‘One Aspect of Art Work’: Anni Albers

60-page manuscript book, written out in Chinese ink with gouache illustrations on handmade paper with orange Zerkall endpapers and bound in a card cover with a plain paper jacket. Completed in March 2020. Acquired by the Victoria & Albert Museum, September 2022

This is the second of Anni Albers’ essays that I have worked on. I am particularly drawn to her work as she has a refreshingly pragmatic attitude towards the handmade object and the role of industrial production (after all, one of the central challenges which the Bauhaus set out to tackle, albeit not always successfully). I feel that in my own way I also straddle the two worlds - firstly as an industrial book designer and now increasingly a maker of craft objects.

This essay was written in 1944 with the end of the Second World War still in the balance and yet its opening sentence could have been written today: ‘Our world goes to pieces; we have to rebuild our world'. I worked on this piece during a similar time of uncertainty in March 2020 when the Covid-19 crisis took hold across the world and with an effective treatment still some way off. But I was also mindful of the world going to pieces in other, perhaps more drastic, ways as a result of the climate crisis and how seriously this will need our re-engagement once we re-emerge from our temporary lockdown.

But Albers has positive advice to offer: ‘We investigate and worry and analyze and forget that the new comes about through exuberance and not through a defined deficiency.’ She sees engagement in craft and art (with the two disciplines not necessarily in opposition) as being particular manifestations of this exuberance. Meanwhile, anyone who has struggled to make something by hand will empathise with her statement: ‘We learn patience and endurance in following through a piece of work.’

This patience, she claims, is necessary for the clarity of vision that is required to address our challenges. ‘If education can lead us to elementary seeing, away from too much and too complex information, to the quietness of vision and discipline of forming, it again may prepare us for the task ahead, working for today and tomorrow.’

This is why we make things.