Beauty is…
Today I wanted to show that beauty really is in the things that stop us and make us look. There are so many different things that could do that. Anything that appeals to the senses in any way, if it STOPS us to look at it, treasure it, smell it, taste it, hear it or touch it must be beautiful to us. Unless, of course, it is so badly wrong that we end up having an almost sense of “What on earth?!” At that point, I tend to end up just going “you know what? Just. just. well, words fail me” and I can’t help but admire something that could be so opposite to what I think is beautiful.
For me, I think the creative process is both beautiful and baffling. You know what the inspiration gives you (whether consciously or unconsciously) and you know what you want to produce at the other end that will give you satisfaction and a sense of completeness/fulness/ending. However, you also have to consider the end user as well. Do you want to make it so plain and utilitarian that actually the lines are what is noticed and they bring out the beauty of the product used?
Or do you want to make it ornate because something that will become anything of use should be done in a way that glorifies it and makes it more than it was to begin with?
Of course this is a common problem for creative people to have and it’s where you make the decisions that guide the creative process in some ways. I don’t want to take away from what is to make it what it is not, but on the other hand, I WANT people to see the beauty and gracefulness and desirability of my inspiration as it appeared to me.
When you look at beauty in the sense of centuries gone by, you can see the effort, toil and pride people took in their work to beautify even the most mundane article, such as water closets (and yes, that is where you get WC from). These things weren’t rushed out via factory manufacture, they were made by the artisan (or their apprentices) themselves. Today you hear talk of the glamour of hand painted tiles…..well, a few centuries ago they ALL were hand painted! I know our new King Charles is more than interested in all these old trades that are dying out and has been rebuilding Dumfries House here in Scotland to bring in people to learn these “old fashioned skills.”
Do I want to knock down progression and go back to those old days? No. Never. If not for the internet, I never would have met Kevin. And we don’t have to wait for six months for letters from Australia. I can write and post this now and within seconds someone from Australia could read it. I’m not saying they will, but they could.