Black Bucket Essays
Volume 1, Issue 1
“The survival of my own ideas may not be as important as a condition I might create for others’ ideas to be realized. ”
- Mel Chin
Eileen Wold
Ideas can not be preserved. And the real survival of any idea only exists through its influence. Innovative ideas that shape and push us to reconsider the norms that we take for granted will have a lasting impact. And those who seek new ways of viewing the world will find refuge in the possibility of difference in ideas.
Our ideas and notions of truth will be twisted and reinterpreted throughout time. Our ideas will seem simple and outdated, and set aside as quickly as they are praised. Ideas themselves in that sense can seem useless. But an idea can fuel curiosity.
Ideas exist to be challenged. They give us a starting point. Something to align with or position ourselves against. Actual words on a page are just text. Pencil marks on paper are just lines. But if their subtext can reveal to an audience a possibility of difference or contrast, then they can reach across time, posing new questions for new truths. A moment with a work of art can inspire questions and suggest alternate possibilities.
Those that come before us in any discipline create the “condition” in which we create. And as one creates today, there is no escaping the responsibility in establishing the condition in which others will create their work in the future. Should anyone take this for granted? The legacy one leaves to those that follow?
The hope that others will benefit from anything I make sounds optimistic at best. I was once told that one of my projects was too honest. What condition does that create? The possibility for honesty? For the breakdown of illusion? The stripping away of packaging? Art itself can create new conditions when we are not sure it is anything at all, but ultimately can be described as nothing but art.
And I fear we have less control over the conditions in which art is made as the politics of the time. Artists do not exist in a vacuum. Perhaps some understand their role to be a reinforcement of the dominant culture’s notions of beauty. I am sure that is what most dominant cultures would prefer. But artists often live and thrive on the fringes of that world. Layer by layer they build small movements of culture that add up through volume and time to run interference.
Ideas will evolve. Ideas will change. Ideas will be lost. But if an artist is courageous, the questions will remain. And questions lead to more questions. Appealing to the most curious part of our human nature, curiosity.
Volume 1, Issue 1
“The survival of my own ideas may not be as important as a condition I might create for others’ ideas to be realized. ”
- Mel Chin
Eileen Wold
Ideas can not be preserved. And the real survival of any idea only exists through its influence. Innovative ideas that shape and push us to reconsider the norms that we take for granted will have a lasting impact. And those who seek new ways of viewing the world will find refuge in the possibility of difference in ideas.
Our ideas and notions of truth will be twisted and reinterpreted throughout time. Our ideas will seem simple and outdated, and set aside as quickly as they are praised. Ideas themselves in that sense can seem useless. But an idea can fuel curiosity.
Ideas exist to be challenged. They give us a starting point. Something to align with or position ourselves against. Actual words on a page are just text. Pencil marks on paper are just lines. But if their subtext can reveal to an audience a possibility of difference or contrast, then they can reach across time, posing new questions for new truths. A moment with a work of art can inspire questions and suggest alternate possibilities.
Those that come before us in any discipline create the “condition” in which we create. And as one creates today, there is no escaping the responsibility in establishing the condition in which others will create their work in the future. Should anyone take this for granted? The legacy one leaves to those that follow?
The hope that others will benefit from anything I make sounds optimistic at best. I was once told that one of my projects was too honest. What condition does that create? The possibility for honesty? For the breakdown of illusion? The stripping away of packaging? Art itself can create new conditions when we are not sure it is anything at all, but ultimately can be described as nothing but art.
And I fear we have less control over the conditions in which art is made as the politics of the time. Artists do not exist in a vacuum. Perhaps some understand their role to be a reinforcement of the dominant culture’s notions of beauty. I am sure that is what most dominant cultures would prefer. But artists often live and thrive on the fringes of that world. Layer by layer they build small movements of culture that add up through volume and time to run interference.
Ideas will evolve. Ideas will change. Ideas will be lost. But if an artist is courageous, the questions will remain. And questions lead to more questions. Appealing to the most curious part of our human nature, curiosity.
