-
Is this thing on?
Hello and welcome.
I am writing this after months of hemming and hawing about whether or not I actually would create a blog or website in the hopes of forcing myself to write. One of the main issues I had was figuring out what exactly I would write about; I somehow had too many ideas and simultaneously felt like I had absolutely nothing to say. I still feel like that is the case, and I realized I probably always will. So I decided to bite the bullet after yet another emotional crisis about my career, the world, and purpose.
I decided to start broad and begin focusing on “ugliness”. Ugliness, especially ugly art, is not something I can define or pinpoint to any specific characteristic. Some would say that ugliness is the absence of beauty, but I don’t think I’d agree. Ugliness can be intoxicating, awe-inspiring, terrifying, and funny. Umberto Eco says it best, beauty is boring.
“Beauty is, in some way, boring. Even if its concept changes through the ages… a beautiful object must always follow certain rules. A beautiful nose shouldn’t be longer than that or shorter than that, on the contrary, an ugly nose can be as long as the one of Pinocchio, or as big as the trunk of an elephant, or like the beak of an eagle, and so ugliness is unpredictable, and offers an infinite range of possibility. Beauty is finite, ugliness is infinite like God.”
Umberto Eco, On UglinessIf ugliness is infinite, that could mean I will never run out of things to write about. Ugliness is unlimited, it can be seen throughout history, ugliness often relates to politics and societal norms, it changes but also can stay the same. Ugliness comes in many flavors and colors, various textures and sounds and images and words. It’s a never-ending buffet full of jello molds, aspic, moldy fruit, and stinky cheese. If I’m writing about ugliness, I can write about anything. So that’s what I plan on doing, and maybe, just maybe, if this thing is, in fact on, someone other than me will read it.
Ugly Art 