Verdant Ceres

Artist: Josh Simpson
Title: Verdant Ceres, 2000
Location: Mint Museum Uptown, Charlotte, North Carolina

First Impression

This piece caught my eye almost immediately located centrally in the middle of the room. The irony hit me later and it was probably very unintentional. It was sitting in the middle for everyone to see as if it was the star of the exhibit. Isn’t that how we see ourselves and our place in the world, in the galaxy, and in the universe? As humans, and it’s been said before, we instinctually feel as if we, human beings, are the center of the universe. But that’s okay in this context. It was what I needed to see and how I needed to see it. It was a small world inside of a larger one. The colors were bright and if you look closely, you can see all the strange images that live within it. That’s us. We are the strange images differing and varied by different shapes and colors. For that reason, I chose to move in closer.

I tried to take a few different shots with different angles, but I’m no photographer and no matter where I stood, there was a glare – my apologies. But I hope I did it justice enough to demonstrate the differences in detail, in pattern, and in arrangement. What I saw on one side didn’t match what you could see on the other. The images to me were a little abstract, so I moved in and out of focus trying to make sense of it. And that was the first message, or impression, I got from Mr. Simpson’s work.

The Reflection

Many times, it’s not the image, it’s the view that’s the problem

We spend way too much time in our lives trying to change the objects of what we see. We work hard trying to change circumstances, relationships, and other people’s ideas and beliefs. And in our own vanity, we tend to think we see (and know) the entire image and outcomes. But growing old and living life is showing me that sometimes what we see doesn’t need to change necessarily, perhaps it’s just our view. And maybe we just need to move.

Focusing more on the details inside the sphere or globe showed me (and pardon the cliché) that there is more than meets the eye. Of all the little distinctions and details, some seen and many I probably glanced over briefly, it was impossible to see from all angles at one time. But isn’t that life? We have a view or a path we think we have clearly identified, but the moment we take one step off that pathway, everything changes and an entirely different world emerges. For me, beliefs, thoughts, and indoctrination fits that metaphor well. Are we spending our lives looking at life from one angle failing to see all of the other pathways and all the other renditions and variations of the world because we forgot how to move?

Enter awareness. Awareness gives us another option. It doesn’t ask us to settle for one version. It doesn’t want us to pretend that our version is right or wrong. It just tells us to feel and embrace the experience. It opens the door to new questions which lead to new outcomes. Maybe those questions lead to new beliefs, or new questions, or perhaps it leads us right back to where we were standing initially. This sphere doesn’t change one bit, but as we move around it, how we see it does.

One Question to Carry with You

What things do you think will look different if/when you decide to look at it from another angle?