Caesura, from the Latin to cut, or the space we cut out for ourselves in the middle of all of the things we do to make economically viable the space we cut out for ourselves.

I'm no stonemason, but I understand the struggle between what we do "for money" and what we do "for art" and how the two begin to overlap, or how what is done "for money" obliterates any opportunity to do what is done "for art."

I am a writer-slash-editor, and I'm actually making a go of it freelance-style (I am continually amazed by that). When I am writing articles, generally research/interview pieces on real estate, I have trouble doing any other writing. The process just absorbs any words I have to give, until there's nothing else and I watch TV. Editing seems to leave a lot more (mental) room for writing poetry, and I'm trying to do more editing and less writing, but the writing ultimately pays better per hour.

But is my article on CMBS (commercial mortgage–backed securities, if you didn't know) "art"? I certainly don't consider it to be (although I was very pleased and flattered to hear that part of it will be reprinted in a real estate textbook). Even if an article is well-written, even if I take pleassure in carefully crafting it, the article isn't mine, in either the practical or the legal sense. I sign away copyright, the editor cuts as he pleases, and I rarely look at it once it's gone. So I understand what Dillon means by the importance of ownership. If I don't own it, then how can it be my art? And why do I care about such definitions (because obviously I do, or I wouldn't be going on at length)?

And if I found Dillon's cut stones to be aesthetically pleasing, isn't that enough? I feel no need to get hung up on the differentiation between art and craft, which only leads me into a rant about how visual artists (particularly at Mills) consider letterpress and bookmaking to be craft, and therefore not art. Which perhaps means that comparisons between masonry and bookmaking are even more apt than I'd first thought.