Skull bookshleves formed with everyday items: As many artists know, ‘vanitas’ can be defined as a type of symbolic art, often including symbols like skulls, rotten fruit, hourglasses, and other items related to the brevity of life and the certainty of death. London-based artist James Hopkins’ series Vanitas is quite a clever, modern take on this still life genre.
I actually attack the concept of happiness. I don’t mind people being happy - but the idea that everything we do is part of the pursuit of happiness seems to me a really dangerous idea and has led to a contemporary disease in Western society, which is fear of sadness. Wholeness is what we ought to be striving for and part of that is sadness, disappointment, frustration, failure; all of those things which make us who we are. Happiness and victory and fulfillment are nice little things that also happen to us, but they don’t teach us much. Everyone says we grow through pain and then as soon as they experience pain they say “Quick! Move on! Cheer up!” I’d like just for a year to have a moratorium on the word “happiness” and to replace it with the word “wholeness”. Ask yourself “is this contributing to my wholeness?” and if you’re having a bad day, it is.
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| — | Hugh Mackay (via her0inchic) |
