What materials are you in contact with right now? What material are you wearing? What are you standing on or sitting on? What are you holding in your hands?
Your answer to all of these questions is likely the same: Materials created by machines, often via large companies, shipped long distances. Materials touched only lightly, if it all, by human hands before making it to your environment.
Students in classrooms have much the same experience. Workers in office buildings and retail stores – well, you get the picture.
We live in environments made largely of synthetic, machine-made products. Huge effort has gone into streamlining production of these things – minimizing the materials used, the time needed to create them, and especially the amount of human labor required. Imprecision has been driven out of manufacturing to reduce costs and failure rates. A tremendous amount of study and science ensures the objects that surround us are – dare I say it – as inhuman as possible.
If you are lucky enough to be an art lover, your environment also has objects that have spent a lot of time in a maker’s hands. From fine art to hand-carved serving spoons or one-of-a-kind mugs, art is ABOUT being human. It connects us in subtle, silent ways. Or with blaring clarion calls. It brings us together, sharing common stories, reminding us of what we have in common and inviting us to feel less alone in the world.
And for the artist – what we do is at the very heart of being human. Acknowledging and honestly sharing our experiences through our work is the core of good art. It may not be pretty. It may not be expertly done. The pieces we make may fail endlessly before we end up with something we’re willing to share.
And guess what? That is not only what it takes to make art – that is what it means to be human! Humans screw up. Humans learn through trial and error. Humans feel things deeply. Humans blunder around trying to communicate with one another. 
Humans also find support, inspiration and solace in each other’s company. And so my friends I encourage you to reach out to one another bravely, sharing your imperfectness, ready to be changed by our interactions. Come to a PNW Sculptors event. Talk about art. Make art.
May you be alive to your surroundings and choose human-ness wherever you can,
Leslie Crist
President, Pacific NW Scuptors