L'Art d'Object

I was leafing through a bunch of movies that my mother had taped some time back and I came across a movie call Spitfire Grill. In my opinion this was a very good movie and as an added bonus there was some beautiful art in the movie. It won't spoil the movie to tell you that the art of which I am speaking of is made of pine cones, treebark, and leaves.

It may or may not be correct to label this kind of art L'art d'Object but was the only thing that came to mind. This kind of art is reminiscent of assemblage or to some degree sculptural dadaism. Spiraling strips of white bark spread away from a central core of a mass of pine cones or a piece of a log. Smaller creations are simply a pine cone with leaves for wings and tail.

While attending college I took a class on assemblage in which we found old pieces of junk or trash and found some way to either piece them together in a piece of art or threw them back into a pile for someone else. My instructor would find a great deal of inspiration from this 'junk'. He would find some way to turn an old license plate into a crown, or a few pieces of scrap metal into a heart, or even a kitchen drawer organizer into an memorial for love at war.

Picasso found a way to transform a bicycle seat and handlebars into a bull's head. Duchamp found a way to express himself with found objects in many ways, either with a ball of twine and steel plates or with a bike wheel and a stool. The everyday objects around us hold a great deal of inspiration for those of us willing to seek it out.

This week I don't have any artwork to offer you. I'm taking a small break to work on another project. I'm devoting time to practical art, as it were. But those images and thoughts that occurred to me this week in the form of memory of great construction and visually as the expression of artists in film under the guise of a character could not be passed up so readily.

So all I can offer you other wise in return are two things. The first is a challenge. That challenge is to look at some of the old things people throw away. Those things that may end up in some distant land fill or on the side of a road as trash or and old toy for sale. Lock those images of the old tv set, the rusted refrigerator, or the broken tricycle into your mind. These things are the seeds to which we supply nurturing creativity.

Go To Page: 1 2

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic