Meaning and Things

September 8, 2019 Carl Barnett

It is through creative expression that life finds its voice. Where the language of things and the words we attach to them, all build the sentences that describe how we live, layered by the meanings we have chosen.

This is how we make sense of the world, how we connect the dots between us and them, this and that, and our emotional and physical selves.

Our world of things is a life of emotion and meaning: animal, vegetable, and mineral. And a life of purpose is built around how we move through these meanings we’ve created, all well crafted of prose and formed from ideologies.

Meaning and purpose are the hallmarks of living, they are the guide posts and gauges: compasses in an era of troubled paths.

“We’ve built our communities around all that has grounding, and the things of utility, meaning and purpose.”

As humans we are gatherers, seekers and wonderers, still telling stories under starlight and fire.

We’ve built our communities around all that has grounding, and the things of utility, meaning and purpose.

"You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things."

Mary Oliver

Impact, Wonder and Magic

September 4, 2019 Carl Barnett

In this era of complexity, moving forward is a matter of shifting mindsets and reflecting on who we are: our essence and intentions onward.

Ballet dancer Sergei Polunin — Ballet dancer **Sergei Polunin**

A continual motion of sinuous paths: Weft and warp and tethered ends. Of good deeds done, hopes and fears.

To live fuller, is to move through fear. To know oneself within our living: our impact, wonder and magic.

“We ought to try, by the example of our own lives to prove that life is love and wonder and that that nation is doomed which penalizes those of its citizens who recognize and rejoice in this fact.”

James Baldwin

Science and Poetry

September 1, 2019 Carl Barnett

How a space feels is paramount: its emotion. Inspired by the objects within, and those who engage. We are gatherers by nature, attempting to make sense of life, or at least the emotions we have towards it.

Astrology is the precursor to astronomy, it was the way then of understanding life under the black and vast unknown. A process of unraveling the mysteries and wonders of living: our need to order the chaos.

“Science speaks to the factual, the outside world, as poetry speaks to the inner world, the landscape of emotions.”

This is how we live now, making sense of the emotional and the chaotic, by way of the physical world: culminating science and poetry. Science speaks to the factual, the outside world, as poetry speaks to the inner world, the landscape of emotions.

“Though science has opened up the world and the unknown, emotion remains a great mystery.”

As we move forward in centuries, the mysteries are lifting, we are showing ourselves who we truly are. Science has made strides, the stars that were once gods we now sit upon, looking back at ourselves: who we are, where we are. Though science has opened up the world and the unknown, emotion remains a great mystery. This is where creation steps in, where poetry of words and objects express all that we are, within the swirling obyss.

We are losing our way, as we find our way. The light that we search for is us. As we destroy we rebuild, surrounding ourselves with meaning and purpose that moves us forward: building lives that inspire.

This is how we live and what we strive for, what the north star has always pulled from us. To seek, in a sense is our way forward, filling the gaps in between.

Paradox

August 28, 2019 Carl Barnett

Simplicity in an era of challenge, and a future of paradox. This is our dual reality, to simplify today and counter the paradoxical tomorrow. How we live, both in private and public are ripples to the concerning future.

“How we live today has more of an affect on the future than it has ever, and simplicity has a place within.”

Our decisions have always had the ability to affect the future, this has never been more true than now. How we live today has more of an affect on the future than it has ever, and simplicity has a place within.

Our homes should embrace sustainability, both in materials and how the affects last. They should nourish us, emotionally and physically: inspiring and simplifying our everyday.

Immersive

August 25, 2019 Carl Barnett

How we live today can inspire the future, and counter this troubling era. What we design, designs us, informing the path forward. Immersing oneself within inspiration is a catalyst for better living: a cause and affect approach to life.

“How we live today has more of an affect on the future than it has ever, and simplicity has a place within.”

To live a better life is not to find balance, but to embrace difference and find the simplicity that eases it. Balance is a teeter-totter motion, a wave of ebb and flow and the nature of order and chaos. Simplicity dwells within this, its the rock within stormy seas, and the knife that cuts deep: dissecting wants from needs. Living within simplicity brings in clarity, and invites calm: offering solace to our complex day to day.

To live an inspired life is to be immersed within: dissecting and editing as we move forward.

To go beyond the Instagramable image into emotion, touch and memory, is the immersive, and environmental approach to interior design. How we react to our private spaces affects our minds and bodies, inspiring a bigger picture of life, living and the future.

The creative mind can induce experience that enhances, soothes and counters our everyday. To be immersed within art and architecture, is to understand what design can do, and reaping its benefits towards a life well lived, well nourished.