Tag: human nature

The Process of Curation

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            Thursday

A blonde man with thin sunglasses — always wearing a scarf – pays us. We meet every Thursday before each Art Walk. He shows us what will be displayed which is pretty helpful, but mostly it’s just a formality. We walk around, he tells us casual information, thinking we’re paying attention but we’re just waiting for the money.  

We all have our methods, it’s just me and a couple other friends right now, but there have been more; I’m not even part of the original “crew.” Phillip has gotten quite good at talking people into buying the art. Half of it is pieces of information from our Thursday walk-throughs, the rest he makes up. But somehow, he gets people to buy. I want to say it’s as easy as talking to everyone that walks in but I know it’s practiced and strategic. Jenn flirts with everyone but she also has ulterior motives. She plays a longer con which usually means the art isn’t all that’s taken home that night.

My go-to move are tears. Sometimes I’m loud and unattractive, other times I act uninterested until I find “the one” and I whisper a tear. I’m not always successful, but I keep the most attention and that’s more of my motivation. I like acting, I like having any type of sway over other people. Thinking about it, my goal is never to interact with the guests and always to focus on the art. Hmm.

            Friday

It helps to practice and see how people react. So we make a habit of going out to other museums. Today we’re in Los Angeles so there are plenty to choose from.

We ended up at the Getty Museum, there’s a consistent stock of all the “greats,” historic items, and just a pretty large space to have fun without much risk of getting kicked out for making a scene. There’s a lot to explore so we can spend a full day there, preparing for tomorrow night.

It’s very rare for us to actually make our way through any museum together. It is our livelihood so we do have to take it seriously to some extent. It’s great to have a group together because we learn the works we’re attracted to and we can keep an eye out for each other.

I lost Jenn almost immediately. Phillip made sure I knew every part of his plan for the next few hours, he absolutely loves to talk. It was a nice day, nicer than I’ve had in a while. I started skipping through the gallery before I found a larger crowd around the main exhibition. It helps to show emotion opposite the art so it’s good to walk into a room like a beam of sunlight, though, I was just skipping ‘cause I enjoyed it, but it definitely helped.

I managed to snake my way into the middle of the crowd and lose myself among them. There’s a weird amount of attention that people have in museums. The art and sculpture can make people linger for a moment but there’s rarely anyone who keeps focus on any one piece for more than a second or two. It’s almost like they aren’t really there for the art. This can make it hard to start at a painting you’re trying to sell. Usually, it’s best to make your way across a wall and lead up to a piece where you can really hone in your prowess. But this is more of a tactic for Phillip or Jenn. I’ve learned to keep to myself and just kind of bump into other guests, or excuse myself in front of them. I make myself noticeable before I do any actual work.

Somehow, I managed not to get anything done before I ran into Jenn. Normally, we don’t acknowledge each other but she quickly found out it was a slow day and decided she was bored. Before I tried to interrupt, she decided for the group we would head home so we set off to find Philip. It was fine, it was a nice day, I had no problem spending it exploring another part of the city.

            Saturday

The trick is enough eyeliner so that it smudges but not so much that it becomes a major distraction; I did not learn that easily, not my proudest moment. We spend most of the day getting ready, we didn’t have much to do anyways. We also may have stayed out a little later than we expected at on- two or three – uhh – restaurants.

One by one, we walk into the gallery. It’s best not to be together. It’s not like people are worried about us taking advantage of them (to some extent), but we are working and we do take it seriously. Well, we’re not working so hard, but it is best not to be distracted.

It’s funny, you’d think I would have remembered at least some of the work from Thursday but none of it seemed familiar. I don’t know what it was. I could not focus on any of the guests and I was not focused on making my normal passes. The colors surrounded me, bursting off the walls. I got lost in the dim lights and floated through the gallery before stopping in a section, away from everyone.

“Oh, that one’s mine.”

And I snap back to the piece in front of me. For some reason I had not connected any artist to their actual work. I’m drowning in my own thoughts from an image no larger than my head.  

But I can’t cry. I can’t do anything. I don’t know which of my feelings are stirred by the paint on this particular canvas.

He kept talking but I only heard the words written in the lines of his work.

I felt romance I didn’t understand, one you engage purely for yourself

I saw tears streaming off a brush, movement I didn’t know existed.

I saw a work no one else could buy.

An Image of Space from the World

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[Originally written in August 2014. This was posted on a different site, where one of my friends allowed me to spread all of my rambles and thoughts relating to movies and general life-things. It was accompanied by Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata,” which was his doing; apparently, it fit perfectly. Current accompaniment: Pink Floyd’s “One of These Days.” I have not changed anything. Scratch; I actually changed a few sentences for grammar and clarity.]

“

There is no void. Emptiness does not exist. Even if it may seem as though there is nothing, something is always present.

Darkness.

Light appears often to create contrast and allow for alternate perspectives. But it does not eliminate what it covers. Shadows remain. Semblances of what was and of what will return.

It is inescapable. It inhabits and consumes. It is vast and unending. There is also depth within. Not only gloom and desolation but tranquility and seclusion. Most often seen as frightening and lifeless. But people’s limits are the blinding components. The visualization is only one aspect of understanding a feature or characteristic: an understanding often forgotten. Not only are the limits of the self that which impose on darkness it is also the influence from others that creates the connotations of darkness within one’s mind.

Strength within is something that continually — gradually — seems to decline. Not because people are weak but because of instances like doubt and confusion; because they are lost. There is no guide with which anyone will travel.

Death — as the only existing guide — promotes fear and has been labeled, as Darkness has, without a comforting factor. But Death is the contrast to Life. As Yin is to Yang: there is no balance without both. There is completion in both. Feer is rooted in uncertainty and the uncertainty comes from the events that occur after death.

What people won’t allow is for death to act as the completing factor. They only allow for perspective to be created during Life. But without a second half, a significant Other, there is no balanse, sense, or structure.

But the Darkness does consume heavier than the Light. It creates its own uncertainty among unstable ground, promoting what people often accept as hopelessness. But neither is there certainty in any person’s words who has yet to encounter personal darkness in death. This ground is not a simple path and possibly not one to which every person will be attentive.

“

There’s Always More to Learn

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I should challenge more people directly. I should have challenged more people in past instances of my life. But I didn’t. I held back. Because people are fragile. It’s not that they don’t want to be challenged, only that they want to do it on their terms. If I challenged everyone when I should have it may have led to an influence towards change but, the chances of that happening now are lower than the chances of a person just getting mad, responding emotionally, and not realizing what I was challenging and how that could make them better. 

It’s not only that people are fragile, but also that once they understand another person, they expect certain things. People don’t expect a challenge from me. At least not all people and if they do it’s in a very specific place. When you do something people don’t expect from you it throws them off but if you act normally — however that may be — then everything is fine. I don’t blame other people for my lack of involvement, I understand that I have to also be active. But I do blame people — at least human nature — for not being more open to a consistent change in their environment. People don’t like thinking about their problems all the time, or complex ideas, so I often stay quiet or tailor my input to the conversation.

But in an academic environment, people are a bit more prepared for challenge. Still, in the current state (in the USA and to some degree, other countries), those challenges aren’t well-coordinated. Curriculum, public funding, and the lack of preparation that teachers are given do not account for the constant change and variety of thought that exists in a classroom. Students aren’t given the option to learn and their individual skills and interests aren’t properly addressed. Teachers give lessons and assignments that work for the a percentage of a classroom, but even a clock is right twice a day. Students are told they need to pay attention but they’re learning blindly, they have no direction.

People are protective of themselves and of others. Growing is hard, questioning your own beliefs and ideas: moreso. Having everything you understand about the world around you deconstructed by an other people is not something people willingly look for. But these things are necessary for progress. People are afraid of being mistaken and they don’t like admitting to being wrong but the way I understand the world around me is that we don’t actually know what is actually correct so I keep looking for new questions.

You have to think about creating change in terms of revolt and societal understandings. It has to be timed well, you have to know how to challenge so people learn and apply those lessons in real life. Education is hypothetical and people need to learn more to connect those ideas to the physical reality. I believe my role is to do challenge others to become better but I’m still working on how exactly to do that.