The Direction of Intention

It really does not take much to transform a room. New furniture, accent walls or refreshed paint, area rugs…are all viable options. However, none of these work as well or as effortlessly as two googly eyes stuck on the wall. Try it. Your space will immediately have a new, unique personality. It will have an undeniable focal point. It will immediately fill guests with questions. It will, just like your conscience, look back at you. You will wonder what your new room reveals about your personality. You will catch yourself pondering what your room is thinking. Someday, inevitably, you will find yourself talking to your wall.

All of this transformation with the simple addition of two dime store googly eyes.

Keep in mind that three eyes are not better than two. One eye will confuse or irritate rather than illuminate. Eyes on every wall will cancel the magic. If personification is the goal, then two eyes are requisite. No more. No less.

It takes very little to personify, to project human qualities and traits onto – into – something as abstract as a wall. It’s why we find deep comfort in teddy bears or reach for the wisdom of the man in the moon. They look back at us. We endow them with compassion or quietly listen to the messages brought to us by the wind.

Conversely, it takes very little to dehumanize a human being. As easily as we assign humanity to objects we just as easily deny humanity to people. We make them objects. It’s easier to scoop them off the streets and put them into camps if we objectify them, if we downgrade their humanity. If we blame them for what ails us.

It’s simple. All we need do is project onto them our cruelty. Keep in mind, to be successful dehumanizers, it’s especially necessary to avoid opening your eyes. Opening your eyes will immediately fill you with questions about yourself. It will ignite your conscience; you will see “their” eyes looking back at you. You will wonder what your projection onto “them” reveals about you.

It really doesn’t take much to transform a culture. All you need do is close your eyes. It is just as effective to look the other way. It will serve to stifle questions especially the self-reflective variety. Averting or closing the eyes is especially useful when it is necessary to deny the obvious or to endow fiction with substance or abdicate personal responsibility. Choosing blindness you will become an easy mark, effortlessly misled.

All of this transformation with the simple condition of closing the eyes.

Rest assured, in the absence of sight, your community will have a new, unique personality.

read Kerri’s blogpost about EYES

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Filed under: Identity, Metaphor, Seeing, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, blindness, conscience, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, denial, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, misleading, personality, personification, questions, self reflection, sight, story, studio melange, the melange, transformation |