Solitude Is Not Loneliness

Solitude is a condition of this kind of work. Work that requires sustained attention, that cannot be interrupted and then resumed without some kind of loss. This work lives in solitude. You cannot have a conversation and also be paying attention to what a stone is telling you. These are incompatible activities. The studio is quiet not because something is missing but because the work requires the whole room.

He wrote once — In a quiet place, you find out what you actually think. This is alarming at first and then enormously convenient.

There is a quality of clarity available only in solitude. Not isolation, but solitude. The difference is the door. Isolation is a door that cannot open. Solitude is a door you can always open. The studio commands solitude. You choose it. You leave it. You return to it because it gives you something.

What comes out of this room is the product of a unique companionship, with materials and with tools. At the end of long silences you find out that what you have to say is:

Come in. I really want you to see this, it is just beautiful.