The Creative Mind And Meaning

“Living now is my biggest concern, as meaning seems to elude me.”

Untitled painting Carl Barnett Design/Studio

What the future holds I cannot control, nor wish to as I’m too curious of today. Living now is my biggest concern, as meaning seems to elude me. I am not generally one for the superficial, perhaps I am just too tightly wound, too worried or too lost in my need to find my way.  

“It is the makers that enable a space to sing, inspiring emotion and bringing solace to our everyday.”

I believe in the endeavors of many, those who shore the light forward, giving life its beauty and meaning its due diligence. I often find myself ruminating on the subject of interior design, why we make the effort, why hire a designer. In this era and even in our history, life is, has been and will continue to be, difficult. This is what life is, and to add more is redundant, yet here we are, what we do. I believe that the realm of interior design is a perfect source to what creativity can do, smoothing the difficult and paving life forward. I believe also in the elements that go into a designed space, if not perhaps, more. It is the makers that enable a space to sing, inspiring emotion and bringing solace to our everyday. How we live, speaks volumes to who we are, how we think and build our futures. 

Porcelain Vessel by NYC artist Andy Graves

“Here, living with art is not mere theory, but philosophy and practice: physical document of the meaning design can bring.”

This speaks well to the work of Robert Stilin, whose interiors embody all that interior design does, or in my opinion should do. They evoke comfort, as they inspire by the creative efforts of many. Here, living with art is not mere theory, but philosophy and practice: physical document of the meaning design can bring. His interiors pull forward the strength of the creative hand and the nuance of materials, while never forsaking the invite of physical comfort. This is a balance he achieves well and what this era demands, what we should give ourselves in pursuit of life, as we dig for meaning, sheltering ourselves within four walls. 

NYC interior designer Rober Stilin

“It is the creative mind that offers answers which resonates closest to the bone, and it is here within, that we are nearer to the stars, nearest to true meaning.”

It has always been my interest to delve within the creative arenas, to find that particular voice that defines it: what they bring to life and what I in turn, bring to them. To boil down life to its essence is to see what the creative mind can do, how the creative arenas reflect who we are, offering joy, showing love, giving resolve to our troubling world. It is the creative mind that offers answers which resonates closest to the bone, and it is here within, that we are nearer to the stars, nearest to true meaning. This perhaps answers my own question of meaning: what to do and where to go.

Long Beach, NY project Carl Barnett Design/Studio

The Creative Mind

“Oftentimes when we find ourselves at a crossroads, it is the creative mind that offers the way forward, by way of action, or inspiration of beauty.”

Living a meaningful life is clearly a personal perspective, but universal as viewing the same moon. We struggle with the same issues in different places, often at the same time. This is where empathy comes to light, where the creative mind resolves, soothes and inspires our ongoing resolutions. Oftentimes when we find ourselves at a crossroads, it is the creative mind that offers the way forward, by way of action, or inspiration of beauty. It is the creative mind that is our power, that each of us are born into, where we live and how we live, as we navigate this challenging era. It is the creative mind that betters our lives, through policies of living and artistic endeavors, creating better cities, materials and useful objects for our everyday. 

Lighting Sculpture by NYC Artist Brecht Wright Gander

“This present day is unlike no other, unfurling by seconds, showing its perspectives, two faces at one time.”

We can find the creative endeavor in all that we touch, see, taste and think. It permeates every space, expands every passage, igniting passion as it salves the wounds. This present day is unlike no other, unfurling by seconds, showing its perspectives, two faces at one time. It is here that the creative mind is most needed: dissolving shadows, showing resolve, creating paths where once their were walls.

“The body knows its creative mind, moves in tandem, builds the things, writes the words, pierces the future forward.”

The creative mind has its passioned place within the gridded world, dissolving the dogmatic it buds the new frontier, breeds the fearless that ravages the doubtful myopic. It is within the blood that creativity moves, stirring the heart and sparking the mind, twitching the fingers forward. The body knows its creative mind, moves in tandem, builds the things, writes the words, pierces the future forward. We see this in where we live, how we move and how we take care of the ill. We know it as we know ourselves, though it may have been forgotten. The future is being built, created by many, echoes of the past, inspiration of the new. The creative mind is our power, our blood passion: path forward, igniting light. 

Ceramic Vessel by NYC Artist Kathryn Robinson-Millen

Do No Harm

What matters is not that we agree, nor that we see the same angle of beauty, it is that we aspire to be better, whatever better means to each. To do no harm is the widest and deepest approach to life and living, an affective way to view the future and the moments of our day to day. To do no harm has no specific affiliations except to the genealogy of being human: the history of us and we. It is difficult in our contemporary world to pin point this behavior, this ideology of being, the like minded tribes of do no harm. In a world awash in noise and fear, one has to see from the gut and hear from emotion, our innate navigation of compass and guiding light. 

“To affect the malleable future, we must accept the ordinary, while striving for the extraordinary.”

To navigate forward we must see who we are, we as in us, which includes them. Our human nature is flawed, we’re still running in packs, running in fear, as sheep to slaughter. As humans we are not perfect, though we pretend, wearing our image as armor, we search for the way ahead. Our innate default is love, though currently challenged: so it is, as it has been. This is nothing new, though as the future is showing, possibly our end. Our human history is sorted, our present seems the same. To affect the malleable future, we must accept the ordinary, while striving for the extraordinary. To affect the future is to see what is, move through the muck and push for change. What matters then is not the ending, but the beginning of the new, to define who we are, to do no harm. 

Painting “Untitled” Carl Barnett Design/Studio

Life, Beauty and the future therein

“Life is truly lived when the subtleties of beauty are sensed and seen, held beneath the skin: fully consumed.”

The romantic mind has a way of seeing, well beyond nuance into a deeper realm of beauty. A layer the jaded eye can no longer see, till shown under light of joy and the lens of love. Life is truly lived when the subtleties of beauty are sensed and seen, held beneath the skin: fully consumed. It is my belief that beauty stays with us, resonates within the hallows of our minds and bodies, sticks to our bones, nourishes the marrow. Beauty is a contradiction, it plays with our heart rate, an erratic inspiration, through eye and through hand: emotion and the physical form. 

“Symphony” chair by SENTIENT designer/proprietor Nersi Nasseri

“It is the space between idealism and the pragmatic that beauty resides, vacillating the to and fro: who we are and need to become.”

Seeing beauty in this time before us, eases our forward pace as the milestones of change slowly come to pass. It is not that beauty is the resolve, but the salve upon our minds, a resting place for the eye, pillow for the hopeful soul. To navigate the path forward is to know who we are, what we need and what nourishes, beyond sustenance of food and drink. It is the space between idealism and the pragmatic that beauty resides, vacillating the to and fro: who we are and need to become. The future is here, awaiting our seeing, our actions of doing , amongst the beauty and the ruin. 

To resolve forward will take a cavalcade of the like minded, the angry, romantic, visionary and builder: the circumvention of government, charlatans and false hoods. To resolve forward will demand our dexterity, our knowing from the gut, creative mind and strength of hand. It will take all this and more, all of us, in: acceptance of our failures, beauty in the eye of the seer. 

Vertical farm proposal for Brooklyn neighborhoods by designers Framlab

Define

We have lead ourselves to a time unlike no other, a time of crumbling governments, and the natural world. And in the middle of this we are still questioning our social norms of equality and our own self care. What is it that we are looking for that has brought us to a place of such ruin, or perhaps what have we lost is the better question. 

Often I think it’s not that we have lost our way, but seeking ourselves, searching for what we have dug out: discarded and assumed lost.  Like the minerals we’ve dug out since the Industrial Revolution, we have too, dug out the essence of who we are, our wonder and sense of place: who we are or think we are.

As a society, we have subjugated our emotions and brain capacity with technology, negating who we are for the sake of bravado of progress. We are at a place where so much is imploding from erosion of the self, so much so that the future seems ill fated, lacking the will that has moved us. Though soft in flesh it’s not weak in bone, as hope is born in the marrow. We know who we are, what we’ve done and can do. Its now perhaps a matter of reinterpretation, re-order and define. 

“As humans we are not easily definable, but what we have in common, the love of beauty, the spine of will and the soul of hope, tethers our humanity.”

If we are to accomplish what we have set out, we need to define a better picture of who we are, and follow our vision through will and through hope. Though difficult, as constraining water, a necessary process if we are to build the future we wish to see. As humans we are not easily definable, but what we have in common, the love of beauty, the spine of will and the soul of hope, tethers our humanity. 

Through the innate and creative self, the future possible is attainable. To see beauty, know will and to have hope, defines the path forward. And to know who we can be, defines the future. 

Architecture, society and the future. Extinction Rebellion, Waugh Thistleton Architects, Maria Smith, Adrian Lahoud and more delivered presentations on climate change at the Barbican Centre.