I think our relationship to the world is tied to our relationship with objects. We are surrounded by things we make, modify and throw away in a continuous cycle. The form of these objects depends on their function, and function is always in a state of continuous evolution.
I have been reading Origins of Form by Christopher Williams to give insight into some of the natural and man-made forms that I have been drawing. He asks whether there can ever be a perfect form that matches function. He concludes that there never can be, hence the continuous reinvention that we see all around us both in nature and in industrial objects. Some forms are more successful because they have a greater economy of design and others hardly survive for any length of time at all.
A sculptor can make a perfect form because there is no function. The form cannot be criticised in terms of its efficacy, nor its craftsmanship. But the materials used have to be doing something that they were never intended to do and the object produced has to have crossed the line from a formless, meaningless mass into something that means art.
As a result of reading this really good book I now want to start thinking about species of forms and peaks of development with relation to sculpture.
