Shape of Time Thoughts

For the New Year, I have decided to commit myself to posting a weekly blog about my influences, crazy thoughts, life experiences, and general awesomeness I have found while researching. I am usually a morning writer, however cliche, me sipping on some coffee, watching the wildlife scurry about in my yard, rereading my first two sentences eighteen times before continuing but today was different, my urge to write came at night.

I have been reading The Shape of Time by George Kubler for what seems to be six months because I read ten pages and my mind gets thoroughly blown away so my brain needs a few weeks to recover each time. Seriously, go read it, it’s awesome. One of my favorite quotes in it is, “There is no problem where there is no awareness.” Such a simple sentence; yet it carries so much weight. I mean hello this is what I have been trying to get my work to do for how long now: which is to assist in helping you guys live in the present and be aware of what is in front of you, happening there and now and to not give a flying poo about what happened two weeks ago or something that is going to happen two hours from now (believe me I’m working on it too). I think this is why there are so many miscommunications in our world today because we just assume we know things even though we may have never researched them for ourselves. We tend to take what others tell us and then it somehow becomes our opinion and then people get defensive about something that might not have even been their own thought. It’s weird how people cannot just agree to disagree about something. Then if the opinion differs, somehow the tolerance or likeness to that person declines. Enough about that though, moving on.

At the bottom of that paragraph, there are two others that sparked my interest. “Yet every object attests to the existence of a requirement for which it is the solution,” “In the second place, are we going to consider all man-made objects or only a selection of them?” So, since every artwork at its most basic level is just an object and since I believe that man-made can mean both mentally created and physically created, doesn’t that mean that all artwork has a form of utilitarian? Again, at its most basic level the word ‘utilitarian’ is to describe when something is useful to someone. Well, I would say all artists make work out of a need to express themselves so that makes their art useful because they are using it to express their own thoughts, desires, theories, or stories. Their art gives them a solution. That concept can also refer to the viewer of an art piece because when I go to an exhibition, I go in with hopes to learn about the artist and what they are trying to communicate and why. So in a way, I am using the artwork to gain more knowledge. I want to leave with more knowledge then what I came into it with. I have also gone to shows and I am completely inspired and in awe at something and I may have no idea why it makes me feel a certain way or think a different way and I immediately get all these different ideas floating in my head, sort of like a nostalgic moment so there I am using the art again! Sadly, I have also been to exhibitions where I love the art and go back through to read the artist statement and then I hate it and leave.

My work operates on a continuous flow of spectrums. I never want to be just one thought or just one idea so I always try to find a balance between multiples of things. The scale tips to either side depending on what I am doing. So I think I can say that all artwork has always operated on a utilitarian spectrum. At its most basic, it can function as it for the artist or the viewer, maybe both and then art that has a quality of usefulness in terms of someone physically using it then just tips the scale more deliberately over to the utilitarian side. People throughout history have just chosen to ignore that fact, I guess. I think all I need to say now is that for all the artists that have a problem with utilitarian work being considered fine art, now need to go rethink about how to talk about their work possessing a utilitarian quality too. Your welcome!

Keep fighting the good fight!