More about Ireland...

Today is the first chance I've had to catch up on the blog so here is a data dump of the last week or so.

Ireland is a wonderful place to visit; beautiful, friendly, and very entertaining. The Irish know how to enjoy life, maybe not quite as much as the French, but close. Our days have been filed with sightseeing, good food and every evening a pint at the local pub where we enjoy some traditional music and maybe some step dancing. Things are a little more expensive than in the U.S.A. but heck, we're on vacation and I expect to be dead a long time, so let's have another pint and please strike up the fiddle!

We loved Dublin and stayed an extra day to see the Book of Kells and get a full 8 hours of sleep. Then we pointed our rented Ford towards the beautiful crystal factory and tour at Waterford. We watched skilled craftsmen melt and blow glass into wooden or cast iron forms to make the shape of a vase, trophy, or some other thing. There is a wood craftsman who makes the molds that shape the soon to be object of art for which Waterford is famous. After the object is formed by blowing into a molten lump of glass inside the mold, another artist grinds, and cuts the intricate designs into the surface. They have machines, into which they mount the object, turning and stopping at index points that are exactly the right number of degrees of rotation for marking with a felt tip marker. Off to the next station where another artisan grinds the pattern into the glass with a spinning wheel coated with an abrasive carborundum slurry. Many stages later another work of art emerges, gets the Waterford name etched on the base and a price tag is applied. The price reflects the huge number of hours by highly skilled people and if you can afford it, you may find it reasonable to buy.

I must warn you however, that in one part of the factory there was a computer guided machine, grinding patterns into the glass, just like the skilled craftsmen. Call me a cynic, but I suspect the fancy handmade stuff will soon be replaced by fancy computer machine made stuff and the only way to tell them apart will be the human made piece won't be as perfect. How then will a price be set?  Is the buyer paying for the craftsmanship of an artist, or the perfection of the finished piece? Which should be perceived as having higher worth? I won't have to worry much about an answer until I win the lottery... and then I won't worry much, but it does beg the question about how we assign value to objects. Should a perfect, machine made, mass produced thing be worth less than a pretty good similar thing that gains value because it is considered art? I'll answer my own question with the observation that there is art in the engineering and computer design and programming that allows a machine to make a perfect Waterford Class thing at a tiny fraction of the labor cost. I am more interested in the function of the finished product and don't need the bragging rights that it took x hundred man-hours to make it. I guess I'm just a tough sell when it comes to art.

I'll add to this instalment and insert the pictures when I have more time... it's midnight now and we are going to the races again in the morning. I seem to be having too much fun to write, but I will try to catch up soon.

More later...