Another one of my building site images. It shows Nothing. I particularly like the scratch marks around the nothing :)
Archives for posts with tag: Philosophy
Nothing
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Who is going to tell Sunny that we are not using his project as is. Certainly not me. I am a wimp when it comes to such talks. Thankfully I have a good excuse. I am not even a Dede. If I told him he could view the decision as oppression and blame me, the outsider, for his woes of being turned down yet again rather than taking in the real reservations we all have with his proposal after Minor’s revelation yesterday. No, one of the Dedes has to tell him and let him down softly.
I asked for volunteers and waited for a bit but nobody held their hand up for this certainly ungrateful job. Devil just shook his head when I looked at him. “I resigned from my job as spokesperson, remember? I gave you the letter” he said.
“And I’ve never officially accepted it!” I reminded him.
“You took it and said you will get back to me after the weekend. You never did.”
“Guys, guys, what is it with you two?” Witch interrupted. “It’s not helping. This is a totally different issue and won’t get us anywhere today!”
“I just wish he understood what it means to be an artist” L’Artiste started now. “He doesn’t get that while you can use bits of existing work you have to bring your own in and develop it further. He is such a me-too guy. It drives me bonkers!”
“Do you want to talk to him, artist to artist?” I immediately asked.
“No, he wouldn’t take it from me. He would discard my words as sour grapes, as though I was envious I didn’t come up with this ‘brilliant’ project.”
“Why don’t we all talk to him then he has to accept we all agree on it.”
“Yes, and have him feel like standing before a tribunal? This is a sure recipe for disaster…”
“Minor should tell him. After all she knows the entire background. And it was her who alerted us to his ruse.”
“C’mon she is only a teenager. Do you think he will take the message from her?” Detail stepped protectively in front of her daughter.
“I don’t know what the big deal is” Philosopher finally said. “I’ll do it. It’s not that we want to scrap the project entirely. We just have to strip it back and assemble it differently, don’t we? I personally like the beginning with everybody sitting on the stands. It goes right back to our roots as NO BODIES. When you look at the image posted yesterday your expressions are just gorgeous. Can’t we work along these lines? We just need a mentor who can help Sunny develop it into his own style.”
“Agreed” I said quickly before he could change his mind. “You just proved you would be the perfect mentor!”
“But I know the least about art.” Philosopher pointed out.
“Art is Sunny’s job. You only have to keep him on track.”
A rose is the ultimate token of love, isn’t it? This tatty old plastic rose is a painful reminder of my youth. I personally can’t understand why people want to be young again. All the pain you go through in your teenage years. The longing for acceptance and respect. You want to be different and stand out, but at the same time you want to fit in and be exactly like everybody else. What a dilemma. No way would I want to go through that again.
I don’t know exactly how I obtained this rose. I can’t remember whether I bullied the person into handing it over to me or not. My memory about this has faded, but the pain I feel when I look at it suggests that it was not given to me voluntarily. I know who I got it from and I remember the situation. It was at one of those travelling fairgrounds with a shooting booth. Teenage crowd, typical situation: girl loves boy, boy loves another girl, the other girl couldn’t care less and second boy loves first girl, all without anybody really knowing what love actually means. Everything happens in secret, well hidden, or so they think, convinced that nobody except themselves knows, despite it being so blatantly obvious.
As you grow older you watch the next generation repeating the pattern. And just like we were, they are convinced nobody will notice. What can the old folks possibly know about the pain of searching for true love. Weren’t they born old?
What is most surprising though, is that for some people it never seems to end. Watch people in the rest home… It goes on, the craving for respect and acceptance and the search for this one special person.
With what I am currently doing, an old riddle has surfaced again. What is the difference between graphic design and art? Is there a difference or is a graphic designer an artist?
A few years back I had a crucial experience when I met a gallerist at a work function. She asked me what I do for a living and when I answered I am a graphic artist, she snidely remarked that would be a misnomer. All graphic designers are nothing more than would-be artists. She made a clear distinction between an artist and a designer and it was very obvious she didn’t hold the latter in high esteem.
I thought about this remark for a long time and after a lot of soul searching I figured out that for me personally the main distinction is the client. As a graphic designer I am commissioned to be creative within the framework of the wishes and financials of the client. It requires a lot of tact, but ultimately the client has the final say. To stay true to my soul I have the option of choosing the clients I want to work for. My ones are mainly not-for-profit and small businesses who just set out. Along my career there were plenty of examples where I was happy I didn’t have to sign my name to the finished work (there are plenty of examples I am proud of too :). You basically have to keep the customer happy and in the end he puts the bread on your table. If you are lucky you even have wine to go with it.
As an artist I am free. I can create whatever I feel like. No explanation needed. The only limitations are my skills and my ideas. I like to challenge both. Ultimately that is the reason I am an artist. Unfortunately if you want to survive on your art you have to convince others that you are the best otherwise you face starvation. There are so many truly gifted people out there and in the end the one who shouts the loudest will make it. This brings on a totally new set of problems. But one thing is for sure, independent you are not! So far, I have been fortunate enough that I could support my art habit with my other work.
But it is all becoming a bit blurry lately and I seriously have to re-think my double-tracked approach I lived comfortably with for such a long time. This is currently my biggest challenge. Any ideas?
This morning we received another story for the competition. This time from our longstanding friend Arindam in India. He had exams and only got round to writing the story yesterday. He tells us how the image came about on a lovely spring day.
Unfortunately the Dedes are still missing and I can’t share my excitement with them. But I hope you all have a look. Don’t forget you can still write something about the image. The deadline is tomorrow (the rules are here).
I received a concerned question from Leopoldine asking what the skull in yesterday’s post was. It is nothing malicious, just a cow’s head I found when I rambled through the woods. The cow certainly died of old age. We don’t have predators in New Zealand that could be dangerous for animals the size of a cow. We don’t have venomous snakes and only one rare type of venomous spider. So life is pretty safe here. (Though I should add there was a fatal shark attack on Auckland’s West Coast last week. The first one in 37 years.)
This morning I finally made my way to the bottom of the garden and found Philosopher doing chores on his boat.
“Where are all the others?” I asked.
“With the builders in the house it was too noisy. We were only fighting and everybody got more and more agitated. No way we could have made any decisions. So Harvey invited all of us to his new burrow on the mountain top!”
“And why are you here and not with the rest?”
“I can’t stand decisions by committee. When you try to please everybody you will always end up in the middle of the road!”
“Tell me, what are they trying to do anyway?”
“I can’t reveal that. I have no mandate for it. You will have to wait!”
“When are they coming back then?”
“Who knows… When they are ready!” Philosopher looked at me and added “Didn’t you say earlier in the week we will quickly find out who needs whom more?”
Can you imagine Sunny’s smile getting even bigger? It did when he read the comments from ArtistatExit0. Sunny was adamant that what he had done was legitimate. Being inspired by fellow artists is common practice. I agree with him on this one. Of course you are inspired by what you see… that is simply called life. But there is a very fine line between appropriation of ideas and a rip-off.
“Why should I, as an artist, produce new work and put my sweat and life-blood into it, when the next person can simply come along and copy my ideas?” I asked.
“It will never be the same anyway” Sunny retorted. “And you obviously have never heard the saying ‘imitation is the highest form of flattery’!”
What ensued was a very long, yet infertile discussion. We were going nowhere in a hurry. Our opinions were just too different. Words like ‘generation gap’ were mentioned and ‘all-for-free-internet-society’. None of the other Dedes wanted to participate, let alone take sides. Finally Sunny suggested we should ask our readers about their opinion.
So, what do you think? Can Sunny be proud of his achievement or was it a blatant attempt to falsely take credit?
Deutsch Fraulein (German Girl) is a relatively quiet one who doesn’t cope well on her own. She always needs to be in a relationship and when she is in one, she is very clingy. Regrettably, this drives people away from her. For a while she was together with Monster, but this ended with a really bad break-up. Then she hooked up with Bad Conscience and this seems to be an on-and-off sort of relationship. I don’t know whether it is currently on or off.
When we moved, Deutsch Fraulein found an old family album that was handed down to me. She has looked through it every night since. I realise now how important family is to her and I assume she would like to start one of her own. She wants to know who all these people in the photographs are. Sadly, I have to admit I don’t have a clue. It is a pity and there is nobody left I could ask. All I know is that they are somehow related to me. I should have asked when I still had a chance.
Devil visited me last night to borrow a box of matches. No idea what he needs them for, Dedes shouldn’t play with fire. They are not water tight and I am pretty sure they burn quite well to boot. Hesitantly I gave him a box, but while I was looking for them, I asked him what his opinion is about the feud that is brewing between Minor and Detail.
“Ah, girls….” he said. “Look at their history… Detail and Chance are half-sisters, Detail is a solo mum and now Minor is giving her mother grief. You get the picture? You better stay out of it!” he advised and it looked as if he wanted to leave. But then he stopped and turned around. “You know what annoys me the most about the entire story?”
“No, but you will certainly enlighten me” I answered expectantly.
“What about Rob? Has anybody actually ever spoken to him? How do you know he is not fair-minded! Everybody just assumes he is a bad boy… How come?… Is it his hideous handkerchief?” He got his own hankie out and tied it around his face. “Imagine… One day someone decides all Dedes with horns are bad, what would happen to me?”
On Wednesday mornings Philosopher comes round and picks me up for a walk. I treasure this hour with him. There is no need to talk, if there is nothing to talk about. Sometimes silence in company can feel awkward, you certainly know that feeling, but with Philosopher quietness feels comforting. He has a very good head on his shoulders. And if you talk, you can be sure he would never pooh pooh any ideas – even if they are miles off the beaten track – nor would he speak badly about anyone.
So we walked in silence for a while and then I had to ask him: “So, Philosopher, what do you think about Witch’s comment on the blog yesterday?”
“Sorry, I don’t read your blog,” he answered honestly. “What happened?”
“You don’t read my blog?” I asked in disbelief.
“A lot of your friends don’t. Everybody knows you will tell them what’s happening anyway next time you see them.”
“Do they really?” I tried to remember the barbeques I had been to lately and started to wonder if everybody is getting sick of me. Am I quietly turning into a bore? I have to admit, Philosopher is right, the Dedes are my favourite subject.
“Oh, yes,” Philosopher smiled benevolently. “But don’t worry, they all like your passion – and not just that, they love us Dedes.” Before I could think more about my real friends, Philosopher got me back on my original train of thought: “So what did Witch say?”
I told him that Witch was taken aback by my remark the Dedes are for fun. It was just an aside and I wished Witch wouldn’t read my blog and wouldn’t pick up on little throw-away phrases like that.
“Do you think we are for fun?” Philosopher inquired.
“Not always… but what do you think, Philosopher, what is the agenda of the Dedes? Help me out here, please.” I know for a fact Witch would love to have more space on the blog to promote a frugal and healthy lifestyle. Cash Cow might support her, but it would displease most of the other Dedes, as this is really just Witch’s hobby-horse.
Philosopher didn’t think long: “In my opinion, the Dedes are celebrating diversity and they are having fun while doing it. This, my valued friend, is a good enough reason for their existence!”
The birthday was supposed to be a lovely day. Mouse had baked a cake, put a candle on it and invited everybody to have a piece. Now Mouse isn’t a big eater and the cake was very little. I would call it a muffin, more so than a cake, but for her it was a big thing.
So they all sat down and everybody commented nicely on the big effort Mouse had gone to, to make it yet another wonderful day, when Smug Little Devil arrived. He always seems to be the last one on the scene.
He took one look at the cake and said: “I thought we were having a Black Forest Gateau! What is that shrivelly little thing?” Mouse fought back her tears, but Devil, her old mate, came to her rescue: “What is it with you? Can’t you say something nice for a change?”
“Why?” Smug Little Devil replied “Am I not right? It is supposed to be a birthday cake. Does this look like a birthday cake to you?”
“It’s a cake, birthday or not” Devil replied.
“And I am a devil! I say what I want. Like it or not!” Smug Little Devil didn’t back down.
“But I am THE Devil!”
“No, you are a wuss! You should be called Wuss”
Devil jumped towards Smug Little Devil horns down and really angry. He was ready to fight.
“Whoo hoo!” Witch butted in and commanded: “you both sit down now!” Strangely enough, they listened to her and sat down meekly at opposite ends of the table. “What is it with you two? Tell me! It’s not really about the cake, is it?”
Smug Little Devil immediately started telling everybody that he thinks Devil is not a genuine devil, he is far too soft. While he was saying his piece we could see steam coming out of Devil’s ears. He didn’t seem too mellow right now. When it was his turn he told us that it pissed him off that Smug Little Devil had such a similar name. People might think they were one and the same, but no, they are only very veeery distant cousins. Smug Little Devil is still such a novice. He doesn’t know the ‘Code of Devils’ at all… really he is a disgrace to all devils as he uses his destructive remarks willy-nilly. He doesn’t achieve anything, but gets up peoples noses. In the ‘Code of Devils’, first page, first paragraph, it clearly states to use unsettling remarks carefully for the greatest effect, basically when nobody expects it. Then people have to think about what was said. During Devil’s speech Smug Little Devil had his usual smirk on his face. It was so obvious he didn’t take any of Devil’s words in.
“So what can we do about it?” Witch asked. “Rename him” Smug Little Devil answered immediately and pointed at Devil “He is not worth the name!”
“I am Devil, I was the first one. I know the ‘Code of Devils’! No, you have to be renamed!” All the other Dedes cheered. “Yes, we love our Devil, he is the one!”
Philosopher said: “There’s no need to rename anyone. The horns of the little one will grow with his wisdom. Just give him a nickname for now, how about calling him Smutan from now on… short for ‘Smug Satan’… Anybody for cake?” and he leaned forward to take a piece of the plate.
dedepuppets 