Object Empathy: January 5-12, 2023
The Mission:
This week’s mission is borrowed from Brooklyn-based artist Diana Shpungin via “The Art Assignment,” and asks you to show empathy for an object instead of a person. Find an object you feel bad for. “Fix it” in your own style. Bonus points if you tell us how you think you’ve helped this object and/or why you felt bad for it in the first place.
The Submissions:
by Heart of Darkness
Empathy: my notes. I’ve kept the same notebook from the time I started my second masters in 2019 until now. We’re at page 191, now building notes for my doctoral program and dissertation work. It’s dry. It’s heavy. It’s hundreds of pages of notes on education, played out during a pandemic, but I get great satisfaction at least making the pages look nice.
by Captain Quillard
I love my dog, and she’s lucky I do, because when she’s alone and scared, this furry terrorist likes to try to dig her way out of the house by chewing and tearing the molding from around my doors into sad, gnawed-on pieces.
I came home today to find that the thunderstorms had evoked this charming behavior once again. Needless to say, when she does this I tend to feel whatever the opposite of “calm of the boreal forest” is, so tonight I turned a piece of freshly-destroyed molding into a mini-Zen-by-way-of-Scandinavia garden in the hopes that I can achieve a mental state that keeps me from strangling her adorable little neck.
Skog versus dog, if you will.
Next Week’s Assignment:
There is a store in New Orleans (if you just sang that to the tune of “House of the Rising Sun,” I promise I didn’t intend for you to) that sells clever NOLA-themed goods beyond the typical tourist trap souvenir fare. Among these is a series of postcards, stationery, and posters that play off of Pantone color chips by creating their own versions that represent the colors of things that are quintessentially New Orleans. You can see several of these “Nolatones” here.
If you’re not familiar with Pantone, think of the similar paint chips and swatches you get at the hardware store where each color has a unique name meant to evoke a certain feeling or mood.
For this week’s mission, create your own set of Pantone-style color chips, with each color representing something iconic about your city, another city you love, or your home or life in general. Name each color based on what it represents. Submit at least four of these, along with the name of the city or situation you’re representing.