I've worked average jobs for average pay my whole life. I was never that into any of the jobs. I didn't have any particular goal in mind when I took them. I didn't think they'd help me climb the ladder to someplace better down the line. I didn't have a career in mind. The point of a job, to me, was money. I didn't go far beyond that mentally. I've always had a taste for the finer things though. Still do. I feel like I was born for a higher station in life.
For the most part people don't understand what makes something extraordinary. I appreciate quality. I understand fine wine, nice clothes, expensive jewelry, fast cars. I understand all of it. I understand how it makes people feel. I know what's interesting visually. I have an eye for it. I get why those things are so expensive. It sucks knowing what's good and not being able to afford it, but almost no one can.
What the average working person can afford is by definition average. I get it. I don't think the best of anything should be affordable. It wouldn't be valuable otherwise. For now I'm content with being able to admire luxury from afar, which, living in a big city I'm able to regularly do.
I go down to Pařížská Street probably two, three times a month. For any readers outside of Prague, Pařížská is where you find high end stores like Louis Vuitton, Prada, Fendi, Gucci, and Burberry. I window shop and look at the clothes. I wanna see the shapes, the colors, the patterns, the textures, and the fit. High end clothing stores are selling taste and style, which I find very interesting. The ideas don't have to be original, but they do have to be fresh. I go down there to see something I've never seen before. It seems like everything I see around me in everyday life has been the way it's been for a long, long time. All the buildings look like buildings. Every car's been the same car for a while now. I'm looking for the future. Where's the future?
Most people have no imagination at all. We don't put a lot of value on it unless it's used to create value (aka make bank). I don't see fresh ideas in many other places. It feels like fashion brands are in the business of pushing things forward visually. I used to think that was the territory of artists.
On the way from where I live down to Pařížská, you pass a number of private art galleries. Every one of them is empty. There might be a person inside behind an iMac, but there are no patrons. Maybe it's different in other major cities.
Just a stone's throw from Pařížská is the National Gallery at Kinsky Palace. It's only slightly less empty than the art galleries in the area, but there are some amazing things to see there. The collection at this particular location contains thousands of pieces of art from Asia. I was thinking about what makes these objects so beautiful. I know there's something called Classical Beauty, but I don't know how to define it. I was looking for things the most beautiful pieces had in common. There were some things. They were all made of an expensive material (like gold, marble, jade, or silver), they all carried a message of some kind (sometimes literally a message, such as I was King and I was rich), and they were all made with a high level of craftsmanship.
It's interesting to make the connection here over thousands of years and thousands of miles between the very old and the very new. Seeing what people value, seeing what they buy, what they want, is interesting to me. The ingredients, it seems, don't change.
I think back to one dress I saw in the window at Gucci. The dress, black with a hollow red octagon pattern, is sleeveless and runs to about the knee. On the upper part of the dress there are silver metal octagons embroidered on top of the red octagons. The bottom is left alone. It's simple, clean, and elegant. The choice to leave the embellishments off the bottom of the dress is an interesting one. This is what I'm talking about. It's a small thing, but you don't see ideas like this anywhere else. You don't see anybody pull back like that when it's enough.
That dress in the window at Gucci, when we talk about it sitting across from each other at the pub, about what makes it special, my passion for these sorts of things reflects back on me from her eyes. I can see that these are the things you talk about. Whether it's art or clothes or books or movies, these are they.
For the most part people don't understand what makes something extraordinary. I appreciate quality. I understand fine wine, nice clothes, expensive jewelry, fast cars. I understand all of it. I understand how it makes people feel. I know what's interesting visually. I have an eye for it. I get why those things are so expensive. It sucks knowing what's good and not being able to afford it, but almost no one can.
What the average working person can afford is by definition average. I get it. I don't think the best of anything should be affordable. It wouldn't be valuable otherwise. For now I'm content with being able to admire luxury from afar, which, living in a big city I'm able to regularly do.
I go down to Pařížská Street probably two, three times a month. For any readers outside of Prague, Pařížská is where you find high end stores like Louis Vuitton, Prada, Fendi, Gucci, and Burberry. I window shop and look at the clothes. I wanna see the shapes, the colors, the patterns, the textures, and the fit. High end clothing stores are selling taste and style, which I find very interesting. The ideas don't have to be original, but they do have to be fresh. I go down there to see something I've never seen before. It seems like everything I see around me in everyday life has been the way it's been for a long, long time. All the buildings look like buildings. Every car's been the same car for a while now. I'm looking for the future. Where's the future?
Most people have no imagination at all. We don't put a lot of value on it unless it's used to create value (aka make bank). I don't see fresh ideas in many other places. It feels like fashion brands are in the business of pushing things forward visually. I used to think that was the territory of artists.
On the way from where I live down to Pařížská, you pass a number of private art galleries. Every one of them is empty. There might be a person inside behind an iMac, but there are no patrons. Maybe it's different in other major cities.
Just a stone's throw from Pařížská is the National Gallery at Kinsky Palace. It's only slightly less empty than the art galleries in the area, but there are some amazing things to see there. The collection at this particular location contains thousands of pieces of art from Asia. I was thinking about what makes these objects so beautiful. I know there's something called Classical Beauty, but I don't know how to define it. I was looking for things the most beautiful pieces had in common. There were some things. They were all made of an expensive material (like gold, marble, jade, or silver), they all carried a message of some kind (sometimes literally a message, such as I was King and I was rich), and they were all made with a high level of craftsmanship.
It's interesting to make the connection here over thousands of years and thousands of miles between the very old and the very new. Seeing what people value, seeing what they buy, what they want, is interesting to me. The ingredients, it seems, don't change.
I think back to one dress I saw in the window at Gucci. The dress, black with a hollow red octagon pattern, is sleeveless and runs to about the knee. On the upper part of the dress there are silver metal octagons embroidered on top of the red octagons. The bottom is left alone. It's simple, clean, and elegant. The choice to leave the embellishments off the bottom of the dress is an interesting one. This is what I'm talking about. It's a small thing, but you don't see ideas like this anywhere else. You don't see anybody pull back like that when it's enough.
That dress in the window at Gucci, when we talk about it sitting across from each other at the pub, about what makes it special, my passion for these sorts of things reflects back on me from her eyes. I can see that these are the things you talk about. Whether it's art or clothes or books or movies, these are they.
Nicely put, and you should consider compiling these posts and select pieces of your art into some type of publication, something that shows people a "fresh" approach to the world around them, a world they pass by every day and never see.
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