The hand may tire, the voice grow still,
yet the altar keeps the maker’s will.


Feudalism & the Artist: A 21st-Century Meditation, Week 2

“Not every creation sells"

Once upon a time there was the altar and a house of prayer. A space used for creation where the invisible was brought to life. Here the artist genuflected before the altar, and here he received and accepted commissions, and was paid for same. Long before the algorithm dictated what was worthy, the sacred shaped, dictated and proofed what was beautiful, and the artist concurred and fulfilled its orders.


Art as Offering
Hildegard of Bingen once described her visions not as dreams, but as “the Living Light." She saw sound as colour, the breath of God flowing into language. Her music, manuscripts, healing text were not content. They were communion. Communion with her muse.

“I am a feather on the breath of God."

The medieval scribe in the scriptorium wrote without a byline. The anonymous carver of gargoyles did so in conversation with the heavens. The maker was not the point. The making was.

In the old cathedral light, the question was never, who is your audience? but to whom is this worthy to be offered?


The Sacred Rhythm
Art once moved at the pace of seasons. Manuscripts took decades. Choirs trained for years. Paint cracked in drying rooms while monks debated meaning.

Silence was not feared. It was folded into the work. The pause between brushstrokes. The breath before singing. There was a considered in-between time when all waited, and the silence spoke.

Now we speak of "content drops." But the voice from the altar once asked: "Have you made room for grace, did you give thanks for your good fortune? “ and we stopped for a minute, glad of the reminder.

A Word for the Makers
But this is not a call to return to cloisters, nor nostalgia for some unreachable golden age. It is just a reminder, that:
Your work need not be marketable to be meaningful.
Your voice need not be loud to be lasting.
And your practice need not be productive to be upstanding.

So let the world chase speed.
Let platforms shout their metrics.
Let algorithms predict what comes next.

But you? You may still genuflect, pause and listen and in the listening, you may remember that the muse was never yours. She came from somewhere deeper, and was originally generated at an altar.


At the Altar

Beneath the vault, a breath of light,
a hand waits over vellum’s white.
No clock, no crowd, no rush to send,
only the work, the will to mend.

The stone remembers every prayer,
the paint keeps singing in the air,
and what was given, freely made,
outlives the hands that knelt and stayed.