A Wall a Bench a Tree

Abstract

A quest for agelessness in what we make seems to hold great allure. The spotless, the seamless, the immaterial, the idealized all labor in an attempt to escape the collection of dust and to transcend time, evincing neither origin nor decay. There is a rift between that manner of making which strives for an imperishable, ageless quality and the manner of making that embraces the poetics of material and temporality and mortality. It is beautiful to imagine the made thing that embodies a fable about welcoming inevitable change. From the moment it is made, it is gracefully, eloquently transforming; it willingly trades youth for handsome qualities that it did not first possess. It is commendable when a made thing achieves timelessness without striving vainly for agelessness. This thesis uses the vehicle of making an outdoor sitting room- composed of a wall, a bench, and a tree- to explore questions of the passage of seasons, of weathering, and of how the made thing can celebrate its own temporal nature.