Limits

January 14, 2009 1:06 PM

The value of limits, expressed through the process of a four-year-old making a painting.

UNIFORM Studio journal is written by Martha, who makes clothes as well as architecture, and records the process behind her clothing designs along with reflections on the things, textures, light and ideas around her.

Also, the painting's pretty sweet.

posted by carbide (14 comments total)

Martha also runs a flickr group for still lifes, which follows the poetic, reflective thread too.
posted by carbide at 1:08 PM on January 14

When I read the post on the front page I totally thought it would be about limits in calculus.

This is good too though.
posted by Chan at 1:15 PM on January 14

That first article is fail for not having a picture of the finished painting.
posted by autodidact at 1:23 PM on January 14

Here is the finished painting.
posted by CheshireCat at 1:25 PM on January 14 [1 favorite has favorites]

You and me both, Chan. Now I'm trying to think up meaningful ways to take the "limit" of a series of pictures; I sort of wonder what would come out.

Of course the actual limits the post is talking about are also interesting. Avoidance of the paradox of choice an such. Although really I wonder here if the author isn't simply trying to impose her own idea of "art" on her son; real "art" involves blank space, so the picture could have used more.

Seperately though I've personally found a restricted palette to be a joy in its own way; once upon a time I was trying to use up some extra browns, reds, and yellows, so I decided to paint something with only those. One of the more interesting things I ever made, even if the limit was entirely practical in nature.
posted by nat at 1:28 PM on January 14

I don't see any delta-epsilon proofs. What the bloodclot?
posted by chunking express at 1:31 PM on January 14 [1 favorite has favorites]

I hear you about the calculus, but I was totally thinking it had more to do with Statistics.

Of course I was also thinking that you could mean this from more of a current events perspective.

Then again maybe you mean something about scarcity...

Ultimately though I'm out of time to write more for this post, so I'll leave you with this.
posted by Nanukthedog at 1:35 PM on January 14

Interesting. It's self-imposed-limits day here on the blue — the oblique strategies, a few posts down, are about more or less the same thing. It turns out creative freedom is a pain in the ass, and it's useful to have some arbitrary constraints.
posted by nebulawindphone at 1:39 PM on January 14

Total freedom leads to noise.

Total rigidity leads to stagnation.

Art is the sweet spot in between.

Art is playfulness within boundaries.

The true artists completely understand the boundaries and does not try to push past them; the true artists completely understands the elasticity between the boundaries and stretches it to its fullest.
posted by grumblebee at 1:52 PM on January 14 [2 favorites has favorites]

This is wonderful. I love kids, and art, and hope to work with both. (I currently work with just kids, though I try to throw some art at them every so often. I gave them cameras for Christmas!) Very inspiring post. Thanks!
posted by grapefruitmoon at 2:02 PM on January 14

I currently work with just kids, though I try to throw some art at them every so often

I tried that the other way around once, but neither his parents nor the museum staff were very amused.
posted by doctoryes at 2:09 PM on January 14 [2 favorites has favorites]

I've done some of my best cooking when there wasn't much of anything in the fridge.
posted by pointilist at 3:56 PM on January 14 [1 favorite has favorites]

That's a beautiful painting. This reminds me of a great quote from the play Six Degrees of Separation:

When the kids were little, we went to a parents' meeting at their school and I asked the teacher why all her students were geniuses in the second grade? Look at the first grade. Blotches of green and black. Look at third grade. Camouflage. But the second grade-- your grade. Matisses everyone. You've made my child a Matisse. Let me study with you. Let me into the second grade! What is your secret? And this is what she said: "Secret? I don't have any secret. I just know when to take their drawings away from them."

posted by gwint at 4:13 PM on January 14 [5 favorites has favorites]

This is what I love about the 8bit graphics scenes - Limits begat creativity. 16 fixed colours or bust.
posted by jaymzjulian at 11:56 PM on January 14