who it was and automatically jerked my shoulder back when I did. It was Adams. Again.

Adams released his grip and pulled back. He said, "Hello again."

It was either a ghost or I was having a stoke. I stood there frozen, staring at him. If it was a ghost, I could handle that; a stroke, not so much. He said, "Why don't we sit down."

I shuffled over to one of the worn out, half-dozen cast-off chairs that made up the lounging part of the lounge. I sat down and Adams sat in a chair opposite me. He said, "Are you ok?"

"I don't think I'm ok. I'm sitting in a hospital talking to myself."

"You are not talking to yourself, you are talking to me, Zachariah Adams. Do you remember who I am?"

"I remember who you were. There must be something wrong with me." Believe me, I thought there was something seriously wrong with me. I said, "I think I need to speak to a nurse."

"If it will make you happy, but before you do, please let me speak."

I was finally feeling tired. Maybe it was the shock. I didn't feel like fighting him. Fighting it. Or fighting period. I slumped back in the chair and said, "Ok, shoot."

"I need you to do a job for me."

"Can you tell me why I should believe you're here? Maybe you're a hallucination? Are you a ghost? I saw you die."

"Yes, I am dead, but I do not know if I am a ghost. All I know is I have seen no one or no thing. I do not know if I exist or not. Sometimes I believe I think or something thinks my thoughts. I cannot explain anything or even how I got here, but I am here, and I have a  job for you."

"Why me?"

"We are connected. Are we not?"

I was feeling tired and raw and my edge was getting ragged. I leaned forward and asked, "Is this how the afterlife works? Harassing the living and giving them jobs? Why should I help you after all the trouble you caused?"

Adams leaned forward, put his elbows on his knees, rested his head in his hands and stared at the floor. He replied, "I do not know how all this works. Am I ghost? Am I in the afterlife? Heaven? Hell? I do not know what I am or where I am. I know I caused a death, ruined lives, and was responsible for all manner of trouble. I deeply regret it and I would reverse it all if I could, but I cannot.  All I know is I have a job for you."

He was distraught. I relented to try and end all this. I said, "OK, what do you want me to do?"

Adams looked up a bit and replied, "I kept a set of records documenting my activities with those men who were paying me to disrupt fusor research. I put the records in a file labeled Smith and stored them at my home mingled in with my family genealogy records. My daughter was to get the genealogy files when I died. Please retrieve the Smith file from her and send it to Phil Douglas. He is, or was, the deputy-secretary at the bureau. He is the only one there I trust. I cannot fix my sins, but Douglas will recognize what you have sent him, and have the proof to go after all those people who are bent on ruining things for other people so they can make life better for themselves. That is all I can do."

"Why me? Why don't you contact your daughter and get her to do it?"

"All I know is that we are connected and I need to ask you. I do not know why I cannot contact her. I do not know how any of this works."

"Do you know her phone number?"

"316, Russell, 738."

Here I was, in the middle of the night, sitting in a chair in the middle of a hospital lounge talking into thin air and asking a ghost for a phone number. You'd think someone would notice. Someone finally did. A nurse at the desk gently called over to me, "Are you alright Mr. Bryce?" I turned to look at her. She got up and started to walk towards me. I turned back to Adams. He was gone.

Part 4 is here.

The building on the right

I ordered some hobby materials mid last week from a store in Toronto that was still doing online orders and was pleasantly surprised when the package arrived Monday afternoon. One of the items was the kit that is the basis of the rightmost building in the complex.

The building on the right end of the complex is traditional and makes for an interesting contrast with its more modern neighbours. I didn't want to scratchbuild this structure so I looked around for some kit that seemed to have the right characteristics. I settled on the City Classics kit, 106 East Ohio Street Building.

Over on the right is a photo of the kit's facade as it comes in the package. Although it's far from an exact match for the prototype, they have many elements in common: an arched upper window row with rectangular windows on the lower levels, brick facing, and a street level storefront of about the correct height and materials. I figured if I cut off the decorative top trim, removed one of the mid stories so that there were just two, like the prototype, and then added a more utilitarian top, I'd have a model that was at least reminiscent of the prototype without too much work. And of course it would be painted in colours close to the prototype's. 

I used a razor saw to make the three cuts: one to slice off the top, a second to separate the arched window storey, and a final one to remove the third rectangular window storey. There was then a little cleanup with sanding sticks and the Dremel drum sander.

Super glue was used to attach the parts. The overall fit isn't too bad, and at least the new facade is fairly straight.

Another plus for this kit is the manufacturer has made the leftmost decorative pillar an optional item. This allows the builder to glue several facades together to assemble a much larger structure. In my case this allows me to better mimic how the prototype connects to the complex without an additional cut. 

The next step will be to add the level above the arched window storey. Hopefully it'll just be something simple built from styrene sheet, brick sheet, and some window castings.

Skill

For of course I am completely an elitist, in the cultural but emphatically not the social sense. I prefer the good to the bad, the articulate to the mumbling, the aesthetically developed to the merely primitive, and full to partial consciousness. I love the spectacle of skill, whether it's an expert gardner at work, or a good carpenter chopping dovetails, or someone tying a Bimini hitch that won't slip. I don't think stupid or ill-read people are as good to be with as wise and fully literate ones. I would rather watch a great tennis player than a mediocre one, unless the latter is a friend or a relative. Consequently, most of the human race doesn't matter much to me, outside the normal and necessary frame of courtesy and the obligation to respect human rights. I see no reason to squirm around apologizing for this. I am, after all, a cultural critic, and my main job is to distinguish the good from the second-rate, pretentious, sentimental, and boring stuff that saturates culture today, more (perhaps) than it ever has. I hate populist kitsch, no matter how much of the demos love it. To me, it is a form of manufactured tyranny. Some Australians feel this is a confession of antidemocratic sin; but I am no democrat in the field of arts, the only area - other than sports - in which human inequality can be displayed and celebrated without doing social harm.

Robert Hughes in A Bloody Expat, from Things I Didn't Know: A Memoir. To the last sentence, as well as sports, I'd add mathematics and science. For bracing, direct, and thoughtful commentary I highly recommend anything by Robert Hughes, even though I might not always agree with him.

One aspect of the model railroading medium that spans all uses and interpretations is the high regard held for skill amongst its practitioners. So much so that the associated magazines and journals, whether mainstream or specialist, showcase skill - tailored to the degree their editors deem their target audiences can appreciate - that they have a strong bias towards how-to instructional stories, layout tours, and research, in addition to advertising. And skill usually means a focus on making things realistic, operable, and reliable.

The relationship with ready-to-run items and commercial products that make things 'easier' is fraught. Over the decades the concern with skills degrading as technology and commercial offerings improve, and often exceeding what amateur hobbyists can do, remains ever present, even though the actors change. Is it a sin to buy or build plastic items in comparison to wood, paper, or metal? DCC versus DC? Kits versus scratchbuilding? Laser cutting, 3D printing, sheet cutters: are they ending traditional construction methods? Once again, discussing these independently of people and how they make use of - or don't - what constitutes the medium leads one astray. The question should be, what are people doing with the medium?

There's also the related issue about how much ready-to-run is too much. I think the question of skill also underlies this concern. Whether a layout is built completely from items purchased at swap meets or the latest high tech vendors is almost irrelevant if the owner exhibits no skill in doing whatever it is they're doing with the stuff.

As I mentioned before I'm reading old books from my shelves while I'm holed up at home, and what got me thinking about skill was the following passage from Gary Garrels' Drawing From The Modern 1945-1975  about deskilling as a practice of 20th century artists, viewed in light of David Hockney's comments on skill I noted in an earlier post. It struck me as being completely at odds with an unspoken ethos of model railroading, and model making in general. Even though some form or another of model construction has existed for centuries, it only seems to have taken off in a mass sense in the 20th century, so with its emphasis on the skill of the maker, it stands in contrast with a 20th century trend of artists willfully deskilling. 

While processes of "deskilling" have a long history in modernist art, the term has been in use in an art context for only a relatively short period of time. In one of the first published instances, in 1981, artist and critic Ian Burn used the term to a very specific kind of practice in which an artist delegated control of the technical making of the object to "skilled" workers, such as the industrial fabrication of Minimalist sculpture. Recently, the term's usage has grown to include a broader range of artistic activity, including the more widespread strategies of artists willfully renouncing learned, or traditional, habits of making in works they produce themselves. Like drawing with the left hand if right-handed, deskilling is meant to inhibit both repetition and easy elegance, and reliance on practiced abilities. A method of intentionally setting roadblocks in the studio, deskilling is one of a number of classic modernist operations intended to circumvent the often overly determined ways in which art is made and received, as well as to critique the romantic idea of the all-knowing, all-controlling genius artist.

You're right, I need to give all this a lot more thought, especially with regard to how long established ways of using the medium are overcome or modified to produce truly new works. In the above you've got a willing deskilling of the creator to produce new insights, and with model making it's commonly thought that only through individual upskilling that new and interesting objects are possible.