Ships in a Bottle

On Christmas day in my house, one of my sons and I were talking while our other halves were talking by together somewhere else in the house.  It was a great time, talking about the mythic dimensions of video games, the cultural gaps in young people and our own cultural gaps, and so forth.  My son raised the question of what would be analogous to building a ship in a bottle for people of our generations.  We tossed around a few ideas.

The notion of building a ship in a bottle is that it's labor intensive, requires a high degree of technical skill and artistic skill,  and has a very small awareness-footprint--few people will ever see it or know of it.

I had a follow up insight into the dynamic of the metaphor of building a ship in a bottle.  The idea is that for everyone, we need a venue, an agora, in which we can display our expertise.  Those who build ships in bottles are highly skilled older men who have been relegated to the retirement track of life.  They have been removed, often against their will, from the venue in which they displayed their expertise.  So, therefore, ergo, they display their excellence in a small private venue.

In the academic field of art history, there is much ado about women being historically absent--if not forcibly excluded--from the world of fine art.  I speculate and propose that the only reason anyone, male or female, young or old, goes into fine art, at any time or place, antiquity to now, is because there is not opportunity to display one's excellence in a rewarding venue, in a way that brings cultural approbation and/or financial renumeration and/or fulfillment of life-goals.  MOMMIES in traditional stay at home venues will and did work to the point of exhaustion--as GOOD ARTISTS are wont to do.  And they would make beautiful things, elegant things, metaphorical things, while training other young artists to do the same.

When a man can make a living--or rather, Make a LIFE--by displaying his excellence at craft and artistic skill, he will--end of story.  When a man has no opportunity to present his excellence, his great skill (or his hopes to develop great skill), he will do it privately, or possibly, not at all.  Women have a biologically-advantaged venue for displaying their excellence at all things related to craft, in the domestic world.  But this is not an argument about roles, gender or otherwise.  This is an argument about why people will build ships in a bottle or analogous things.  The analogous things are displays of (even great) excellence and craft and artistry in a domestic or otherwise private world, private venue, non-commercial venue.

https://youtu.be/iL_LrvPriaE

A young boy, 13 years old, carrying on the family business: Derek Trucks with the Allman Brothers Band.  He has a venue.  Doesn't have to play in his bedroom.  

Sometimes, we don't get to have a venue.

And then, sometimes artistic excellence finds its own venue.