Shape...
The relationship between expression + function
Shape.
It is a noun— A boundary or surface; a two dimensional or three dimensional form.
It is a verb— to guide, to “shape”, to influence something into being.
Sometimes still, sometimes moving.
Sometimes it is functional, other times it is expressive.
Sometimes grasped…. sometimes out of reach…
sometimes cuts… sometimes cozy.
Sometimes helps… other times obstructs.
In Anne Bogart’s View Points, Shape is something we can make with our own bodies, or we can make them as a collective. Shapes can be the space around us.
But always found in
Lines, Curves, or Combinations there of.
I have my favorites, or those that bring me comfort.
Other shapes I have an aversion to, or they make me uneasy.
Just like I have a favorite coffee mug. It doesn’t have a handle.
It sits in the soft part of my hand like a warm hug from an old friend. That shape brings me comfort. Where as, the concrete grids in industrial areas make me uneasy as I feel small and out of place as a soft body navigating through steel, iron and concrete.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean I only like curves or soft shapes.
In last weeks post about Spatial Relationship, I shared how context is important, and it is also important in Shape… (as I guess it is important in “meaning making” in general.)
There is something satisfying about clean sharp lines in the medical building.
Seeing all the corners, the hardness of the surfaces signals to me cleanliness and order.
Even if I am standing in a long queue of people waiting to get into the DMV, or where ever, if that line is straight or ordered… I have assurance that “my time will come”… but if it is more of a cluster without a clear delineation of where it begins or ends, I feel uneasy. Not just that I don’t know where I should be, but perhaps the organizers do not know either.
Shapes make up the space.
Shapes fill the space. Shapes move through the space.
Balance. Discord. Harmony. Dissonance.
Beauty. Chaos. All at our disposal.
