I once made an origami rose for a friend. Written inside was a poem I composed one night when I had an excess of forlorn emotions. One of my best pieces. In order to read the poem, she would have to destroy the rose, ruining the piece in itself, though satiating her curiosity. If she never opened it, she would never be able to see exactly what I wrote.
For me, art must have three attributes; it must be aesthetically pleasing in some way, it must carry a message, and I must be able to understand it or relate to it in some way. So many people seem so superficial to me when they put paintings in their house, or statuettes, about things they don’t understand. They own these pieces because “they like them”. They enjoy looking at them. Do they understand what the artist was thinking when he or she used a certain stroke of the brush? For all they know, the sculpture could be a message about anything they normally wouldn’t agree with. They don’t understand what the artist was trying to do. They can’t appreciate the piece. It saddens me.
So I made another piece, as a representation of the rose I made for my friend, because I enjoyed it so much, it is a symbol for something I created. It is a similar rose, but with the words “art for art for art for…” written all over it. When I look at it, it reminds me of my friend, what I was thinking when I gave away such a precious piece, and what she’s doing right now.
And to this day I don’t know if she opened it.