Creative Wordshops Newsletter June 2021

Dear seeker of words and images

During the 13th and 14th centuries craft guilds oversaw the practice of their particular craft/trade. Some formed secret societies. Freemen, bound to a guild, were journeymen craftsmen while the apprentices or trainees were bound or indentured to a master craftsman for seven years. The apprentice at the end of the training presented a masterpiece to the Wardens. Guilds still exist today, representing local crafts and tradespeople in traditional skills, plus guilds for actors and writers. This is the ancestral line for mentors and coaches? Perhaps our modern internships and shadowing is a pale shadow?

In Goethe’s 1797 ballad, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, a sorcerer leaves his workshop after setting his apprentice chores. Enter the ego. Tired of fetching water by pail, the apprentice enchants a broom to do the work for him, using magic in which he is not fully trained:

I ‘m now master,
I ‘m tactician,
All his ghosts must do my bidding.
Know his incantation,

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