Maeda's SIMPLICITY

Beauty is the Experience

What is beautiful to you?

I was recently interviewed by a German magazine regarding the beautiful objects that I own ... I realized that ownership ceases to make things beautiful.

As I look for designed objects in my studio that "signify beauty" I find many examples, yet none of them are entirely beautiful to me. I find beauty in freshness and fragility -- two qualities that the modern designed object is not allowed to possess. Once an object is acquired, it eventually becomes stale in your apartment; were an object to be crafted as to break upon the slightest touch, it could not be sold. For these reasons I find my beauty in nature, where every item has a purpose and a life cycle that is perfectly natural.

The moth: On a walk around my home, I saw this beautiful white moth dying on the paved road. The contrast between the whiteness of nature, and the darkness of manmade materials -- combined with the two deaths -- one of the moth, the other of the ground that lay beneath the pavement. This complex, yet simple moment of the lightness of life to soon vanish into the dark ... rendered in a black and white palette represents the kind of beauty that cannot be owned, but only experienced.

Posted by maeda at September 19, 2005 08:58 AM