One part of my studio practice is to hang images that inspire me around my work area. These are a few images I've been looking at in my studio lately: a driftwood sculpture by Isamu Noguchi, the cover of a book about Richard Hirsch's tripod vessels, and a portrait of Martha Graham dancing.
These 2 images seem so related to me - and related also in an odd way to the dance of Martha Graham (below). Look at her foot - isn't that same tension in the detail of the tripod? See the arc of her hand - doesn't Noguchi somehow capture a similar extension in his negative space? The long skirt, the driftwood, the oxide in the hard ceramic surface - don't they each function (on some level?) as material that at once hides and reveals the graceful movement of the dance? Somehow the simplicity of form and materials lends itself to a rich experience of viewing and reflecting.
17th century philosopher Gottfried Leibniz says that any world God created would be good, but He chose specifically to create this world in the most perfect manner,
"that is to say the one which is at the same time the simplest in hypotheses and the richest in phenomena, as might be the case with the geometric line, whose construction was easy, but whose properties and effects were extremely remarkable and of great significance." (Discourse on Metaphysics, VI)
What do you think about when choosing to work with a particular material in a particular way?
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