Iron and China

-

Both require mastery of fire and materials, but iron is about strength and function while china is about delicacy and beauty. Today moved from Coalbrookdale's Museum of Iron through the first iron bridge to Coalport China Works, where the revelation came. The process of making china—specific materials, precise workmanship, multiple firings—is as complex as any ironworks but aimed at creating something genuinely beautiful. Between these stops, Bedlam Forge: substantial ruins filling a wide spot on a narrow road, evidence of how much industrial activity scattered through this landscape.

Strength and Delicacy

August 28, 2025

Slept well for the first time since arriving. Finally adjusted.

Started at the Museum of Iron in Coalbrookdale. The displays felt incomplete somehow—interesting but with gaps that left me wondering about the actual life of the place. Why did this revolution happen here specifically? The museum shows you the what but doesn't quite get at the why of location and timing.

Lunch at the Water Rat was excellent. Good service, delicious food.

Then to Ironbridge itself—the first bridge made of iron. The location is beautiful, and you can see why someone thought "let's try something completely different here." Also found a bookstore nearby that was worth browsing.

On the way to our next stop we discovered Bedlam Forge, basically a wide spot in a very narrow road filled with substantial ruins. The kind of place you stumble across that makes you realize how much industrial activity was scattered through this landscape.

The Northumberland Vase
Coalport China Works turned out to be the revelation of the day. Learning how china is made—the specific materials, the precise workmanship, the multiple firings. It's an incredibly involved process that creates something genuinely beautiful. Had coffee at the café there while processing what we'd learned.

Back to Much Wenlock for a rest, then dinner at The Talbot.

The contrast between iron and china struck me today. Both require mastery of fire and materials, but iron is about strength and function while china is about delicacy and beauty. Different expressions of the same underlying human drive to transform raw materials into something more useful or beautiful than nature provided.

Tomorrow: more investigation.

Images here ... https://beloretrato0.picflow.com/d43bka91mw/mkuof6b2ij

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is Humanity Worth Saving?

-
Image
It's an interesting question given humanity's propensity for shortsighted and self-destructive decision making.  Glibly, the answer is no.  It's not worth saving and should get exactly what it deserves.  It is not earning its way as a responsible contributor to the universe.   That, of course, begs the question of what does the universe want? Other than a few fantasies that we've crafted it's unclear. We have values as humans such as order, beauty, and joy.  Science is the objective pursuit of discovering order in the universe.  Beauty straddles a line between the objective and subjective.  Much of what is considered to be beautiful are objective observations with subjective assessments.  Joy is entirely subjective and tends to be generated by the orderly and beautiful. These are potential self-centered reasons for humans to continue to exist, but in an of themselves don't answer the question of what the universe wants. What does the universe...
Read more

Understanding

-
One of the more entertaining aspects of the current conversations around AI is how much it challenges what we've believed, perhaps for centuries, about the nature of thinking. We've discovered that we don't currently possess objective and testable definitions for words like sentience and consciousness.  For reference, here are a couple of current definitions... Sentience - feeling or sensation as distinguished from perception and thought. ( Merriam-Webster ) Consciousness - the state of understanding and realizing something. ( Cambridge Dictionary ) Words like feeling, sensation, perception, thought, and realizing don't add a lot of value and tend to make definitions circular, but if you distill them you end up understanding as a component of each.  "Understanding" is a word worth exploring. Just for reference here are some of Merriam-Webster's definitions of the word " understand "... : to grasp the meaning of : to grasp the reasonableness of ...
Read more

Identity

-
I recommend the book ... Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment  by Francis Fukuyama In fact,  I'll even elevate it to the status of Lonnie's Core Educational Books that everyone should read.
Read more