Welcome to the Art & Other Things page. The purpose of this page is to display those things that are inspired by experimental curiosity, and also those things that were made because they seemed like a good idea.
In passing my time, making furniture and creating sculpture aren’t exactly a full time production line of make make. There are moments, quite frequently, when artistic ideas pass through ones mind and sometimes get hung up on a stray neuron here and there. Those ideas always come with some level of temptation, well, curiosity really. And that curiosity generally foments some other thought like, hmmm I wonder if that’d work?. Or sometimes it’s, hmmm I wonder what that would actually look like”, is it doable?. This then frequently leads to, yeah I’ve got the stuff to make that, should probably have a crack at that.
And that’s how it starts. Well, that’s how it starts for me anyway. Some of them are art, some of them are crafty and some of them are sculpture , well, sculptural in some way. Some of those items are made with the specific intent of creating an opportunity for pareidolia. To me the idea of Pareidolia is a helpful component of sculpture, and to some extent art generally, because it aids in providing more degrees of freedom for people to make their own interpretation about a piece.
And the main point about the degrees of freedom in sculpture and art is that I am not a fan of dogma. I’m not a fan of the idea that once a piece is made that there is only one singular way that it can be interpreted. I really like the idea that people can see and interpret things in their own way, and I have also explained that here. Allowing that to happen and flourish creates expanding opportunity for one of the most important processes that exists in the universe. That is the process of free and unconstrained creation and destruction.
All of this stuff that I do is, of course, experimentation. And it is the beginning of the creative and destructive process that has to happen for the development of real, durable and lasting ideas. No doubt that there are some people who can nail things straight away in their work. But I doubt many that do experimental works well beyond their personal experience or comfort zone.
That all leads to an interesting subject and question that relates directly to art. Where does it come from? Well, some years ago, I had a personal experience once where I described the answer to that question to a fellow sculptor.
It happened when I was selling all of my stuff before leaving Australia. A woman who lived up the road from me bought some things from me for a sculpture project of some kind she was working on. While I was there she mentioned that really she shouldn’t be buying anything, and that throwing things out is what she should really be doing.
I looked around for a second and told here, in fairly clear terms, that throwing things out was not a good option. I explained to her that inspiration for art and sculpture comes from personal experience, it doesn’t just suddenly pop out of thin air. And to generate those ideas you need inspiration, and the easiest way to get inspiration is to have things that can inspire. Sure, if you’ve got some kind of gifted imagination, then maybe that’s not the case. For most of us though, it is. That inspiration leads to creation which, quite frequently leads to destruction, and around it goes, until ……
Whether people recognise it or not, ideas, durable and lasting ideas, are a product of a process. And that process is the free cycle of creation and destruction. It is applicable to most if not all human endeavor, architecture, painting, writing, music and sculpture to name just some, take your pick and see how many people can create lasting and durable ideas from nothing.
In fact, all complex systems require this process for them to exist. It can be seen everywhere, in nature in human societies and civilisation in general. And the negative outcomes of curtailing that process in anyway can be seen in plain sight too. Industrialisation, or the homogenising, of human societies is good example example. It could easily be argued that around the time of the industrial revolution, or well before, was the peak of human art and intelligence.
You see, complex systems require a continuous process of non-linear inputs and outputs from a broad range of sources. Those inputs and outputs and also can be described as creation and destruction. As I have noted, if these are restricted in any significant way, or indeed cut off all together, then the outcome is that the system will stagnate, wither and die.
I suspect that this has been known about for sometime, maybe. I would point you in the direction of the Mouse Utopia Experiments of the 1950 to the 1970s in the USA. While they are separate experiments unto themselves, they do, in general terms, describe what I am talking about. And that is, shutting of complex systems from the inputs and outputs that it needs will, almost certainly, lead to it’s demise.
There are many videos that you can watch which describe these experiments, and they will, more likely than not take you out of your comfort zone. I have also elaborated on the subject of this creation and destruction elsewhere here at Crooked Timber. In fact this sculpture Growth Rings serves to describe the fundamental principle of it, and that is the property of infinite uncertainty.
And while we’re on the subject of comfort zones, I’d like to point out something. Have you noticed the perpetual fear mongering in the media, since 2020. Well, that’s all part of the plan. If you keep reading through the rest of the site, you’ll likely find out why. And while you’re at it, check this out for some pretty straight up truth.
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