Brief Notes on Finding the Profound in the Everyday

Brief Notes on Finding the Profound in the Everyday

Finding meaning and sincerity in things has become an artistic objective of mine. Profundity is more often felt and found in the monumental, the dramatic and the opulent, such as in grand Cathedrals or beneath exquisite sunsets. Whilst never losing their splendour, these things can become exhausted and cliché; in my work I draw attention to commonplace materials, familiar objects and everyday environments, finding in the clichéd matter of day-to-day life a rich and stunning poignancy.

1.       Words

Words are not certain. They must be explored thoroughly. Words can have meanings that you are not aware of, which have significant and profound connotations. Accept that although you are able to read these words, you will never truly understand what I mean by them. Or perhaps, what these words mean to me as I think of them. Every word that I am writing is singular to me, and my understanding of it. Every word you are reading is singular to you, and your own past encounters with it. Every word that you read has connotations that your mind is automatically processing without you realising, summoning memories of sight and sound, of a person, of a place, of a time. My definition of a word is not the same as yours.

This page contains 457 different words. Recount your relationship to each one. When did you first hear it? When did you first speak it? When did you first read, write, question, type, sigh, shout, know, forget it? Unlearn your familiarity with this language. Acknowledge that every word you are reading has a history that you do not know. A word’s etymology is a map of societies, politics, languages and religions past. What of history are you referencing when you use without hesitation that word you thought you knew? Investigating the evolution of a word can reveal obscure and unlikely connotations, and will reconfigure a disorientation in the mundane.

Note: Synonyms and antonyms are also very insightful. They reveal surprising connections and contradictions in the association of words. The opposite of a word can often be found to relate very closely to its synonyms

                                 i.            The opposite of charged is empty

                               ii.            Empty spaces are able to be charged

2.   Space

It is customary to notice more in unfamiliar spaces. Learn to routinely re-evaluate everyday environments using all your senses. Recognise points in a room where your eye is naturally drawn, to posters, paintings, mirrors and large furniture, and then consider the spaces where they are not. Indulge in the imperfections of a wall, and wonder what has caused them. Consider all the in-between spaces, the gaps between the fridge and the freezer, the clock and the wall, the books on their shelves. Note that:

                     i.            Spider webs are symbols of unnoticed spaces. If they are seen, they are swept away. Consider the Greek Myth about Arachne the weaver, who was bound to spin intricate webs for eternity, and observe their ephemeral beauty before you remove them.

                   ii.            Skirting boards are designed to improve the look of the join between the wall and the ceiling. They are installed and then forgotten.

                 iii.            The recesses between computer keys are glutted by the oils of greasy fleeting fingers. Whilst you order letters into words about your life, recognise that the particles beneath can reveal just as much.

                 iv.            Moths lie in domestic lamps, those that flew too close to the light. Forgotten spaces are defined by small lives and small deaths.

3.   Objects and Materials

 Consider the objects currently within your arm span. Some of them will have value to you alone, the relic of a relationship or a reminder of a time gone by. Extend your perception of value to the objects of little importance around you, which are purely functional or ugly in your eyes. The waxy residue of a nearly burnt out candle - how many hours of your life had that flame been burning? A brass key to your front door - how many other doors across the world can this design unlock? What’s behind the door? A wooden table blemished with chips and years of hot mugged ring marks - where are the people now, to whom those drinks belonged?

 As with words, understanding the history of objects and materials can transform their familiarity. Note that:

                     i.            All found objects are poetically charged objects

                   ii.            All matter is historic matter

                 iii.            All matter has an inexhaustible past

                 iv.            Everything on Earth was once among the stars

 Objects are moments in time. The precise culmination of atoms of which they are comprised is a ludicrous improbability. Think again about the brass key, made of copper and zinc, and wonder at how you unlock your front door with the remnants of dead stars. Be curious and question how the world was made, how the world you know was made: extracted from the ground, melted, moulded, shaped by machines. Who made the machines?

 Note: Where words can evoke auditory associations, objects and materials call on all senses. Find in an angle a measurement of the world, or in darkness the hues of outer space or in a texture a vivid memory through your fingertips.

 Recently my attention has turned to dust, the ultimate, ubiquitous matter of the everyday. Synonymous with ‘dirt’ and ‘grime’, the namesake and reason behind dusters and dustpans, it is a disregarded and ill thought of material. Surely dust could never be beautiful. Consider however how it came to be and what it represents. Dust is the debris of time. It is the material remains of all the people and activities that have occurred in a space over months or years, a catalogue. Dust is both life and death, telling of the body’s growth and decay simultaneously. Skin cells shed and fall like grains of sand in an hourglass. Snug in the right angles of your houses, mapping small ledges and the high planes of your dressers, lie days of you. Between the floorboards, dormant ranks with wooden flanks, the dust is shaped by your weight, kneaded downwards by your absent-minded journeys along the hall.

 

 

Word List