'The QuietUde of Normality'

Art That Does Not Shout

I enjoy traditional, timeless art and architectural design that does not shout, demand attention or insist upon a particular meaning.

These quiet influences help form who we are, often without us realising. Familiar artefacts, products and everyday objects become the unnoticed props and vessels of our lives.

There is a similar quietness in the countryside: empty churches, silent hills, open coastlines and apparently meaningless forests. These places possess distinct personalities without needing to explain themselves. They accommodate us while allowing us the freedom to experience them in our own way.

Could there be an art or architectural design of less? Something that does not try to “say” anything, but instead gives us the freedom to inhabit, interpret and engage with it as we choose?

The Value of Everyday Objects

Everyday and seemingly mundane objects allow us to interact freely because they are not burdened by obvious cultural, intellectual or theoretical constraints.

Simple artworks and spaces can feel authentic yet neutral. They may offer us an opportunity to rediscover ordinary life in an open, innocent and even naïve way.

Many artists and designers are searching for something more engaging than the contemporary avant-garde. Returning to traditional objects, local experience and the familiar pleasures of everyday life can offer something that feels both old and new.

Myth and folklore can also help create accessible spaces and artworks. Their power comes from shared stories, local experiences and ideas that connect with us at a deeper, often subliminal level.

Finding Delight in Normality

Creative visions frequently present the exceptional, as though ordinary life is something from which we must escape.

I am more interested in reality-based challenges and designing for everyday people with minimal theoretical intrusion. Reality and normality can become sources of delight, offering ideas that apply to modern life more meaningfully than the constant visual noise surrounding us.

We live in a communications-dominated age. Advertising, media, symbols, events, music and conversation bombard us with messages, yet this abundance of meaning can leave us feeling that very little makes sense.

Despite having access to comfort, technology and material possessions, many people continue to search for meaning and value. Perhaps we are becoming tired of that search and are beginning to rediscover the soothing, timeless pleasures already around us.

Less Is Often Too Much

Quiet experiences can be subtle, temporary and free from heavy concepts. Within this quietude, we may be able to become still and experience ourselves without striving to find every answer.

Art and space can support moments of prayer, reflection and mindfulness by being reduced to an almost monastic essence.

Yet minimalism is not always truly minimal. It can require enormous cultural effort and theatrical control. It can become loaded with meaning and begin to shout.

Less is often too much. A carefully constructed emptiness may contain more activity and intention than the apparently ordinary object it replaces.

Spaces We Create Ourselves

Could a simple and authentic artwork engage its viewer while still allowing them to be themselves?

Perhaps we create spaces through the act of inhabiting and observing them. A quieter environment can almost disappear, allowing our imaginations and experiences to extend into it.

Could there be an art or architectural design of meaninglessness that does not tell us what to think, but simply allows us to act freely?

Forests and areas of countryside can feel free from cultural and programmed constraints. Their apparent neutrality offers a kind of void to our busy minds, which may be why some people find wilderness unsettling.

Quiet people can create a similar experience. By listening rather than constantly speaking, they give others the space to exist. Could this same quiet exchange happen through art, painting, planning and design?

Vessels and Materials

As we study the universe beyond ourselves, we should not forget the force that exists within us.

We stand upon and are made from the earth. Our bodies are vessels, surrounded by other vessels: bricks contain our homes and possessions, clothes contain our bodies, glass and clay hold liquids, and paper and machines carry our thoughts and actions.

We continually reshape, move and reuse the earth’s materials. Perhaps recognising that we have “feet of clay” can help us reconnect with the simplicity of those materials and the human motivation that brings them to life.

When you next see an ordinary object, tool or artefact, consider the person who made it. Behind its creation may be something more than commercial need: curiosity, faith, purpose and the same creative impulse that has inspired makers throughout human history.

An Appreciation of Normality

What we may need today is a greater appreciation of normality: art that does not try to express or explain everything.

Could something quiet, simple and accommodating help us step away from constant interpretation and rediscover a sense of stillness?

Perhaps within the quietude of normality, we can stop searching for meaning and simply experience the world around us.

What,  therefore,  could  an  art  or  architecture  that  has  subliminal  meaning,  unseen  influence,  that  was  simple  yet  authentic,  allow  us  to  be  or  do?  Could  it  function  psychologically  as  a  space  that  both  engaged  the  viewer  or  inhabitants,  and  left  them  to be free  to  be  themselves  ‐  on  their  own  terms  with  their  own  imaginations? 

Is  it  possible  that  we,  the  inhabitant  and  viewer,  actually  ‘create’  spaces  ourselves  when  we  are  in  them  or  looking  at  them?  Could  a  space’s  more  silent  existence  make  it  disappear,  and  therefore  allow  us  to  extend  ourselves  into  it,  and  engage  more  fully  with  the  experience  of  being  in  space  by  not  caring  what  it  means  ­‐  by  being  mentally  quiet and drawn within an artwork or space?  I  wonder  if  there  could  be  an  architecture  or  art  of  meaninglessness,  that  doesn’t  ‘say’  anything  ‐  that  simply  allows  us  to  act  freely,  as  naive  youth  once  did.

The  forest  and  much  of  the  countryside  is  generally  speaking  neutral,  free  of  cultural  or  programmatic  constraints.  It  has  no  obvious  signs  ‐  at  least  not to  the  modern  or  urban  man.  Perhaps  this  is  why  it  frightens  some  people.  Its  very  normality  offers  a  sort  of  void  to  our  meddlesome  minds. 

Some  people in conversation will  stay  quiet  and  listen,  and  this  allows  you  to  engage easily with them.  They  ‐  however  dumb  or  quiet  ‐  seem  to  offer  you  the  chance  to  exist  through  some  notion  of  consensual  shared  experience  of  quietness  for  the  moment.  I  wonder  could  this  communing  happen  with  architecture, planning  and  painting. 

What  we  need  these  days  is  an  appreciation  of  normality  -­‐  which  does  not  try  to  express,  or  mean,  anything.  Could  there  be  an  art  that  is  meaninglessly  quiet,  simple,  accommodating,  and  yet  normal  too?  Could  normality  offer  us  a  way  to  lose  another  layer  of  meaning  and  help  us  to  find  quietude? 

Now  we  are  starting  to  study  the  cosmos  ‘outside’  with  quantum  mechanical  tools,  let’s  not  forget  that  there  is  and  has  always  been  a  motive  force  which  dwells  within  us.  With  our  feet  of  clay  we  stand  on  and  in  the  Earth.  We  are  vessels  containing,  for  some,  simply  blood,  guts  and  thoughts,  for  others  the  Holy  Spirit  and  a  motivating  force.  Bricks  contain  our  objects  and  furniture,  clothes  our  bodies,  glass  and  clay  our  liquids,  metals  and  steel  our  heavier  materials,  mechanisms,  paper  and  switches  our  thoughts  and  actions.  In  short,  we  vessels  are  surrounded  by  other  vessels  of  containment,  and  together  we  recreate  more  containment  in  turn  for  a  motive  force  which  stimulates  and  animates  the  seemingly  dead  matter  of  earth. 

We  humans  who  make  and  recirculate,  transmute  and  animate  Earth’s  matter  allow  a  relocation,  distribution  and  sharing  of  clay  via  the  motive  life  force.  Perhaps  only  when  we  have  achieved  the  simplicity  to  understand  that  we  have  feet  of  clay  can  we  realign  ourselves  with  the  materials  of  the  Earth  and  this  motive  spirit,  which  drives  us  to  work  on  it in its base simplicity. 

A  motive  spirit  has  always  surrounded  us.  When  you  next  see  an  object,  tool  or  artefact,  consider  that  someone  made  this  with  a  motivation  not  simply  of  greed  and  need,  but  a  humbler,  basic,  and  more  powerful  force  that  has  inspired  inventors  and  makers  since  the  cave  dweller.  The  steam  engine,  the  rocket,  the  printing  press,  the  television  and  the  computer  were  invented  by  people  of  faith.  Even  Darwin  was  a  committed  Christian,  who  saw  the  motive  force  working  on  the  recontainment  of  ourselves  and  this  spirit  within  more  evolved  bodies.