"For a craftsman, it is important to gather and use the materials lovingly, and this attitude allows the materials and the technique to teach one their ways. Along with the inner attitudes, the art of waiting needs to be cultivated. Silence is a tool of the intuitive realm, the vehicle of inspiration, just as readiness is the vehicle of physical techniques. Standing in readiness for any possibility allows recognition of outer conditions that might serve one’s deeper intent. Recognition is the ambassador of seeing.

Nothing is truly dead, even within the various levels of earth substance; stones simply breathe too quietly and slowly for their breath to be perceptible. In a craft, it is often the attitude of the individual working with the material–not the materials themselves–that is really dead or comatose. Can fires be kindled under these cold attitudes to enliven the working process, and to impart depth and warmth to it?

Through receptivity and communion, one can open to a higher consciousness, remembering that this quiet inner attention is a most precious energy which can be used throughout the total process. Recording the light of the outer subject can be linked with gaining access to one’s inner light."

~ Paul Caponigro, “Writing with Light,” the photographer as silversmith, an excerpt featured in PARABOLA, Volume XVI, No. 3 “Craft,” 1991.