This week our community had an opportunity to meet four finalists for the college dean overseeing programs in our county. Each applicant was allotted precisely three minutes for his/her vision, followed by a question and answer period. The first question to the first applicant started with "I feel I just heard the Fuller Brush man". We all inhaled sharply and the candidate graciously responded. But the questioner had a point, all four candidates had three minutes to sell themselves and they had to make the most of it. I would like to think it is just Americans who seem to turn everything into selling a product or an idea or a person. It seems to be our number one competitive sport.
I am an alumnus of the School of Architecture and Allied Arts at the University of Oregon, though in my day my fellow grad students liked to call it the School of Arts and Allied Architecture. As a result I receive their quarterly newsletter. The recent newsletter featured an interdisciplinary initiative exporing how architecture and museums convey the memory of war and if it was possible to do that in a way that might prevent future conflict. I was reminded of the funereal architecture class that Maya Lin talked about in her book Boundaries which started her inquiry into memorials and eventually led to her design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The U of O initiative also concluded with a competition and the winning entries were included in the newsletter. The thumbnail photos were too small to read or understand the proposals, but big enough to show the quality of presentation needed to be competitive today. I found myself pulling out Maya Lin’s book to revisit her original proposal - simple drawings, simple statement. We live in a technological world where desktop publishing is readily accessible, over-the-top presentations are expected, and flash is often used to sell otherwise average or even mediocre products. I wonder if we would even be capable of recognizing the exquisite simplicity of Maya Lin’s vision in the midst of today’s slick hype.
Even I can turn into a used car salesman to prod a student to take the leap to get the education to make their dreams a reality. But I struggle when it is personal, when it is art. It is such a delicate balance. I am easily wooed by hype if I don’t remind myself to look deeper and I often fail to make "the sale" because if feels awkward if not sleazy. Yet in the end we all buy and sell something.
And then there is a matter of how much is enough. In the same newsletter was an article about a design duo that limit their architecture practice to four projects a year so they have time for other art projects. How do we not get caught up in the competition of "the sell", so that we still are centered, capable of being content with less rather than more, with genuine rather than hype?
