Archives for posts with tag: Philosophy

First a warning: Most people actually don’t want to be happy –  as truly happy people are so, so boring. What makes life interesting are the spikes, not equilibrium.

I have learned to embrace my ups and downs. I have learned that the proverbial brick wall stops me only temporarily. I don’t have to force my way through it, there is always a way around it. Finding  this detour often requires a pause, to sit down and ponder.

On my personal list of happiness there are only two items, and they are by no means fame and riches. On my list is one item you should have and one you shouldn’t. Not too difficult, is it?

The item you absolutely need to have is a soul mate!

What you need to get rid of are any personal expectations you have of him/her, so that you will keep this gem  for a long long time to come!

As easy as…

Funnily enough, most of my friends seem to think the first part is the difficult one. In fact it is the second, the working on the relationship, trying not to re-model the person you’ve found to fit your ideas. Without expectation the ideas will grow together in due time :)

Then when you hit the brick wall your fall will be cushioned!

It takes twenty-one days of hard work to form a good habit. Why does it only take three to slip back into bad ones?

Smug Little Devil is the last of the figures of the installation. He does his own thing and makes sure it is always to his advantage. Empathy is a word he has never heard of. At first he seems friendly enough, but when you know him better, you will find out this is the only emotion he ever shows; a smug grin. There is no way you can figure out what he is up to, but the horns give it away, it’s nothing good :).

Now that the whole thing with the Art Awards is over, I have to re-think my marketing strategy for Hermit’s Web, my book.  I still have to contact German publishers… the Frankfurt book fair is only a month away. Personally I think the story is very suitable for the German market, after all I am German and it shows in my sense of humour (okay, some people say the Germans don’t have one – we do… admittedly it’s sometimes a bit obscure).

Lately I am also considering a paper back issue to sell via Amazon. I am looking into Create Space to publish on demand (the book gets printed when somebody orders it). I have been a bit reluctant  to pursue this option, as I have no experience with their print quality – in particular their colour quality. With the puppets, my book has of course colour images throughout. My worry is if they are reproduced in poor quality, it does more harm than good – Oh, these artists are picky!

Anyway, on the upside, my friends in Europe could order their copy more conveniently. So this option will get pushed around in my head for a little longer.

I am staying with the Liar this morning. I read an interesting post about lying on a fellow blogger’s site (Moments Matter). The response I’d started to write got a bit too long, so I decided I pick up the subject on my own blog, particularly as it fits with yesterday’s post.

I personally gave up lying a long time ago, basically because I found lying extremely stressful. Once I realised I couldn’t keep track of who I had told what, I decided to tell it how it is/was. And voila… no more fluster! This is a very bold statement and it is of course only possible with factual lies. For example, if I say I have been to Mexico, but in fact I have never been there. The fact is wrong and ergo it is a lie. (…these lies are so easy to debunk, so why bother!).

This is the kind of lie I mentioned yesterday, when the male editor pretended to be a women. These lies are told to deliberately deceive and in my opinion are despicable.

Everything else that is not a fact, is an opinion.

If I dislike your painting/dress/new boyfriend and you ask me what I really think of it, I can always say it’s not for me, but that is just my opinion. It goes the other way round as well,  because, if you don’t lie you have to tell the truth… The big question remains; what is the truth? Most of the time the truth is just an opinion and everybody is entitled to their own. I might not like it, but I would rather hear their truth (opinion) than being told what someone thinks I might like to hear…. Uhhhuuu it’s getting really complicated now!

So, last night was the night of the Awards! And I can finally show images of my artwork publicly. I’ve chosen the Alien, as that is what I felt like last night. The event was really interesting and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Not sure if I would put another artwork into the competition, at least not one that is as delicate as the one this time. One thing I learned last night… There is a fine line between delicate and flimsy, and it is all in the presentation.

My artwork is a very, very delicate one, with many different layers and one has to engage with it for a while to discover their multitude. With so many other artworks squeezed into the available space and the huge amount of people shuffling past, it looked flimsy. One lady knocked one of my figures over, looked at it briefly and very quickly disappeared into the crowd. No attempt was made to set up the figure again. Another visitor, who had observed the incident, kindly put it upright again, but didn’t want to spend too much time doing it, I assume, so people wouldn’t think he knocked the thing over. But I was the lucky one, another artist had a piece of her installation knocked off the top. At least my figures don’t break!

There is some really amazing artwork there, so it is worthwhile going and having a look. The Finalists were divided into two groups, the travelling show from which the winners were chosen and the Salon de Refusé. The artworks of the second group will stay in Auckland until mid November. Fitting in all the artwork doesn’t  leave much space for them to breathe. And we all know art needs space… Watching the people, it seemed hardly anybody looked at any artwork for more than a couple of seconds. No surprise really, there is so much to see and all the people to look at too… I am pleased I didn’t miss it.

There comes a time, when one has to admit defeat:  It might come as a surprise, but I am not Super woman! :)

It’s strange how life goes in waves. When you are on a high, you seem to be invincible. Everything runs smoothly and is exciting. Then all of a sudden one area turns to shit, then another one and another. Before you know it you are in an avalanche and you can’t do anything about it. In slow motion you see your head approaching the concrete floor.

The beauty about getting older is that you know you will be getting up from the floor again. You only have to bide your time! Though it doesn’t make it any easier while you are on the floor, does it?

Ah, well, at the moment I am well below par, the stress of recent weeks has well and truly finished me off for now. But I have made some plans. The weekend after next I have an appointment with my puppets. I feel a lot of new characters coming on.

I didn’t get around to writing yesterday. I am in a bit of a shambles at the moment.

In New Zealand there is this ad on TV against high speed driving, which has the punch line: “The faster you go, the bigger the mess”.

I am currently well past my comfortable speed and, yes I can confirm, the mess is getting bigger.  There is only one way out… slowing down and working through the pile.

 

I am sitting here before I have my breakfast trying to figure out what to write today. The sun is a pale disc behind a thick layer of clouds again, but at least one has the notion of its existence and… the rain has stopped. Last night it was pouring down again and I wondered if we will need to use the ark we have parked in our front yard some time soon. It’s not quite ready yet for the water though.

First I wanted to put up an image of a snowed-under barn in Germany, but then I thought over there it’s summer now and they don’t want to be reminded that they are slowly sliding towards the cold part of the year. It’s better to find a more inspiring image reminding me that next summer will come for certain.

So here is my little sign of spring I took last weekend. I think the little ones must have done something naughty: Papa Swan scratches his beak and Mama Swan looks at them very disapprovingly. (I just can’t stop interpreting animal expressions as human. Sorry!)

The last image was about feeling small and unimportant, in the sense of having absolutely no impact on the big wide world – of being incapable of making an impression. This smallness of being is the connection to today’s photograph.

In the light of a beautiful sunset the feeling of smallness is awe!

The connection to yesterday’s image are the wings, otherwise they have nothing in common. I could easily write a twenty page essay about the meaning of this photograph, which is called Fly shit on the world, but don’t worry, I won’t. It is obvious that there are many different layers to it.

It is another example of the images I thought would only appeal to me as the artist. I was surprised the other day when I had it up on my screen at work and a friend walked in and said to me: “Print this on A1 and I’ll hang it up.”  Before I could be flattered he added “What is it?”  I guess he must have been attracted to the colours in the first instance. I couldn’t enter into a discussion with him, he was gone as quickly as he had come and along the way lost his chance to get a print-out of this one. I am happy to give him another one of my images though, one that is more easily understood.