The Art of Loading Brush by Al Sikes

“The Art of Loading Brush”, a book written by Wendell Berry, argues that sustainable agriculture, rooted in love for the land and community, is not only economically viable but essential to a just and meaningful life. It’s a call to resist the fragmentation of modern life by embracing work, place, and responsibility with humility and care.” Synthesis of Wendell Berry’s “The Art of Loading Brush”

I am finishing Berry’s book, published in 2017, for the second time, and a particular passage said “share me”.

Andy Catlett is the book’s central character; he had spent his life farming but found that in old age, he had to seek help in rebuilding a fence line. The “Harbison Crew” he hired to do the work did it poorly—“left a mess”, he lamented.

Andy then turned to a young college student who was a music major, Austin Page, to help him. Austin had helped him around the farm since high school. As he worked with Austin he told him:

“My dear Austin, my good boy, maybe it is possible to blow things up and burn things up and tear things down and throw things away and make music all at the same time. Some, it looks like, think you can. But: if you don’t have people, a lot of people, whose hands can make order of whatever they pick up, you are going to be shit out of luck. And, in my opinion, if the art of loading brush dies out, the art of making music will die out too. You tell your professors, when you go back, that you met an old provincial man, a leftover, who told you: no high culture without low culture, and when low culture is the scariest it is the highest. Tell’em that. And then tell me what they say.”

My first impulse was to try to serve as Berry’s interpreter—translator. But, we should all lob these words and phrases around in our minds. Thinking is connection and we live in a time where machines, responding to algorithms, do much of our thinking.

The talk today is about artificial intelligence. It is  beginning  to eliminate a lot of jobs that deal with keeping information straight, stored and ready for human analysis. I can imagine that people who are principally working at quantitative jobs are especially at risk.

But, I am equally certain that what Berry calls “low culture” has ebbed. And in my view a renaissance is needed. Recall Berry’s words: “no high culture without low culture”.

Our society is in real need of people who know the “art of loading brush:”—making and fixing things. Sure we can import our labor to “load brush” but what effect does that have on our culture. Maybe the importers should also help rekindle pride in the ways our brain works through our hands. And the music in our minds.

Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al writes on themes from his book, Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books.