Not every single thing has to be profound. It’s easy for me to fall into self-criticism for being shallow or making pieces that are Not Important, but the truth is that human beings need lightness of spirit to balance out the weight of just existing in this world. In the last several days, I’ve heard a recounting of two brothers who not only killed people but ate selected body parts, read a news story about the lethal synthetic drugs, capable of killing people in record time, that are rampaging across Estonia (coming soon to a theatre near you), and found out that someone (who shall remain nameless but is currently running the US) has decided to allow drilling and mining in areas that were established, in part, to protect endangered species. And those were just a tiny sampling of the bad news. No wonder we need a break. There are moments when it is necessary to seek relief, or to participate in activities that are frivolous (which, as Cynthia Heimel pointed out, is NOT the same as trivial). Frivolity can be an antidote to the heaviness we all experience at times- it engenders joy, which is necessary to maintain balance in our lives, to stay spiritually healthy, and especially to keep things in perspective. Perhaps in this way, lightness is its own form of depth.
I love it when people find meaning in my work, and often the pieces have a backstory (sometimes also a frontstory and a middlestory), but that isn’t necessary for an observer to know. So many times, someone finds personal significance in something I’ve made that goes way deeper than anything I originally intended. People create their own stories. I’ve heard that François Truffaut said you can show people a sequence of unrelated images and they will create a story out of them, in the same way that dreams get built. But I digress.
My friend Johan says, “It’s only jewelry,” which is true. At the same time, there is a saying, “Jewelry is everything…” also true.
The famous artist Paul Klee was a master draughtsman and eventually captivated by color; he made music and wrote poetry and created paintings that sparkled with wit. His work was deeply personal. It was also non-traditional, and he created radical political paintings at a time when the penalty for doing so was severe- he was fired from his teaching position and fled Germany. One could argue that we have room for everything.