aesthetics of joy

Joymaker is a new series spotlighting people who seek to create joy in their work.

It takes a kind of joyful madness to hand-apply 100 lbs. of raspberry jam to a gallery wall. And that’s exactly what attracted me to the work of Naomi London, a visual artist based in Montreal, who tries to bring a voice for joy and play to contemporary art. London uses joyful forms, visual metaphors, and textures (such as polka dots) to give her audience a sense of delight.

I’m fascinated by the shiny, sticky surface of this enormous red wall. While a red wall might typically take on a violent or alarming quality, the material makes it totally disarming, even childlike. I wonder if it stayed sticky throughout the installation, and slightly fluid, shifting its mottles in a slow gravitational creep towards the floor. Or whether it stayed firm, drying like a giant fruit roll-up. I didn’t ask Naomi these silly questions, but I did ask her some others:

How do you want people to feel when they engage with your work?

I’m very interested in the notion of play in art. I’m hoping that when people see the Jam Wall they can appreciate the unexpected beauty of the colour, as well as the playful absurdity of using this material.

Can you talk more about this connection between joy and absurdity?

I associate absurdity very much with play, and play is joyful. Other connections include humour in the absurd, e.g. the odd rhymes and tongue twisters of several early Dr. Seuss books. I find that there is pleasure in being in a ‘non-logical place’ in your head, which is how I think of the absurd. It’s about the unexpected, fun, and delight that can be felt when exploring things that deliberately don’t make logical sense, but are full of wonder and joy. There is an importance in the purposelessness of the absurd, which is something that makes is joyful (to me) and thus also linked to play.

What is the role of joy in your work?

I think that joy, beauty, humour and play have been underrepresented in contemporary art over the last few decades. I’ve been interested in trying to address joy and happiness in my work for past ten years or so. I’m currently working on a sculpture installation project in homage to my mother, (who died just over two years ago). Even though it is a memorial work of sorts, I hope that it still somehow evokes a sense of joy.

I’m making a series of balls which are made exclusively out of fabric inherited from my mom. (She was a talented seamstress and made almost all my clothes during my childhood.)

What one object most symbolizes joy to you?

I think I’m torn between seeing the first tulips in early Spring and my favorite large white mixing bowl that I use when I bake a cake.

What’s inspiring you right now?

Colour, and the unexpected use of saturated colour: chartreuse yellow + green, fire engine red, brilliant orange.

What other designers, artists, or creators should Aesthetics of Joy readers know about?

There is an interesting website run by a researcher/academic in Rotterdam:  The World Database of Happiness. The layout of the site is dry aesthetically but I think that its wonderful that the subject of happiness is being studied in this way.

I like the work of Franz West very much. Another artist whose work I really like is Ana Rewakowicz.

You can see more of Naomi’s work here. (In particular, make sure to check out Polka Dot Wall, a site-specific installation I find very joyful.) Images courtesy of Naomi London.

These variegated poufs of carnations are like a gorgeous brand of cheerleaders’ pom-poms. I love how this arrangement makes a prosaic blossom seem so luxurious. They’re so tactile too — you can just imagine how the cool, feathery petals would feel on your hands.

{flowers by BORNAY}

Yesterday “Stripes!” and today “Fela!”  This might be the week of exclamation point titles. They’re the most joyful punctuation, and with all the work and so little sleep, I’m getting a little punchy. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll write about those bushmen whose name has the ! at the beginning, the !Kung, and then finish the week out with some Lichtenstein paintings!

Please, don’t mind me. Sleep deprivation makes me giddy. (!)

But back to the order of the day, which is a short note about Fela! the musical, a biopic about the legendary founder of the Afrobeat genre of music Fela Kuti, which has just moved to the Eugene O’Neill from Off-Broadway. My friend Maggie scored free tickets to the Saturday night preview show and I just could not stay at home with the laptop with that on offer. It would not have been the joyful thing to do.

I arrived flustered and let’s just be honest, more than a little cranky. I left light as a feather. What happened in between? Music, of course — Fela’s soul-stirring, body-shaking sounds, brought to life by Antibalas, a Brooklyn Afrobeat band, charismatic lead Sahr Ngaujah and the sensational Lillias White. Dancing — not just by men who seem born in motion and women whose bodies seem to be all hips and no spine, but by you too, every last gangly uncoordinated one of you. And the color and energy of costumes that are positively kinetic in their vibrancy.

I couldn’t help but dig up a little history. This video shows Fela in concert — his songs were known to run 20 minutes or longer — so you can get a feel for the music and the joyous performance style if you aren’t familiar with it.

On the revolutionary music blog Revolucion, No you can find lots more about Kuti’s music, as well as these great images of his “queens,” the women who were his dancers and also his wives. These really give you a sense of the gorgeous energy that inspired Marina Draghici’s wonderful costumes and sets.

The translation from history to real life is so vivid, so immersive, that you can’t help but feel that you’re in a completely different world for a few hours. You’re certainly a long way from Broadway!

Read the NYT review: Making Music Mightier Than the Sword
See images of the sets and costumes from the show
Get tickets here

I love the spontaneity and texture of these paintings layered over photographs by Gerhard Richter. I h0pe they brighten your Friday and that you have a lovely, joyful weekend!

Xx Ingrid

It’s Wednesday, so that must mean it’s time for some joyful art to get us over the hump, and make us forget all about the apocalypse down under.

Kimberly Hennessey makes sweet, crazy installations out of things like party hats and insulation foam. She also does gorgeous drawings that look like the sketch-filled notebook cover of the coolest, artsiest kid in school.

See more of her work here.

I’ve been meaning to do a post on joyful blankets for awhile, but today the gray, rainy weather really has me craving coziness. So put away the snuggie and wrap yourself up in something with a little more style and texture. Clockwise from top left: Uzbek suzanis, each one of a kind from L’Aviva Home; Saddle blankets from Roxtons; Ladak recycled moving blankets, embellished with ribbon and lace, available at Reform School; Vintage striped Moroccan blankets; Hand-crocheted Granny Square throw by Sandra Juto; Vintage Bolivian frasadas from Twine.

Enjoy your weekend. Stay warm and happy!

xx Ingrid

This joyful roof, tweeted by @design_sponge and found on MandR, sent me off in search of others. My mind first went to the marvelous glazed tiled roofs in Burgundy, such as the one in the upper left below, from the Hospices de Beaune. It looks to me a like a carpet laid out. Then I remembered China, and the amazing color and texture of many palace roofs, like the large image in the middle. A Flickr search uncovered many more joyful roofs, with wonderfully textured tiles, light-capturing glass, wavy forms, and the charming patina of old age. And how could I forget the exuberant sails of the Jorn Utzon’s Sydney Opera House.

A roof is often a forgotten element of home design. I grew up in a home that had those dull gray-black shingles, the kind that felt like sandpaper while I was climbing it (to my father’s chagrin). But that common oversight makes it all the more surprising and delightful when you come across a special one.

Images left to right and top to bottom: Polar lights, miuenski, Guy Hunkin, ruthness, Manuel Barroso Parejo,  ~morsus~, anneinparis16, Alex E. Proimos.

Today’s first bit of joy comes from illustrator/photographer Garance Doré’s wonderful vacation shots of a little girl she met on the beach in Corsica. A friend once said to me that she frequently has the urge to dress like a little girl, pulling out an orange top and a pink skirt and believing that the two look just perfect together. Before the anxieties about body image, tween trends, and peer-pressures set in, girls take a pleasure in dressing that is deliciously pure. The little girl fashion sense revels in color, delights in texture, and gives credence to the David Hicks maxim, “Colors do not clash. They vibrate.”

This photo makes me want to do my errands in a skirt like that, worn with a t-shirt in some bright shade of red or yellow. And if it’s raining, maybe add some wellies and a striped umbrella?

I guess moss isn’t the most obviously joyful plant. It doesn’t have brightly colored, showy flowers. It doesn’t have alluring scents. You can climb it, swing from its branches or play hide-and-seek behind its trunk.

But what moss lacks in all these ways, it makes up for in the pure delight of abundant texture. Moss is one of my fingertips’ absolute favorite things to touch. Like the scene in Amélie where she plunges her hands into a sack of dried beans just to revel in the sensation, my senses derive pure joy from the soft, cushiony texture of healthy moss.

This moss appeared on the last day of the trip. It’s the dry season, and most of the Galapagos landscape is desertlike, with spindly trees, spiky cacti, and a ground cover of greyish succulents. But on the last day we headed to the highlands to seek out some tortoises, and the lush, jungle-like environment was a delight after so much dryness. Rich, tactile mosses were everywhere, but of course when traveling in a foreign place the rule is look but don’t touch, and I had to be content with just a photo.

An attempt to bring “joyous vibrancy” to the city is how Renzo Piano describes his plan to cloak the facades of the new Central Saint Giles development with brightly colored ceramic cladding. He says:

The colour idea came from observing the sudden surprise given by brilliant colours in that part of the city. Cities should not be boring or repetitive. One of the reasons cities are so beautiful and a great idea, is that they are full of surprises, the idea of colour represents a joyful surprise.

Against the muted, often grey backdrop of the London cityscape, I think it would be a joy to walk around the corner and be surprised by the delicious glossiness of red or yellow glazed ceramic. They have the rich sensory appeal of the ripe-apple red double-decker buses or the mailboxes or the Beefeater uniforms. The yellow is like a bright umbrella or a pair of wellies in a storm. These oases of color are arguably more important in London life because of the climate. It will be interesting to see public response to these when they are up.

Thanks Maggie for the tip!

More info and images here.

Recently I’ve come across a lot of projects related to the idea of seeding joy and hope by just putting some positive energy out there. The good vibes aren’t directed at anyone in particular — they’re public, designed to touch strangers, people you’ve never met and may never actually meet.

One of these projects is You Are Beautiful. As part of the project, stickers like the ones above are distributed free of charge for anyone to place in whatever public places they choose. As the statement on their website says:

You Are Beautiful uses the medium of advertising and commercialization to spread a positive message. Projects like these make a difference in the world by catching us in the midst of daily life and creating moments of positive self realization.

The two key joyful elements here are surprise and transcendence. The surprise of seeing a positive, anonymous message catches our attention and interrupts whatever frame of mind we were in. That interruption, in turn, leads to a moment of transcendence, where the beauty of the sentiment is absorbed in what You Are Beautiful calls a “moment of positive self realization.” Ideally, it causes a shifting of perspective that makes us feel, if not beautiful, then at least connected to something beautiful.

Another variation on this theme is the yarnbombing movement, which is documented beautifully by Leanne Prain and Mandy Moore on their blog and forthcoming book of the same name. Yarnbombing, also known as guerrilla knitting, is an affectionate term for a kind of soft grafitti, where artists attach knit or crocheted “tags” of brightly colored yarn to elements of the landscape. Often found in urban settings, these tags brighten the environment and invite people to consider their surroundings in a new way. Sometimes just the sight of a knitted sleeve around a bus stop sign post will make people smile and share a laugh, connecting in ways they wouldn’t otherwise. I did an interview with Leanne earlier this summer, and she had so many wonderful insights that I’ll definitely be posting more on this topic (after I’ve finished chs 1 and 2…).

One more example is Operation Nice, a project designed to add a little positive energy to the world through gestures. A variant on the theme of random acts of kindness, Operation Nice posts examples of extraordinary niceness to inspire others to do the same. Reading the stories, you can’t help but feel good, and motivated to pass the positive energy along.

This positive energy is all the more powerful for being undirected. The joy of those who create it is purely in the giving, without even the satisfaction of seeing the results of their efforts. Once released, these positive vibes are free to ricochet around and recombine, creating unexpected combinations that compound the joy they bring. Recipients of kind acts may in turn spread more kindness, and those who witness an interjection of joy into their environment may be inspired to transform their world in their own way.

Image: temp13rec.