Feeling Artsy Today

I don’t remember much about this interview anymore. It was an interview with some (probably famous and I seem to remember old) art critic. I don’t remember anymore whether I read or heart it, and whether it was online or not. But what really stuck was a part where the critic said what he thinks makes an artist and distinguishes him from non-artists. He said that an artist is someone who changes his surroundings in a way that is not solely driven by functionality and practical considerations. As an example he mentioned an artist stranded on an island. He is of course bound to necessities, so he will (most likely, if he is to survive and is not a complete nutjob) built a hut first, not a statue. He will built and craft all things necessary for survival. However, he will also make decisions that are not solely driven by necessity. A true artist will have an interesting and beautiful hut, at least after some time. He will be willing to spent time and effort on how things look like, not just on improving the functionality.  His reasoning went beyond that, but this image of a weird, interesting hut stuck to my mind.

Well, I am many things and among them a crafts- and business woman, an academic, and also an artist. Maybe this explains why I am slow to decorate my surroundings and make them look interesting, but apparently eventually I do. And I feel quite artsy today:

What I am really have been doing for a couple of days is throwing out a great bunch of junk from my studio. I keep collecting all these things that might come in handy one day, and they started to pile up in my studio in a way that I felt I suffocate in trash. Moreover I finally added a space dedicated to Büchertiger Supplies to my space (or a packing station, amounts to the same thing in the end.) And since I cannot expand the space I am using, some of the stuff clogging it had to go.

Among the things I find hardest to throw out, are things I made, no matter how much I think they are not good enough to show anyone or just not something of any worth. One of those things is the tunnel book I made as a demonstration piece for this blog. It was never more than that, but I held on to it. Yesterday I had it in my hands, thought I should discard it but just couldn’t find the heart to do so. And then decided to decorate the spy hole in our door with it. I really like it that way! Just as if I had made it for the door.

This somehow triggered more experiments, and so I decided to add some color to my bland studio walls:

 


Maybe I’ll have to rename Büchertiger Studio into Red and Blue Triangle Studio 🙂