paper effigies made for traditional chinese funeral offerings in the after life
“the meaning of cherished possesssions is realized in the transcation between person and object, transcations are psychic activites and not simply physical behaviours per se, althought they involve physical behaviours; and there are different modes of transactions.”
“objects are not static entities whose meaning is projected on to them from cognitive functions of the brain or from abstract conceptual systems of culture”
“objects in the domestic environment are meaningful only as part of a communicative sign process and are active ingredients of that process”
“the activity of reminisence when looking at or thinking about old family photos. First of all, this is an activity in which signs of loved ones or past experiences are communicated, certain moods asscociated with those people are induced, and a stream of thought about “how it was” os brought about from a persons current persepctive on how things are now. The reminiscence evoked by the photo has its own peculiar flavour or pervasive quality. But this activity has another dimension. It also indicates intention - a direction, purpose, or habit that is essential feature of the meaning of the activity.”
Hannah Arendt 1958, “The whole factual world of human affairs depends for its reality and its continued existence, first, upon the presence of others who have seen and will remember, and second, on the transformation of the intangible into the tangibility of things. Without remembrance and reification which remembrance needs for its own fulfilment and which makes it, indeed, as the Greeks held, the mother of all arts, the living activities of action, speech, and thought would lose their reality at the end of each process and disappear as though they had never been”
“Humans have ceased to be purely biological beings content with reproducing gentic form. Each generation seems to create new desires for what we assume is needed for our existence.”
“How can we break our addiction to material energy without loosing the specifically human ability to give shape to our dreams?”
The Meaning Of Things
“natural” restraints have fallen one after the other, to human ingenuity - so have the traditional cultural restraints that have guided human conduct for milenia. In their place are are the principles of utility and expediency, which now dominate modern culture over much of the world. Thus humans are in the presumably unprecedented position on this planet of being able to absorb all the physical energy they can find and reshape it to their purpose”
“The philosophy of utility is based on a series of discrete individual sensations of pleasure and not on a continuous cultivation of the purposes that make up ones life and integrate one with others and with enduring patterns of meaning.”
"A friend is someone who can see the truth and pain in you even when you are fooling everyone else"
DONNA RHAE MARDER
just discovered these images of artist donna rhae marders work through looking at beautiful embroidered dresses she does i discovered the teapots she has done, the lace one is especially brilliant, would go well with my lace teacup and saucer!
DALE CHIHULY
With regards to my own work i thought of Dale Chihuly’s fragile vibrant clusters of glass sculptures because of the way he collects these magnificent objects together. From experimenting with the organza and lace objects i have made and gathering them together as well as recently placing them inside the wire torsos it created that Dale Chihuly presence for me.
