More on the Art of Blending

 

 

I posted this chart last year and meant to say more about it (if you click-on the image you can enlarge and see the details.) At that time I said I was going to elaborate on how the chart could help with the “art” of blending but the season got ahead of me. The main thing I'd like to say about it is this: The chart is just a tool to help with the art, it's not a recipe for making it. Mastering the formal qualities doesn’t make a person an artist, it just makes them skilled. And there is a HUGE difference.

 “What any true painting touches is an absence - an absence of which without the painting, we might be unaware. And that would be our loss.”
― John Berger (towering twentieth-century English art critic)

 I chose this quote to illustrate that art involves more than just skill, the goal is ultimately about the search for certain truths (Idealism.) But I also chose this quote to speak of the importance of this quest. Notice how that whole statement changes with the addition of "And that would be our loss"! In addition to aspiring toward something, Berger felt compelled to say that our reception of art is just as much a component of "true art."

Artistic expression is about that relationship. It involves (1) an originator (in cider's case, this includes the land, the tree, the variety, as well as the artist/ farmer), and it involves (2) a receiver (in our case, the drinker or critic.) When a cider-maker aspires to artistry he or she assumes a deep relationship with the audience and they are on a quest to reach an ideal together. As with art, cider can show people what's missing in their world and it can bring them to a new place. In other words, cider has the power to change things.

This is profound shit we are talking about. But let’s face it, put in the context of the above discussion, cider isn’t usually art-worthy, now is it? Usually, it’s nothing more than an attempt to satisfy taste and not an attempt to elevate Man, or even just make us think. Not to knock wines that are made purely for aesthetic pleasure -- that can be art too -- but "true artists" (to use Berger's words) generally want more out of the relationship. They want a conscious connection between originator and receiver, a connection that sometimes has the power of change things.

How does my chart help with that? It doesn’t! My chart only helps cider-makers prepare for the woods. Being able to make green from the combination of blue and yellow isn’t art. Or, to use my chart as an example, making a bittersweet cider from bitters and sweets isn't art. In my opinion, being able to grow or dial-up certain traits (like colors) is only the beginning of art, like a hiker gathering supplies in a backpack, but it is not the art itself. If we have green on our pallet we have more arsenal should we discover a landscape that requires green in the painting, but it’s not about the pallet, it’s about the painting. What is the significance of the painting?

I think an artist who works in the medium of cider needs to know those formal properties, and they need to know the audience too, but they also need to aspire to something that isn’t already there. You can’t just pander to a market or to a predetermined expectation because that's not saying anything new -- it's already there. The quality of "true art" (again, to quote Berger) is that it has the power to change us -- to help us transcend. Without it, it would be our loss.

Let me give an example for those who prefer concrete forms: Cider, for me (and this is true for a lot of my colleagues too,) is significant when it connects humanity with the land -- that's the primary goal of most my ciders. So I want people to realize what it’s like to be in that landscape when they drink my cider. Hopefully, they ponder this and wonder what it's like to survive there, to acclimate to that location, like the trees do. I want that because that's precisely what amazing me about wild apple trees and I hope the fruit can transcend -- bring us into their world. So as an artist, I am unsatisfying if people can't make that connection. I'm aspiring to an ideal. 

But that's just my example. The chart doesn't paint the picture for me, it only gives me the ability to organize my pallet and see what I'm working with. More importantly, it shows me what I'm potentially working with. I could go on and on about my approach for days, because (no surprise) I have a million analogies about how composing a cider is like painting a picture. But if I did, I'd only be speaking about how I paint. I believe that every cider artist has their own message of originality, because everyone is working with different apples and different locations. All I intend on showing with this chart is how to organize and blend objective properties for your own use. I wish you the best of luck reflecting on your cider, or someone else’s cider, and discovering the greater significance.  

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The human imagination... has great difficulty in living strictly within the confines of a materialist practice or philosophy. It dreams, like a dog in its basket, of hares in the open.  -John Berger

My Annual New Year's Diary Post

 I feel like I spent 10 years fighting the cider industry, starting when we formed our business in 2008, up until 2018, when I completed my book. I can't count all the beefs I had with the industry, except that they fell into three categories: 1) cider agriculture, 2) the art of cider making, and 3) the way capitalist "entrepreneurs" do business (exploit the labor force, exploit the customer, and exploit the two aforementioned categories, art and farming.)

I wrote about this a lot over those 10 years and my discontentment also came-out as a major element of the book. (One might even say it was the dominant theme of the book and the reason for the sub-title.) But the second I finished the book in the summer of 2018 I suddenly became less critical of the cider industry and instead focused on my personal life. Over the past 3 years there have been some huge changes to my family, to me personally (body and mind), and to society in general, which I've reflected-on for personal consideration. Trying to influence cider just isn't my preoccupation.

I've also noticed that the cider industry got better in those 3 years and it's not as easy to get worked-up about it anymore. One can find decent cider easier in stores now, there's a greater diversity of producers, and more farmers are growing cider apples (even if they are doing it the completely wrong way still.) Yes, I still want to stick a fork in the eye of all the capitalists and sell-outs who disguise their true motives as "art" or as "doing good for the economy and planet" (they may not even know they're doing it), but every industry is dominated by those types and, in fact, cider has a smaller percentage of them. Long story short: The cider industry is a relatively good team to be on, even if I wish to distinguish myself from most my teammates. 

Now when I write, I'm writing about broad philosophical ideas that relate to a greater audience, so I haven't been publishing cider diary posts like this one recently. (In my head, I'm writing stories that are more for lay-people, though I'm pretty sure what I write will never get "polished and published.") But I'm also nostalgic for the dialog I've had with my colleagues in the foodie world, and the winter is historically when we all got together (we've been doing so for over a decade now!) Let me just say to you now: I MISS YOU BROTHERS AND SISTERS! Happy 2021.