Not exactly a survival skill, but as Sir Gilbert once penned - What is Life without a touch of Art? I know I don't post a lot of original content to the site (shame on me) so... My SIL - a plumber by trade and an artist by desire and talent - is working a project in remote Bush Alaska - where the Yukon river meets the sea. There is a forest of driftwood on the shoreline, so to fill the little time between knocking off work for the day and hitting the rack - he has been carving driftwood. This piece is over 5 feet long.... FWIW - last winter he took up ice carving on a lark - and his work was featured on local TV. He and a couple of buds have dominated the local snow carving competition at the Fur Rondy for the last few years. The team? A plumber, a carpenter and and US Air Force Intel officer (and long time bud) they know.. Tradesman = Artist? Yes. Yes they are. Thought I'd share.
Perhaps not a survival skill, in its self! I would think you could finance quite a set of survival gear with those skills! You could supplement your retirement very nicely, too. Beautiful work, there!
@DKR you post the best stuff, nice work for both of them! and your history lessons are awesome! Never back down!
Artistry in many media can be considered a survival skill....the survival of many concentration camp inmates and Gulag zeks can be attributable to the art that they produced that was tradable for food and other survival resources. Art could also be considered a form of resistance in the Concentration and gulag camps....resistance also has survival value. Library Guides: KHRCA Colloquia 2014-15, NEH Challenge Grant: Culture as Survival: Music and Theater in the Nazi Concentration Camps and Ghettos Art and culture in the Gulag labor camps - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Auschwitz's forbidden art - CNN.com The art featured in your post, DKR is beautiful.
I see the "Art" ability as a valuable means to fund needful things, as well as the ability to make things useful that others cannot! Nice work, well done!
Thank you for sharing the pictures and the knowledge that with a lot of work and imagination almost anything can be turned into beauty. I envy the children that can see what the mind can do once it is free of the mass effect of others views. Carving, painting, writing, taking photos, create beauty and develop the mind and the body, playing a video game teaches you to follow some ones rules in order to win. Of course I being old school may have a slightly biased view of life.
My grand-daughter is working up a series line drawings for my next (future) Sci-fi short story series. Art is in the soul and can be nurtured or stunted. There is skill involved, never forget that, but the skills can be learned, the soul is...gifted. Thanks for the many kind words, I'll pass those along.
Beautiful work! Growing up on the Yadkin River I used to collect cool pieces of driftwood and make lamps and sell them. Used to find these incredible hand-hewn beams and make mantles for folks. I never figured where they came from but I must have found 60 or so over the years. I Always wished I had talent to make cool art like that though.