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April's
Articles for Giftware News:
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Inspiration—Beauty
in public places
Designers, and artists draw inspiration from diverse sources.
I particularly like silhouettes. Curving shapes and interesting
postures stimulate me. Sometimes I see them in a group of people
or in a beautiful glass, a curving tap, an urn, a rounded cheek,
a knobbed chin, a sleeping dog—shape, form, and silhouette.
Curve line and angle—of such our world is made. Of such design
is born.
A trip through the Vancouver airport this week brought me in front
of a series of display cases of Inuit art. I love art in public
venues, and this collection of sculptures was deeply beautiful
and moving. Whale bone, ivory and soapstone, the natural remnants
of the sea and frozen land, made curving seals, rounded bears,
stolid, massive musk ox, eagles with outstretched arms, thin,
lithe cranes and fish—sometimes winged, sometimes footed—both
fluid in form and substantial in presence. Some pieces had transforming
features with animals and man sharing each other’s traits—cleaving
into each other until, shaman-like, a new creature was created.
The sculptures, stone green, ivory white and bone pitted, were
landscape reflecting, with heavy bodies in balletic poses mimicking
the shadows, shapes and forms of the white, wind-sculpted arctic
landscape, telling the tales of the fishing and the hunting and
speaking the reverent respect of the Inuit way of life. An eagle
transforming to man, a bear with a wolf on its back and caribou
protecting their young, the sculptures—somewhat like Henry
Moore, but with more content—are emotionally moving. They
are heavy with cultural content—showing that life itself,
when refined of extraneous influences, can become a living sculpture.
The Inuit—translation 'the people'—are the indigenous
inhabitants of the Canadian Arctic. Most Inuit still lived by
hunting. Animals were their sole means of survival—meat,
hides, bones, feathers, teeth and gut, meat and fowl were the
only support for their lives. In a landscape barren of trees,
vegetation and crops, animals were the farm and forest of their
existence. Two caribou hides—one worn with the fur facing
inward and one with the fur facing outward—could protect
a person for five hours in minus 30 degrees. This isn't cotton
tee shirt country!
An art as magnificent as Inuit art is a privilege to see—in
an airport, in transit between worlds—I see inspiration,
I see passion—it makes me want to grab a pencil, work a piece
of clay, visit a museum, reflect on the sculpture of my life.
Of such things, design is influenced—my life is enriched.
I thank the Vancouver Airport for mounting such a display and
for the other airports around the world that make a public show
of their cultural treasures. That is truly a silver lining in
air travel.
As a side note, Vancouver Airport, being a Pacific gateway to
Asia and a part of multi-cultural Canada, has the best name pronunciation
of any airport I have been to! [And a good PA.system, too.] They
have mastered the tricky pronunciation of Chinese, Indian, French,
German, English, and a variety of other foreign names—what
a change that makes! It makes one feel part of an educated and
respectful community to hear a Chinese family's name being paged,
followed by a French student, a Japanese business man and an Indian
couple—all late for their flights—but being called with
perfect articulation.
Way to go Vancouver!
Vancouver, Canada
April |
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