Reflection

September 28, 2018 Carl Barnett

Berlin Based Artist Jeppe Hein — **Berlin Based Artist** **Jeppe Hein**

“Morphing to the future that has wings.”

We have found ourselves in a place of reflection and action, identity and doing. An act of digging out and digging paths. Saying who we are and being who we are. Morphing to the future that has wings.

Struggle continues to be what we do, as change is to struggle, bud to bloom. This is what we do as human kind, creatures on a changing planet whirling in unknown space. It is our given, what we reflect on and act against as we push forward, metaphors of pitchforks and fire.

BIG Architecture “ORB” at Burning Man — **BIG Architecture** “ORB” at Burning Man

However, our reflection has turned more outward showing the ills before us, shining light onto the blinded, self afflicted and myopic. Under the psychologists lens it is telling, burning under the bright light of exposure and truths.

“Showing the way and the way that isn’t. Past, present and future.”

This act of reflection is as crystal, fracturing light onto surfaces, lives and bodies. Showing the way and the way that isn’t. Past, present and future.

It is this action, this clear reflection that will move us forward and keep us forward, struggling as we do, whirling as we must.

Intention

September 25, 2018 Carl Barnett

Meaning is something I often work through in my mind these days, our era of troubled politics and life as we know it. The intent of all that I do resurfaces, a needed airing out as laundry on a line.

There are many ways to approach a creative arena style wise, but it is the why that clarifies intention. This is what often circles within my mind, the why before the what, especially now, as I dig up and bury resolution.

“This is my intention, my why.”

There is a bigger picture that most excites me, the utility of design. What design can do. The inspiration of the creative mind, making and doing. This is what raises my passion. Enfolding the makers into an interior space creates a lasting impact, a tapping into emotion, evoking thought and inspiring better living. It is through the support of the creative arenas within a simplified space that I hope to evoke meaning and facilitate nourishment for mind and body. This is my intention, my why.

“A creative resolution of utility and passion.”

It is this layering within space that I intend a counter to our everyday. To ease and evoke, inspire and to be inspired. This is what the creative mind can do, what our making does. It is this I intend, what gives me reason. To offer a resolve, a small gesture if only for a moment. A creative resolution of utility and passion.

Origami Unfolding

September 24, 2018 Carl Barnett

When I was a child I constantly played with Lincoln Logs and Legos and drawing wild architectural renderings. All this fed my desire to be an architect. Growing older I spent my allowance on Architectural Digest, designing my bedroom and rearranging furniture in our family home, much to my father’s shagrin. All the while drawing portraits and landscapes, excelling in all my art and drafting classes. I dreamt of being an artist in NYC, finally choosing an extensive study in the arts. A path I never regret.

It’s interesting how life shows itself, complex and simple from a distance. And yet, as we know very little is simple, only simplified at best, boiled down to bone, the structures upon which life is layered.

At this time in my life I am most interested in the uncomplicated. The clarity of honesty, purity of intent, words and materials. Life as we know it has a complexity only an architect can try to render and an artist can continue to try and express. This is the calumniation I try to work within to better understand and temper our current era. It is through design that I layer all that I have explored in my years of living. My blood is full of memory, my bone solidified by continued desire, my mind wanders through the realm of future possibilities. At this point, my life is as origami unfolding, un-creasing back to the simplified sheet of pure white paper. Time is not linear, it moves backward to unveil the new.

I have a passion for all that I do. For politics in its fight for human rights. For family lost and family gained. A passion for creating the future positive, an action I take with a strong stance. I have a curious mind and a desire of persistence. This is what time has built, a foundation to build upon. A structure of creative know-how and romantic wonder and will. It is this that my life has given me and what I am giving to life.

Structure

September 23, 2018 Carl Barnett

It is the connection between emotion and object that we make sense of our world. Life and our participation within. Our homes and how we surround ourselves in these spaces helps to inform and transform our belief systems. It is an intimacy of inner and outer self. Nature and nurture. The relationship between the romantic wonderer and pragmatic gatherer. A fluid imbalance of who we are and desire.

It is often said that who we are in reality is how we think. Our routines, what we collect and our connections between others and nature speaks volumes as to how we see ourselves. Our lives are cabinets of curiosities, maps in chalk and story books. We add and subtract as necessary both in doctrine and action in search of meaning, compartmentalizing and shifting in our hierarchy of needs and wants. It is this movement, our building of our external world that we create our futures, that we create change. An interplay of choices and action.

Joseph Cornell “Unititled“ (Aviary With Yellow Birds)

The boxes we live within are the grids we expand upon. An ever changing structure of implied and actual walls. An interaction of nature, politics and the self in all its wonder and complexities. The flux of nature and the natural self. Life within our living, beauty and the disorientation reality sometimes brings.

Life is not a fixed structure, though it may seem as though especially within our cities, our gridded and stacked patterns, separating nature from the natural self. A counter intuitive built environment. It is our creative mind that can unfix the seemingly fixed, stretching and morphing our ways of life. How we live today can be the testament of our tomorrows, this is in how we see beauty and its opposite. How we teardown and rebuild, unfurling the future of possibility.

CB 09/23/18

Meaningful Minimal

September 18, 2018 Carl Barnett

I am in constant pursuit of the meaningful minimal. A sifting for the calm within this era of chaos. It is this search that I hope to find a truer and essential way of life that captures and facilitates a better way of living or perhaps a clearer way of living. A space that allows us to counter our everyday, to reflect, think and enjoy rather than distract and purely entertain.

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“The inspiration you seek is already within you. Be silent and listen.” ~Rumi

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This approach is a culmination of space, art, time and emotion. A layering. It is also the addition of politics and nature as these too are a part of who we are. Not separate from but encircled within. To dwell within the meaningful minimal is not to run from our struggles in life but to see them more clearly and hopefully break them down into smaller parts.

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“If you give people nothingness, they can ponder what can be achieved from that nothingness.” ~Tadao Ando

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It is through the built environment and personal drive that we can achieve, regardless of what achieve personally means. It is my strong belief that we can overcome our current struggles as many of them we have created. Through desire, will, the creative mind and the clarity of personal space can we move through our current challenges.

To stop and see what is around us in a clearer way can we see the way. Not as spiritual enlightenment but as matter of fact, a matter of seeking and doing. We are surrounded by a world of beauty, wonder and great achievement and simplification can be a way to better see the world. Life is difficult enough, why add more.

CB 09/18/18