Golden Threads
I’ve been captivated by a blog from an old friend, Lawrence, who with his wife, Anna, works as an artist collaboration. They have been selected to take part in one of four Golden Threads Research Fellowship schemes organized by Delta Arts in England. The Research Fellowship is hosted in Denmark between June 17 – July 10 and, given the nature of Lawrence and Anna’s artistic collaboration, they have taken their two young children with them. They are recording their experiences on their blog: Golden Threads Denmark.
The fundamental nature of their artistic exploration is best explained by them:
Traveling and working as a family is going to be a major part of our experience of Golden Threads. In Copenhagen we have arranged to meet a number of artists who are parents. We have asked them to bring their children along to the meeting and to show us a space, a playground or park or square, which they use as a family. Alongside this playful use of space, we hope to be able to discuss with the artists how they balance parenting with making art, and how this experience effects their approach to their work.
This fascinating opportunity to examine the dynamics between family, the environment in which we live and our how we perceive art and beauty got me thinking: How do I embrace beauty and aesthetic appreciation in my day-to-day life and in my interactions with others? So often we drift through a quotidian existence, focused on tasks, duties, responsibilities and obligations. It can be hard to allow beauty in, or to pause and reflect upon it.
A few years ago in the Colorado mountains, Stan, a friend of mine, pulled his car up to the side of the road with a whoop of excitement. He jumped out, grabbed some gloves and proceeded to drag a deer skeleton, picked clean by scavengers, out of the roadside brush. He strapped it on to the roof and I spent the rest of the trip with the empty sockets of a deer looking at me through the sun roof. Odd? Yes. Oddly beautiful? Absolutely. It is not so much what Stan found to be beautiful, but that he is completely open to embracing unique, personal aesthetic experiences in his daily life.
What I am not talking about are those saccharine clichés exhorting us literally and metaphorically to take time to smell the roses. What I am wondering about is how to open my eyes to a daily life that recognizes the sublime, when all I usually perceive is the mundane.
How many times have days passed you by without any recognition of something beautiful? Worse yet, have you even recognized a lack of aesthetic wonder in your life or your interaction with your environment?
Written by Stuart
David Day | Associates
About the Author: Stuart is constantly curious and believes conversation matters, for business, people and community. Feel free to join in...