Sir. I am very disappointed that you have given such scant coverage in your letters section. with regard to the modern day forms of art.
To a large extent the problems to do with quality of work arise from the lack of craft skills on the part of a lot of artists, especially in the field of sculpture. The onset of the cult of the instant lifestyle pioneered by such as "paxo stuffing" and instant mash potato, produced a generation of "instant artists" who had no experience of using traditional materials. Previous generations of sculptors had strong links with the craft side of the business and worked alongside the Artisans, i.e. stone and wood carvers, who did most of the donkey work.
Sculpture in the traditional media need not be traditional in form, as a lot of people seem to think. However the medium does need to be treated in the traditional manner if a good result is to be attained. This requires a great deal of craft skill, which was supplied by the studios of the past. Such studios exist in plentiful supply in the likes of Italy where they mostly produce reproduction sculpture. In this country the craft skills remain intact in some of the older monumental mason yards, but even they are turning to machine orientated methods because of lack of apprentices and the lost link with the art world.
The appearance of a lot of modern sculpture has nothing to do with the art or inspirational side but with the bad craft work used in its creation and this does not only affect stone but also applies to creations produced with modern methods such as welding.
The trouble is, that to learn craft skills takes time and up till recently no one seems to want to give the time. Something needs to be done soon before the gap gets too wide; in fact something also needs to be done on the traditional craft side before we lose those skills, or we could end up having to import artisans or worse still, have to send some of our work abroad to be executed. - Yours, etc.,
Tinahely,
Co Wicklow.