mountain carving

...taking time out to be with lovely people in a lovely place.

on designing - excerpted from Anni Albers : Selected Writings on Design

Below is an expert from my newly discovered, favorite reading.

Very few of us can own things without being corrupted by them, without having pride involved in possessing them, gaining thereby a false security. Very few of us can resist being distracted by things. We need to learn to choose the simple and lasting instead of the new and individual; the objective and inclusive form in things in place of the extravagantly individualistic. This means reducing instead of adding, the reversal of our habitual thinking. Our households are overburdened with objects of only occasional usefulness. Created for special demands and temporary moods, they should have no more than temporary existence. But they cling to us as we cling to them and thus they hamper our freedom. Possessing can degrade us.

Having fewer things sets for the designer or craftsman a fundamentally new task as it implies designing things fro more inclusive use. His attitude will have to be changed from exhibiting personal taste and the exaggeration of personal inclinations in designing to being quietly helpful. He will have to focus on the general instead of on the specific, on the more permanent instead of on the merely temporary. Giving up continuous change does not necessarily mean that we reach a state of stagnation or boredom; it does mean overlooking moods and modes. This stabilization need not be equivalent to limitation, nor need it mean scantiness. It is designing in a manner to hold our interest beyond the moment. Pure forms will never bore us. Neither do we ever tire of nature. We have to learn from her to avoid overstatement and obviousness. These are truly dull. WE have to become aware of nature's subtlety and her fine surprises, and to translate these into our idiom. It is easy to invent the extravagant, the pretension, and the exciting; but these are passing, leaving in us only neurotic aimlessness. The things that have lasted and the things that will last are never subject to quick fashion. That good work and great work have been able to survive we may take as a sign of the good sense in us, buried under temporary nonsense. Instead of adjusting our work to the public demand of the moment, so often misinterpreted and underestimated by our industry, which is concerned with fast-moving mass consumption, let us direct it to this true sense of value underlying public demand.

May 1943

Albers, Anni. Anni Albers : Selected Writings on Design. Hanover: Wesleyan University Press, 2000.

the grid and bread

Two things we can't live without.
This might be the best loaf of rustic italian I've made since arriving at high altitude. I've yet to eat it, so there could be a soggy center, but... I'm leaning toward optimism. Oh the beautiful crumb that must be under that golden crust! Simultaneous work includes color study and application on the grid (varied, this grid includes the 45º diagonal overlay). This drawing addresses and requires meditation on the gradual building of forms and the relationships between color. corresponding to my other work in the recent years - it is another effort to simply make marks and fill space while avoiding meaning or explanation. It is as much about intersecting lines and coloring the resulting forms as it is not about the lines and colors. Discovery, explanation and conjecture about form and composition, themes and meanings - all of this seems to arrive afterward as is often the case with art.

Ts 2008

Blu Dot

This is a design company worth a long look! Thank you Blu Dot for your attention to the rest of us. And by "the rest of us" I mean the aesthetically rich albeit financially poor. I'm personally in love with the narrow steel legs and bright powder coated Strut tables. I can't get over the couchoid's barely angled arms - I like this a lot. If that's not cool enough as it is, they also have a series of short films on their site. I can't pick a favorite, so watch them all. They're all very good. Here's the link: Good Design is Good : Films Seriously. Check it out!

flashback

I played basketball when I was about 12 years old. I was never really good beyond my natural athleticism. For some reason the spatial orientation of the court and all the people and the ball moving across it were overstimulating for me. I was always sort of spaced out over it and unable to quickly process what was happening. That might explain my shots at the opponent's hoop. I'm still like that. Not the scoring for the other team thing, but visually overstimulated and zoned out. You should see me walking through an unfamiliar grocery store: the artist in visual overload. Anyway, I'm kneeling to the right of my father (far left) and my twin sister, Erin (valentine giver of last posting here) is 2 right of me. That haircut... those shorts... such an awkward time. Love to Dad and Erin and fondness for old memories.

valentine

This is the valentine I received from my sister today. This is the 3rd (or fourth?) part of a series of valentines that Erin has sent me in the last number of years. I love her refined stick man (heart head) drawing skills. The first card she sent me (on paper) said on the front: "Happy Valentine's day fart head!" and inside: "eh... I mean, Heart Head! I love you!" The front, a stick figure with a heart shaped head and inside, an up-close heart head winking with a thumbs up. Quirky. Gotta love that. Eventually the heart heads' farting (or pooting) became an important production method for the conversation heart candies we all love and hate.
Without further adieu, this year's installation: