THUMBS UP ON THUMBS UP- EMBRACING (OR NOT) OUR AFFINITIES
The black sand of Iceland, one of my favorite places on Earth
Years ago, while walking through MOMA with Brian, a dear friend, my heart skipped a beat. As we approached one of the galleries, there before my very eyes was it. Bird in Space.
Observing my rapturous delight at seeing the work of Constantin Brancusi in person, Brian asked me a simple question. It turned out that this would be one of the most profound and pivotal points in my life as a design and visual creative.
“Sheena, why do you like this sculpture?”
My typical fallback cerebral response to this question was nowhere to be found. In a panic, I started to come up with a litany of ‘excuses’- um, the lines are nice, it is simplistic, the form is…
With a small laugh, Brian stopped me. “You don’t have to explain it to me,” he said. “And you certainly shouldn’t come up with reasons only because they sound good to someone else. You like what you like. And that is it.”
It was then, that I stopped my burgeoning need to show erudition. Right there in NYC at a gallery in a museum, it ended. By humbly addressing one of my flaws, with the help of that dear friend, I began to understand how to embrace, and ultimately explain, when necessary, the why of things that inspire, delight, and move me.
Lines are my steady fallback for starting a project- whether it is a work of art, a photograph, or an architectural project.
My music tastes range from the jangly. dreamlike atmospheric quality of shoegaze, to the ‘oontz-oontz’ of EDM. From the sweeping harmonic complexities of bossa nova- traditional and modern- to the fun upbeat pleasure that disco and nu-disco brings.
The reverie that I experience when looking at a particular type of photography sends my mind soaring. (I can say without reservation or excuse that I prefer black & white, grainy film images over any other image).
The frigidly beautiful black sand beaches and majestic mountains & fjords that frame the linear architecture and landscape of Scandinavia fascinate me endlessly.
My certitude in embracing this recognition of the aforementioned did not truly become cemented as a part of my life until I was at the Dayton Art institute looking at a Wassily Kandisky exhibition after the MOMA revelation. While standing waiting to look at one of the paintings, I noticed a father holding a baby. Upon being shown the painting, the baby began to giggle and reach out toward the statically animated squiggly lines and beautiful colors. That baby could not explain the why of his joy. He just embraced it happily, fully, and unabashedly. Just as I do, after 20 plus years.