Lot 1699

Jan. 16, 2012 at 10:02am with 35 notes View comments

There was a time (not so) long ago… when people didn’t have sms or cellphones or data devices or blogs or social networking… AND IT WAS HELL, especially when you lost the scrap of paper you had written the gardener’s number on. And the garden was growing crazier by the day, and it was stressful, and you had NO GARDENER because you lost the fucking scrap of paper.

I told this sad story to a friend who said ‘does he have Facebook?’.

Maybe he does, what do I know? If anyone should have FB it’s gardeners, dammit! Then maybe FB would be less crazy, and more people would grow plants.

Anyway, I wrote a note and left it on the gate of the house where I saw him last.

Later that day, he came, tooting his motorbike horn at our front gate. I felt strangely gratified that my note worked. Scraps of paper… still hold us together!

Mr. Raman is a widower. His wife passed away 10 years ago. He has 2 grown up children, one in Perak and one in Pahang.

He chopped down a few huge branches that were beginning to touch our roof (surefire way to introduce termites into your home). Then he got out some rope.

Over one shoulder, casual as anything.

Off it goes.

Nih kita panggil skillz. In art as in life, figuring how to do shit with hardware is always harder compared to software. I’ve also realized that the results/solutions using hardware are almost ALWAYS simpler, more elegant and just… more exciting. That’s the difference between say, an iphone app and a soldering iron - different devices, different results. I love them both, but they’ll never replace each other and they are NOT THE SAME.

We need to remember how to do things with our hands. The other day I made a mistake while doing measurements for a pattern, and for a moment I swear I scrambled mentally for a Ctrl-Z undo in my mind before I realized this wasn’t Adobe Illustrator. The interesting thing is that I had prepared my pattern in Adobe, and was transferring it manually to a piece of cloth.

There’s a social divide between people who use hardware and people who use software, which I think could either get bigger or smaller, depending on how the world turns. I like using both. I’m grateful because I have a chance to use both. Sometimes I stop in my tracks when I realize art has allowed me to use all parts of my brain, hands and life - for that split second I see everything stretched out in front of me and behind me: a giant trail of fuckups, occasional brilliance and general adventure.

On my grave: Here she lies, all used up.

Strangely enough, thinking of my death has really started to calm me the fuck out. Didn’t use to be that way.

Use, use use it up - all the neuroses, and friendships and talent and analytical skills and hand-eye coordination and obsessions and passion in your life. Hardware, software. Twitter, Tumblr, AutoCAD, hammer, pliers, color pencils. Use it all up until the fountain is dry and you are as empty as a shell on the shore waiting for the sea to take you home…

Oh yes.

Did you see what happened to Yoko Ono’s iconic 1961 Painting To Hammer A Nail In? In an exhibition at Seattle Art Musuem in 2009, this is what it looked like at the end of the first week. Many people had nailed nails into this painting.