If these wabi-sabi walls could whisper . . .

22 August 2010 by pcNielsen 2 Comments

Yesterday I started painting the whitewashed walls in our little bungalow. The plaster walls are 70 years old so bumps and cracks and drips abound. When I helped remodel old houses in Arkansas we would have hand textured the walls to cover up all of the imperfections. This texturing technique was nice, a bit of a stuccoed appearance. It made the place look new on the inside.

Work with the painter I’ve been helping out this year has been slow the past couple weeks, so I’ve busied myself with other things as much as I’ve been able (other things that are somewhat financially advantageous in these lean times, things not necessarily sculpture related as I’d prefer). I spent some time in my dad’s shop, The Milestone Gallery, painting walls, signs and staining furniture.

Our Sand Trap walls with a Marissa Lee Swinghammer print hanging on the chimney chase

Dad has noticed that people even want their antique furniture to look and function like new. Doors that are warped or don’t close all the way, the crazed finish of a tabletop or patina from age on a cabinet can deter people from purchasing the unique objects he collects. “I thought that patina was something people liked,” he said.

Indeed, why do we as Americans so often crave the new? The walls in our little house do just fine at what they were built to do, and as I spread “Sand Trap” — a taupe-y tint with hints of rose or purple in different lights — over the scuffed up old walls I began to appreciate their textures. In fact, I’ve concluded that perfect walls are actually boring in comparison.

By saying this I’m not necessarily advocating any kind of trumped-up aging process, no intentional distressing of new walls or surfaces. When you build a new building you should do it properly, straight studs and square corners. The history of a place must come organically; our little Nebraska bungalow may have more of an overall patina than most places, having been a rental for most of its years according to our neighborhood historian.

And now for an uncomfortable question: Does our dislike for the appearance of age or imperfection in our buildings hearken back to the same aversion we have to age in our own person, or in our American culture of human beauty where maturity is not esteemed as it is in other cultures?

My uncle, whose home also boasts whispering plaster walls, took advantage of the patina by exaggerating it, showing it off. I haven’t seen how he’s done this yet, but the idea is intriguing to me. If I feel like I have the time, I’ll probably try something similar.

Filed under Aesthetics, Architecture, Beauty, Feminine aesthetics, Interior design, Modern culture

Models as muse to a generation?

25 June 2009 by pcNielsen Leave a Comment

The current exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art examines the supposed ideal of the feminine physique from 1947-1997. Molly Young reviews the show for More Intelligent Life. The follow paragraphs caught my attention in particular:

    The Model as Muse: Embodying Fashion, an exhibition organized by the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (and sponsored by Marc Jacobs), features photographs and works of haute couture dating from 1947 to 1997. The aim is to demonstrate the way “a truly stellar model can sum up the attitude of her time–becoming not only a muse to designers or photographers, but a muse to a generation,” explains Harold Koda, the institute’s head curator.

    As the curatorial notes put it, models are those “whose elegant poses and gestures” evoke the attitudes of the day. The show makes clear that this is partly something a model can control and partly something she is simply, ineffably, born with. In a sense, all top models are naturals.

Are such models (the article goes on to note how models in the 80s and 90s essentially became their own brands) actually muses to entire generations? Or even most of a generation?

That claim is a bit hard for me to stomach, although — like I’ve said already on the blog — I’ve never been attracted to any of the models which supposedly represent the attitudes of my lifetime. Is this just a difference in personal aesthetic, or is the claim that a “top model” represents a generation just a stretch?

ModelsCatwalk

Image from Wikipedia.

Filed under Aesthetics, Beauty, Feminine aesthetics

What Men Want: Barbie doll or fertile goddess?

15 June 2009 by pcNielsen 5 Comments

Here’s a very interesting article, So do men REALLY prefer miss average, from the Daily Mail about a study of college males in Australia who are apparently more attracted to an average female figure than a stick-thin supermodel. “According to this week’s New Scientist, 100 men taking part in an Australian study were asked to rate the attractiveness of 200 drawings of female torsos of different sizes.” The results suggest a [British] size 14 — “5ft 4in tall, a size 14 with a waist that hovers around 30in, rounded hips and a 36DD bust” — is the most desirable.

The article also includes commentary from an assenting woman and dissenting man. From Anne Shooter: “The only people ever to have made unpleasant comments about my size are other women . . . Thin women are skinny for other women – not for men.” Tom Sykes counters by suggesting that while men might want to settle down with the average woman, the girls they fantasize about look more like Pamela Anderson.

It’s a good read. I won’t elaborate, except to reiterate what I’ve said in previous posts on the topic by saying that 1) “healthy” is the best figure and 2) I’ve never been attracted to supermodels.

beautiful

Image from Post Secret.

Adding: Another post on beauty and the female form recently past 5,000 views, the most of any among The Aesthetic Elevator’s repertoire: Beauty: Female aesthetics through the years

Filed under Beauty, Feminine aesthetics, Modern culture

For a better wedding, elope

12 January 2009 by pcNielsen Leave a Comment

I had a lot of fun planning my own wedding. You only get to throw a party like that, theoretically, once in your life, and there are a myriad of aesthetic considerations. Flowers, music, food and so on. All of this is on my mind after returning from my brother-in-law’s wedding last week.

My wife and I, in retrospect, would have carried out our own wedding very differently. First off, we planned it long distance on account of tradition, the tradition of holding the ceremony in the city of the bride’s family. Long-distance wedding planning is a pain, and a lot of our friends didn’t come because of the drive (or so it seemed). As it was, we already bucked a lot of the current American trends: No garter, no bouquet toss, no dance and our processional was Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in C Major — a gorgeous organ piece of almost ten minutes. A friend told us ours was one of the most unique and beautiful weddings she’d ever been too.

Still, we’d do it differently if we could. I’d like to stretch the celebration out and see the whole think become more personal; stick to family and close-ish friends, not so many acquaintances milling around. I’d like good friends and family to be around for a couple of days. The rehearsal dinner, ceremony and reception just aren’t enough time in all the rush to allow for real conversation. How about a barbecue and trip to the movie theater the day before? My wife and I would have loved to put on a formal dinner for our guests, but decided against it on account of cost. (We tried to do the whole thing on the cheap, and as I recall the rough total was somewhere around $6,600, $600 more than it would have been if the in-laws’ church wasn’t being remodeled that year.). My brother actually invited all the family out to brunch the morning after his wedding, a nice touch to extend the celebration. It seems that other cultures do this a lot better than ours from some things I’ve read.

Yesterday I had another thought: The whole wedding situation would actually run a lot more smoothly if a chaste couple (the assumption here on this Christian blog) eloped. You propose, you find a few best friends as witnesses to get the formalities over with and jet off onto the honeymoon. After you get back you start planning what can then be a more relaxed wedding scenario. This avoids the obvious sexual tension during a traditional wedding. The bride and groom are free to enjoy the company of their guests during whatever ceremony or reception plans they choose to make. They don’t feel pressure to rush off after the festivities.

Sarahs wedding arms

Another aesthetic consideration for today’s bride and groom is the photographer, something I’ve written about before. Photography has, in a sense, taken over the modern American wedding. Before or after the ceremony (the correct answer is “before”)? Friend, amateur or pricey professional? The photo session for a wedding often takes as much time as the ceremony and reception combined, at least in my experience. The flashing and clicking and running across the aisle by the cameraman or woman to catch every best angle during the ceremony is, frankly, distracting.

The same brother I mentioned above avoided formal photographs altogether, even though they hired a professional to record the event. I personally like this idea, however modern American mothers seem to take great umbrage to the lack of faux, er, formal smiles. In the case of my brother, his mother-in-law made the bride and groom put the dress and tux back on months after the fact for a proper sitting.

Can’t we find a happy medium, where a few formal photographs are taken during the span of, oh, say an hour before the whole shindig? Well-done candid photos are, simply, better anyway. The one image that I remember from our own album isn’t a formal capture at all, but of my wife getting ready the her bridal chamber, eating a quick lunch while one of her attendants irons the train of her dress, which she’s already wearing. She’s beautiful, the photo is beautiful and poetic and real.

Filed under Aesthetics, Beauty, Feminine aesthetics, Modern culture, Personal reflection

Beautiful is natural, healthy, make up?

25 November 2008 by pcNielsen 3 Comments

Last night I helped my wife purge some of the surfaces in our bedroom. The dresser and a set of shelves donned piles of earrings, clothing tags and old makeup that she didn’t need and wanted to be rid of. I possess a powerful anti-clutter gene and was glad to assist in sending superfluous items into the trash or recycle bin.

We ditched a lot of makeup last night; a few eyeliners or lip pencils I took to the studio to use as marking pencils, but quite a number of old cosmetics are headed for the dump now. My wife doesn’t wear too much anyway. Back when we were dating I stated that I didn’t really prefer the fake-face look, and in fact am turned off by overdone layers of caked on foundation (Or what not; I don’t know in reality what cakes and what doesn’t.) and unnatural colors ineptly masquerading as something inconspicuous.

Regardless of my own opinions, though, make up is a very significant part of American culture. In fact, it’s been a significant part of many cultures going back thousands of years. Egyptian Pharaohs used it more than 5,000 years ago (see photo below). Modern cosmetics manufacturers would love for men to begin using make up again, mainly out of greed.

narmerpalette-rom-back
Narmer’s Palatte, 3100 B.C. Palettes were normally used for make up,
although this one was most likely just decorative.

Being content with a natural beauty — a healthy beauty — in this fallen world, internally or externally, isn’t as easy as it might sound though. War and disease certainly do their part to externally (and internally) disfigure what God intended when he breathed life into the dust of Adam and Eve in the Garden. The consequences of humanity’s sinful state remain obvious.

That said, things like make up and plastic surgery do have a place in our cultures. My question today is “What place?” What constitutes reasonable physical modification? And who has the authority to determine what is reasonable?

Most parents will (hopefully) establish limits for their children. No make up until you’re fifteen, or whatever age they deem reasonable. Cosmetics are pretty innocuous in and of themselves. They are temporary indulgences that can be removed at will. A person could easily make arguments both for and against the use of lipsticks and blushes and eyeliners. In the “For” column fit things like “boosts self esteem, beautifies the visual environment, enhances femininity.” Things to jot down in the “Against” column might include “artificially boosts self esteem, just a vanity, potentially dangerous to your health, wasteful and bad for the environment.”

What about plastic surgery though, a much more permanent cosmetic alteration? At what age do parents allow their daughter to get a nose job or breast implants? Apparently some parents don’t mind signing off for or offering these surgeries to their children. Some girls get boob jobs at sweet 16 or as graduation gifts, which I eluded to last year while talking about Alissa Quart’s Branded: The buying and selling of teenagers.

Plastic surgery has its practical uses, but more often we hear about its employment as a luxury. We see Extreme Makeovers on television and dream about being the next one chose for the show to go under the knife.

Is this a slippery slope? How much further down the line is a scenario like the one posited in the film Gattica, where a person can change his or her height by having bone added or removed to his legs? How far away are we from the movie’s dystopian prediction of genetically predictable and perfect offspring? Are we so comfortable (and oblivious or cocky) in our scientific prowess that we fail to consider ethical or psychological ramifications to these kinds of alterations. Are comfortable enough (read “foolish enough”) to play God?

Why are so many people not content in the way they look? Advertising, probably. Peer pressure, likely. And what about an innate but unspoken understanding that things are not the way they are supposed to be, that the world is amiss (on account of the Fall)? Does something in us, even if we can’t put it into words, understand that God had something better — all around — in mind for humanity?

Photo from Wikipedia.

Filed under Aesthetics, Beauty, Christianity, Feminine aesthetics, Modern culture

Beautiful varies by culture

24 November 2008 by pcNielsen 1 Comment

What is seen as beautiful in women varies from generation to generation and culture to culture. This isn’t exactly news, but Oprah decided to talk about it on a show aired last week and my wife took notes for me.

Oprah pointed out that Mauritania has long revered obese women. Young girls are force fed in order to become fat for their man. Lots of figs and couscous according to this BBC article, which interviews a lady who runs a fat farm, only not in the way we Americans think of a fat farm. The BBC article, from 2004, specifically calls it a “wife-fattening” farm.

Of course, the appreciation of rotund female physique hasn’t been limited to African countries. One of the reasons Mauritanians prize their overweight wives is that it is a sign of wealth. The same held true for many Western countries a few centuries ago. If you were wealthy, you worked less and ate more. Naturally, you’d be fatter.

Apparently, though, times are changing in the African country. Only about 11% of Mauritanian girls are force fed anymore, and mainly in fairly remote areas. A 19 year old shop owner (male) was quoted as saying, “We’re fed up with fat women here.” And women are fed up with being fat. “Young people in Mauritania today, we’re not interested in being fat as a symbol of beauty,” said one woman who was force fed as a child. “Today to be beautiful is to be natural, just to eat normally.”

To be beautiful is to be natural. Sounds like a plan to me; sounds like what I’ve advocated on this blog, to be “healthy.”

Someone should tell this to people in Iran, a country known as the nose job capital of the world. Women flock to plastic surgeons to do away with their Iranian noses. The juxtaposition is worth noting: In certain cultures, you’re intentionally fattened, your neck is lengthened or you have a plate in your lip. These are intentional modifications which exaggerate a certain aspect of the physique. In Iran, people are doing away with their birth noses, exchanging a unique aspect for a supposedly more ideal olfactory instrument.

One of my writing professors in college was Iranian. She had an Iranian nose. She was beautiful with the nose.

Filed under Aesthetics, Beauty, Feminine aesthetics, Modern culture

Personal Aesthetics: In shoes

22 September 2008 by pcNielsen 2 Comments

I’ve been trying to decipher what makes or breaks appeal in women’s shoes ever since I wed. For some reason that men just aren’t able to grasp (I think it’s tied to the static size of the body part in question; Cathy seemed to confirm this last week.), women are infatuated with shoes. Actually, it may be more than an infatuation.

My wife and I engaged in a discussion on aesthetics last weekend on the way back from dropping her crocheted bamboo sculpture off at a show (She won took third place, although she was more giddy about learning how to spin than getting a ribbon and a check.). Topics included shoes and the human form.

On shoes. I recently bought two pairs, one online and one on sale in Kohl’s. I hate buying shoes. I’m cheap out of necessity as much as thriftiness, although I don’t like spending a lot on shoes regardless. That’s limiting right off the bat. It’s also difficult to find my size — which seems to be the most popular size for men — on sale. Further, I really don’t like a lot of shoe design. I don’t like pointy toes. I don’t like square toes. I don’t like a lot of busyness, something that afflicts nine out of ten common tennis shoes in our day and age. I just want an elegant, durable and comfortable piece of footwear. Why does that seem so difficult to come by?

My wife possesses the gender-specific ability to very quickly assess cute factor in a shoe. Within milliseconds of viewing, a particular design will elicit a groan or a cocked head, sweet vocal affirmation and an adorable smile. What I want to know, however, she isn’t always able to quickly enumerate: “What qualities of the footwear’s design is she reacting too?” What makes it good or bad?

Back to my own recent selections. One of them she really likes, the other she quite dislikes (and feels free to tell me so every time I wear them).

This first pictured pair she does like. Apparently they are just loaded with cuteness (oh joy, just what a man wants to slip into every day), although she isn’t fond of the pre-scuffed look on the toes. When pressed for details, she specified that the wide laces are a most definite asset.

This second pair she absolutely does not like. Granted, I am not a fan of the black sole creeping up the toe, and don’t like the material of the black meshiness. She pointed to the mesh as the worst offender of this design. But overall, it’s a solid shoe in my opinion. I did purchase it more for function (no laces, good for cycling) than looks — in fact, this purchase was almost solely functional, although I’d never spend money on something I didn’t agree with aesthetically, so help me God. I suppose that’s a foreign concept to most females?

The debate here revolves around personal aesthetics as much as anything. Both my wife and I groan constantly when we troll the shoe departments. We inevitably end up suggesting the worst pumps or boots or sandals we can find to each other for a good laugh. It’s amazing to me the hideous concoctions people try and peddle in the realm of footwear. But it’s also amazing that such things keep getting made. If there weren’t a market (i.e., an aesthetic) for the 95% of shoes my wife and I love to deride they’d quit making the things.

Apparently there are enough varied visual values to warrant the continued production of 10 million new female shoe styles a day though. I don’t have a source for that number; it’s just my estimate.

Adding: At lunch my wife reminded me that I was going to post this in order to create a forum where she and others could interact with respect to the shoes in question, and any others under the sun. So please feel free to comment on why you do or don’t like the pictured footwear . . .

Filed under Aesthetics, Basis for designing well, Design, Feminine aesthetics

Not Too Much, Not Too Little: Content in art

28 May 2008 by pcNielsen 5 Comments

In the last pages of Time-Life’s The World of Bruegel, I came across one of the most poignant quotations on art — speaking, it seems to me, particularly to the making of art — that I can remember in quite some time. From page 169:

    Great paintings are not photographs but doorways into another world, a world so complete and so compelling that the eye and the mind of the viewer are drawn deeper and deeper into it. If the painting has too little content or none at all, only the eye will be pleased. Nor will the mind and imagination be engaged in it if the content is too literal or commonplace, stating everything but implying nothing. Such paintings, though recognizably real, will remain mere factual surfaces.

This from the editors of a book I criticized, too harshly in my wife’s opinion, this past March. I’m not exactly certain what to take away from the quotation as someone who 1) works in three dimensions as opposed to on canvas or board and 2) is innately drawn to minimalistic and abstract forms, but the observation seems to possess some value so I’m diving deeper into the rabbit hole.

Portraiture is often guilty of attempting to convey too much content in my opinion. Very little is left to the imagination in works such as Jacques-Louis David’s Napoleon. Part of this may be a generational or historical ignorance if the painting utilizes symbolism lost on viewers not intimately familiar with art history, but frankly this work is little more than eye candy in a visual sense.

It’s easy, however, for me to think of portraits that I do find engaging. Girl With a Pearl Earring, the Mona Lisa and — though less formal — Manet’s A Bar at the Folies Bergere come to mind.

Girl with a Pearl Earring is one of my favorite paintings, not just portraits. It is wonderfully successful in it’s use of color, composition and countenance. The slightly open lips and black background add an incredible amount of interest. The Mona Lisa, while not a personal favorite, succeeds in the imaginative department with its surreal setting and, again, a facial expression that’s not quite definable. The Manet pictured above is another on the top of my own list. It is so easy in this painting for the viewer to climb into the bartender’s thoughts through her countenance. And while the proportions of her figure seem a bit awkward (though they may be accurate taking into account the crazy corsets of the represented time), the fact that her body is just off center — note the different spaces between her arms and torso on each side of the figure — lends an incredible sense of believability.

The aforementioned Napoleon has none of these things. It is stern and matter-of-fact, not asking anything of the person looking at the painting.

Perhaps a more interesting direction to take this discussion is how the quote relates to non-representational works, if it does. It’s easy to see how people might think these kind of paintings have too little content. For instance, does Jackson Pollock’s work from his “drip period” have any content to speak of? What about Rothko’s famous works? Does a piece of art need to have a recognizable element in order to have content?

Filed under Abstract art, Art, Criticism, Feminine aesthetics, Painting

Feminine Aesthetics: Admiration or perversion?

29 April 2008 by pcNielsen 5 Comments

Tim Jones over at Old World Swine responded to a commenter’s comments in his most recent post, The Nekkid Truth, Too. The conversation touched on some thoughts I’ve had in the last couple years, but up to this point had yet to put down. I’m using his entry as inspiration, thus, and putting the keys to the html editor.

Let’s get started with this statement from The Nekkid Truth:

    God made us men to be attracted to the female form (I consider it his best work, the pinnacle of physical creation), so that is something to accept and to be grateful for. To acknowledge the attraction and the beauty is no sin, in itself.

The commenter is, through the course of the post, expressing a desire to appreciate masterful works of art which include nudity. However, he struggles with this on account of men’s predilection towards lust, the most common affliction of the fallen male.

Sacred and Profane Love, Titian, 1515.

The question that burns me personally is how, as a fallen male, do I distinguish admiration from something more perverse? Can I? Is there a black and white line marking the difference between, in Jones’ words, the desire to “possess” a woman and thinking — in overly simplified terms — “She’s gorgeous!” Do men possess the ability to admire without lusting?

As a man and an artist intrinsically interested in all things aesthetic, all ideas and ideals of beauty, this question intrigues me to no end. And I realize, however unfortunate for my own mental well-being, there may not be an end to wrangling with these questions in this mortal life. I struggle interminably with whether or not I can have a pure thought at all, often wondering if everything that goes through my mind related to the female physique isn’t tainted. I constantly reassure myself that this is not the case, but the concern doesn’t go away. Can a man actually think about a woman in a way, however mild, that isn’t perverse? (And I don’t ask this solely in the context of sexuality, although this is the greatest temptation.). Some people may think this last question is a bit off the rocker, but I would counter by suggesting that none of us really know what is Holy well enough to determine what thoughts in our human minds may or may not be completely pure.

Last year my wife and I visited with friends recently returned from a vacation in Singapore. They talked about how it is illegal, against the written law, for men to ogle at women in that country. While he genuinely appreciated the attempt at a modest culture — and thoroughly enjoyed his visit to such a law-abiding society — our friend also understood the problems with trying to legislate such things. He likened what he saw to a police state.

I long to view all of God’s creation with the eye that He intended. Laws, such as those apparently in effect in Singapore, will not change the fallen mind. They will not allow me or anyone else to overcome human tendencies to pervert, basically, everything we think or do. While my attitude may come across as a bit fatalistic, let me assure you that I still strive for and hope to see as much of the glory of God’s creation — including the female form — before I die. This pursuit constantly drives my work in the studio, even if it isn’t obvious in the forms or titles of my sculpture.

Adding: As Jim points out in the first comment, the Titian above is worth some commentary: “The clothed woman is believed to represent earthly vanity and materialistic love, the nude to represent higher, pure love. A casual observer might think it was the other way around.” See a few more details on Wikipedia.

See my other entries dealing with women and beauty via this link.

Filed under Aesthetics, Art, Art and faith, Beauty, Christianity, Feminine aesthetics, Painting, Personal reflection

Feminine Aesthetics: “Super Skinny Me”

30 November 2007 by pcNielsen 5 Comments

I heard this morning a blurb about a British documentary, a documentary by two British journalists intending to expose the harmful nature of crash-diets. The journalists undertake a five-week experiment, dieting in an entirely unhealthy (and insane) manner, just like a lot of Americans seem to do.

Mary McNamara of the L.A. Times correctly observed that the drama in this particular film will be lost on most Americans. Apparently the British aren’t so inanely infatuated with being super skinny, with turning your own body into something akin to the living dead. The experimental journalists begin as very healthy people, by no means overweight. Of course, it seems as though a lot of Americans who are dieting don’t need to be either. For whatever reason these people have been duped into believing that the most respectable life-goal is to be as skinny as possible; if you can’t count your own ribs, God forbid!

These aren’t new problems though. Beauty varies, sometimes wildly, from culture to culture, and it even morphs over time within the same culture. Humans have historically acted on foolish mores (foot-binding, anyone?) relating to their appearance, and will probably forever do so.

As an artist who is constantly drawn to the ideas of beauty I find myself continually hashing and rehashing where my own perception of human attractiveness originates. Is it social? Is it deductive? Is it Divine? Is it personal? Does it stem from my idea of a healthy physique?

My hope is that my own ideas stem from and strive for a Divine idea of Beauty. My fear is that the driving force is mostly driven by popular social standards, which are generally unhealthy if not plain stupid. In reality, my own ideas are probably a mish-mash of all of those factors, however I still often fear that the social aspect pushes its way into prominence.

How does a person who realizes the unrealistic and silly nature of these social standards keep them from infiltrating his or her own mind?

I’ve learned, particularly since being married, that women can have very different physical features and still be healthy. (Men’s body types are more predictable, which is why shopping for jeans is no big deal to a guy. We can get away without trying them on and they’ll still fit.) Herein lies part of the problem, it seems, for females — who are by nature more attentive to their appearance than men: The culture establishes one penultimate standard for women who possess a wide variety of features.

I often wonder what Adam and Eve looked like, before the Fall. The mother and father of all mankind, they must have possessed all of the best physical characteristics from within the world’s population since them. The thing is, in our petty, self-serving ways we’re not remotely qualified to determine what these “best” attributes are. This reminds me of a quote by author Randy Alcorn: “To see the face of God is to behold beauty, which is the source of all lesser beauty.”

Filed under Aesthetics, Beauty, Feminine aesthetics, Modern culture

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