Beauty is a Void

April 28, 2005

In college I took a concept seminar class on beauty. The first assignment was to make an artwork that was as unattractive as possible. For some this meant creating a piece of kitsch, for others it was an exercise in audacity. I chose to subvert a historical masterpiece and, with apologies to Van Gogh, turned Starry Night into something utterly banal.

It's difficult to intentionally make something ugly. Maybe this isn't true in the industrial world of consumer goods, but at an art school tethered to a historical tradition of craftsmanship, it is a challenge. Many people didn't succeed. Most people struggled with the idea.

After our critique we were randomly assigned someone else's hideous object to somehow beautify. The parameters were fairly loose: essentially, you had to have the object serve as the primary material for the new work.

I was given a ceramic mosaic fish with kissy-lips and cartoon eyes. As Ceramics  was a studio I studiously avoided (too dirty), it would prove difficult for me to work in that medium. I opted instead to document the creation utilizing some pinhole cameras I'd recently built. 

I draped the fish in some white muslin and then sprayed it with water for that "wet drapery" look so adored by Classical sculptors of the Hellenistic Period. Between that, and the softening effect of the pinhole camera, I was fairly certain that I could create a few images that would be considered beautiful.

For the most part the results weren't that intriguing.

But, oddly enough, this image of the fish lips. . . 

. . . would unexpectedly mimic earlier work. . .

. . . and remain one of the more enigmatic photographs I've ever taken.

Wrapper

I enjoy wrapping gifts. I might enjoy wrapping them more than I enjoy making them (and, at the risk of sounding crotchety, I don't like shopping for them whatsoever).

I've made a unique birthday card for each of my students for the past three years now. Sometimes they follow a theme. For instance, last year all of the cards were adorned with dabs of watercolor and decorated with different Spirograph designs in an assortment of colored inks. Once, I drew two-tone portraits on mat board of famous historical figures that I thought might inspire the student.

Last night I completed a card using india ink and watercolor pencils* which was quite nice, but I was especially proud of the wrapping job— a simple combination of a magazine advert, sticker waste, and adhesive letters. 

In some ways though, a wonderfully wrapped gift can be a downer if the item inside doesn't live up to the grandeur of the packaging. I've witnessed this problem before and it can dampen the mood. At such times I always comfort myself with the thought that I'm just providing another subtle lesson in the spiritual vapidity of the consumerist paradigm.

*Watercolor pencils are the artistic refuge of the draftsman playing painter. A wonderful medium that has saved me many times.

Timberline

I’ve often been told that Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood is a masterpiece of craftsmanship. In fact, this was a common conversation thread throughout my years at Portland’s one and only craft college. It would begin with my telling a stranger I was getting a degree in craft.

There would be silence.

Then there could be a range of clunky questions seeking clarification, or there would be the question about Timberline.

“No.” I’d say, “I have not visited Timberline. Yet.”
And that would inadvertently derail that conversation.

After being an Oregonian for over a decade I finally wandered through Timberline Lodge. It contains many remarkable evidences of hand work; with the wrought iron hardware and massive hewn beams being the standouts. Over one doorway I spied a butterfly tenon larger than both my fists put together. Carved rams support chunky oak slab table tops and telephone pole beams are cut short and topped with friendly carved animals. A handmade cohesiveness provides harmony as well as quirky surprises on each floor of the lodge. In one side hallway I came across a simple wooden bench with protruding iron handles on one side and a single heavy metal wheel on the other so that the bench could be wheeled about if a new location was desired. I could not find another one. This singular bench made me wonder when we might again build buildings that would be erected to not just serve a function to the public but would also honor the ingenuity of a hand laborer.

As I see it, Timberline’s crafted beauty isn’t nearly as important as the sentiment that wrought it. In the bleakest of times for America a president saw fit to think outside of advisors, analysts, and political tradition to empower the impoverished. Among the hundreds of people working to fashion Timberline there were many who discovered previously hidden talents and were awarded not just a check, but with the feeling that their labor mattered. Simply stated, the New Deal valued its citizenry and unlocked their potential.

Critics of FDR’s plan proselytized the end of capitalism with the advent of the New Deal but I think of it as a very heart felt attempt to counteract an international crisis of economy and the subsequent feelings of worthlessness that it engendered.

Ultimately, government should not be just a gnarled web of mandates and bureaucracy; it should inspire and support the dreams of its populace. As a democratic population we should not allow our government to operate solely as a short-sided arm of disaster relief for the victims of its own inefficiency. FDR was not the primary culprit of a national economic downturn and many of his solutions to it live on today— can we have much faith that our current president will leave us with a similar legacy?

*Feeling it imprudent to take a camera on the slopes I turned to Flickr for an image. Fellow photographer Sherri Jackson graciously provided the picture above. It manages to capture not just the fantastic scale of the woodwork and masonry, but also reveals a bit of the impeccably considered lighting that exists throughout the lodge. Much thanks to Sherri.