Fundamental to most thinking is the notion of bigger is better and or harder, but often that’s not the case. when doing fine art at Leeds uni I saw many students being encouraged to ‘make it big’ like some how there original concept was lacking so one way to solve it quickly and usually easily was to scale up physically because there you can create the wow factor much quicker. The common phrase ‘ little things please little minds’ however when really looked at falls apart. eg. people who stare at massive screens filled with hollow content for most of there waking life and need huge theme parks to go to are broadly speaking those who think very little, where as those who can find pleasure in the small things in life could often be said to have great minds.
Along side this perhaps backwards notion of bigger is better is the idea that a wooden spoons will be easier and cheaper and less significant than say a wooden bowl or a chair, to a table, or to a house etc.
However this again is not consistent with the reality of it. often bigger things can be far easier to make than smaller things. An example is I found a carved wooden bowl far easier to make than a carved wooden spoon, and can often selling a bowl for more money easier than a wooden spoon even thought the spoons took far more work and skill to make. It doesn’t take much for a bowl to ‘work’ as intended however when I first started making spoons with out any guidance they would rarely function particularly well.
Preconceived ideas of scale are all around us, going unquestioned and often undealt with. everything around us makes ripples and affects things around it. something that starts small can grow to be massive (not meaning better).
One more example abut scale could be ‘it’s a small world’ it’s not a small world relatively speaking. No it’s a connected world.
Let’s challenge all notions that no longer serve us and connect more on a deeper level
2carvedspoons 