The greater the tension, the greater is the potential. Great energy springs from a correspondingly great tension of opposites. -Carl Jung


Last Friday night, we held MFA open studios. In my studio, I hung documentation from my last two projects (Uprooted and the Jackson Middle School residency) and put my drafting table square in the middle of the room covered in white butcher paper. On the table, I placed markers and large plate of snickerdoodle cookies. I asked people if they took a cookie, to write down the first thing that came to mind when they bit into the cookie right onto the table. It was a fun “mini event” with memories ranging from the quirky to touching.

I admit I was extremely surprised to come into my studio space earlier today to find this piece defaced and ruined. Who could do such a thing? And why would they? After the initial shock, I went back and re-examined the piece. What I found most interesting was this beautiful gesture I was in the midst of creating now had the tension of opposites juxtaposed on it loud and clear. In searching for the beauty of an honest answer from people, I received a well-rounded portrayal of man kind.

What also came as a surprise, but a pleasant one, was the wild abandon of the organic nature the project took on. Already an organic piece, it took off like a Mile-A-Minute weed in an ornamental garden, giving it whole new shape and dimension. In my previous post,
Food Typ (ologies)/(ographies), I wrote that I was using food as a gateway for a holistic approach to probelm solving. “By identifying that we as people are dynamic and in no way one dimensional, we are opening up the door to a well-rounded creative approach to problem solving. Through this approach, it is not about airing our dirty laundry, but simply about bringing our whole selves to the table, not denying the many parts of our selves, and helping contribute to a new way of generating ideas.“

I do not think that anything more holistic could have presented itself in this situation. This became a true testament to the tensions or dynamism that makes us up as individuals and how those attributes contribute to the greater whole.

When there is beauty, a shadow is always near. This incident was a lesson to myself that these inexorable opposites are always present. But more importantly, this duality is what ignites new ideas, change, and progress. Without war, how could we know peace, without lame graffiti-esk vagina’s, how could we really know or appreciate someones memory about their grandmother. By having these contrasting elements right on top of one another, it creates a true tension, adding another element of duality and human-ness to the piece as a whole. Defaced art? or life lesson? Well, I think a little of both as they have become inspirations for new ideas and approaches.

We must be able to let things happen in the psyche. For us, this becomes a real art… Consciousness is forever interfering, helping, correcting, and negating, never leaving the single growth of the psychic processes in peace.
-Carl Jung