To love is to craft and to craft is to love

When Olivia Dean titled her album The Art of Loving, she couldn’t have known how literal it would get.

I was at the Universal Music Thailand X BASK PROJECT workshop in Bangkok last weekend, all dedicated to this album, and was reminded that to love is to craft and to craft is to love.

Love isn’t passive. Neither is creating something with your hands. Both demand showing up, risking the mess, leaving your fingerprints all over it. Sharp tools can cut if you’re careless, just like love. Too rough and it will hurt.

Dean opens the album with a truth:

It’s the art of loving, it’s the art of loving. It wasn’t all for nothing, yeah, you taught me something. “Gotta throw some paint,” that’s what Bell would say. Something lost, something gained. In the art of loving.

Every relationship leaves a lesson. Every creation leaves a mark. So throw the paint. Make the mess. That’s how you actually learn to love.

Four Ways to Craft It, Love It, Live It

• Riso Paper Flower Workshop (TWOINROW.PRINT): 5-10 minutes to print flowers using risograph technique. Arrange your own bouquet on paper. Fast, tactile, yours.

• The Art of You Workshop (Painters.gonnapaint): Frame your memories. Not to trap them but to say they mattered. This person mattered. This moment gets a home.

• Craft Notebook Workshop (Alive Studio): Making a notebook is making a promise to your future self. I believe you’ll have something worth saying. That’s love before it’s even spoken.

• Song to Charm Workshop (Galory Studio): Jewellery is decoration as well as commemoration. Every bead, every charm says this matters. I picked it. It speaks to me in a box of a thousand others.

The Art Of Loving Exhibition

proved feelings manifest. Local artists made their vulnerabilities visible, their emotions walkable. This is what separates craft from production: you can see someone cared. The uneven stitches. The weird colour choices. The details no algorithm would generate.

Lastly, 

one of my favourite albums closing out September is this very one. The reason is this, and Dean herself said it best:

“I don’t think this is meant to dismiss anyone’s feelings, but I believe love isn’t just some magical thing that happens on its own. It’s an art that takes time, practice and dedication. It’s like playing music or learning any other skill. I’m a hopeless romantic, really. And I just wanted to bring a little bit of love and that feeling of being in love back into everyone’s life.”

With that in mind, my words can only go so far. All October, you can go see it for yourself at Bask Project on Sukhumvit 49. Sip the special drinks named after the tracks, Easy to Fall in Love and Man I Need, and try the cute butter cake called The Art Of Loving. Sit in the pretty space styled in the album’s aesthetic and enjoy a little extension of art and love. You shape it, take risks and make it yours, mess and all.