About a year ago in a critique of my work, my sculpture professor at the time left me with a very troubling message: "Too much control". Where he commended the success of many of my works as being complete in form and content, his concern was that the majority of my art-making didn't take any risks.
Risks may lead to failure. Does good art have to take risks to be good art? All my life I have been creating pieces that I could control and work closely with until the piece's end--most importantly was controlling its end. I put a lot of emphasis on making sure my work is successful in the purpose. "Where's My Cube", is a much different practice for me in attempting to create successful art.
Success and failure oppose each other, but can successful art be, in lue of failure? Each cube I make and put out in the world is a risk, in that there may very well be no return from the art. In fact, only a mere fourty-two out of over three-hundred cubes yielded a response. That is a lot of failure in what I consider to be a successful work of art.
Where the responses on this blog work to bring "Where's My Cube?" full circle, I wonder if the premise of the project really needed any response at all for it to be successful. I think about the cubes that are lost; are they failures? They may have generated more conversation and interaction between people then the ones that posted responses, and I just don't know about it. In this sense the responses that do exist on this blog are more like evidence that the project is working. I feel that the failure that does exists, does not detract from the project as an entity in the world.
I agree that "lost" cubes are not failed cubes. They are merely untold stories and adventures. not everyone understand the cubes. but everyone appreciates the idea of them
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if you're still following the cubes, but I've had this one. I was going to write a full post here, but don't see a way to make an original post. So in case you're curious:
ReplyDeleteI found this cube in the parking lot outside my apartment building. It's a large lot, and for several months there was a car parked right in the middle of it. It'd been there so long that I figured it was abandoned. It was basically a fixture in that lot. I drove past it. I ran past it. I walked my two dogs past it. And one day about three years ago, after a run or a dog walk, I saw the cube on the windshield of that car. I picked it up, saw the words, and took it inside my home. I scanned the code, got a general sense of what you were up to, and then set the cube on the little shelf on the top of my stove.
ReplyDeleteI was in the middle of a pretty difficult stretch then. My marriage had ended some nine or so months prior, and my ex and I had been trying to negotiate a separation agreement all that while. We did as you do in those situations: the best we could. But as is often the case, our best often wasn't all that great, and it was almost always stressful. Whether the stress was intense and obvious or mild and subtle, it was always there. We had a daughter together, and we fought almost entirely about what was best for her. We never really agreed on what that was. It would be the better part of two more years before we actually had an agreement and the divorce was final.
My divorce was everything you've heard divorce to be, or everything you know it to be if you've experienced it yourself. When I picked up the cube, I was less than a year into a process that would last two and a half years. And if you count the time it takes to heal enough to be able to stand up straight and tall again--and you should, because recovery is by no means immediate--it was three-and-a-half-year process. I didn't know how long it would all take, but that day in the parking lot I did know that I was deep into something that was going to last a long while. And I decided when I found the cube that I was going to hang onto it until . . . I don't know when exactly. Until I was ready. Until I was better. Until my life was better. Until it was time to let it go.
ReplyDeleteA lot happens in three years. My daughter has been central in my life during those years. She's with me often, and always has been. She'll be five this spring. I've watched her grow, and I've grown with her.
ReplyDeleteMy relationship with my ex has evolved. We're not friends, and I don't suppose we ever will be, but we're friendly. You could do worse than that.
One of my dogs passed away about a year ago. Her sister is still with me. She's ten now and feeling her years a bit, but she's doing well enough all in all. She's been a great companion to me for a long time now. We're still in that same apartment, and we've explored the woods and trails near our place quite a bit, especially in the past year. It's a beautiful place. And three years ago I didn't even know those trails were there.
I started dating about a year ago, for the first time in many, many years. And that's how I know that fully recovering from a major upheaval often takes more time than you want it to take. I had a brief, wonderful relationship with a fabulous woman. I think it ended mostly because she hadn't yet fully recovered from a previous, difficult relationship. And that it took me three quarters of a year to get over our short relationship tells me that I wasn't as ready for one as I wanted to be. I wanted to stand up straight and tall this past year, and I kept trying to, but I wasn't really, fully there until pretty recently.
Something shifted a couple months back. I don't know that we're ever standing up as straight and tall, feeling as strong, as we'd like. But I felt stronger than I had in a long time. I don't know what it was exactly. Mostly it was time, I guess. Enough time had passed for me to feel better. I wonder if the election had something to do with it, too. I know I felt differently after that. I've always tried to be a decent person, and I think that if you were to check all the accounts, the final tally would show that on the whole, I have been a quiet, decent person. By mid-November, though, being quietly decent, good and kind to those who cross my path, didn't feel like enough anymore. I had this sense that I needed to add good to the world, to actively put people into my path, to put myself in the paths of other people. And I've begun doing that. In keeping with who I am, the ways I'm adding good to the world are quiet ones. But I'm trying.
ReplyDeleteI don't know where any of this goes. This cube. Me and my life. The people I love. Our community. Our nation. Our world. But I'm going to take the cube somewhere I know well tonight, and I'm going to leave it there. Because I know my time with it is over. It's been with me through a lot. Doubtless, it will go through much, much more. As will we all. There's much to be pessimistic about right now, and I do worry. I'm deeply concerned. But I'm ready for what's next, too, whatever that might be. I'll do the best I can. If we all do that--well, that's no guarantee of anything. But it's the best we can do, and though it might not be great, it's what we need to do.