Okay, I know I left off my last post with “more again tomorrow,” but things have intervened. I’ll have more to say about that further below. For now, let’s get back to the work of failing to measure up.
Part of what it means to produce “work of quality” is to locate the work accurately within the conversation it wants to be part of. An IKEA cabinet is a work of quality in important ways: it’s accessible in cost and construction to millions of users, and it uses stable, veneered plywood rather than expensive and ever-moving birch hardwood. It’s true to its Scandinavian Modern origins. And it holds things out of the way of dust and dog slobber. All good.
Steven White’s cabinet in the image above is also a work of quality. The joinery is exquisite, each joint cut to its specific location along its curve. (Try to make a curved drawer. I dare you.) The design idea carries through in smart ways: the button knobs curving up the (sometimes implied) centerline of the curved case, the two paired side cabinets providing the front legs while the taller back cabinet provides the back legs. The light wood of the side doors and the dark buttons balancing the uniformity of the cherry body. And the whole thing looks like Fantasia, bewitched furniture becoming animated. This is a person who’s studied not merely cabinetry but also art history, and understands what contrapposto is.
It’s almost certainly wildly expensive, because of its innumerable hand-cut joints. And although it protects its belongings from dust and dog slobber, you can’t just throw your wallet on the top when you go to bed, because it’ll slide off.
Which is the “better cabinet?” That depends entirely on what conversation it wants to enter.
I ran face first into this question, which I’d never considered before, when I went to architecture school and entered studio. These were artists who had no interest in whether you could toss your wallet on top of the dresser. Whether someone could care for a sick child or have a dozen friends over for cocktails. Had no interest in the relationship between bathroom and bedroom. I didn’t know it at the time, but they were trying to break us, like wild horses made tame. To unlearn everything we’d ever known about houses and stores, about streets and neighborhoods; to erase all of that vernacular wisdom and enter the world of studio art.
The work we were to emulate was wildly expensive, just as unique in execution as that cabinet. It mostly didn’t have to respond to any programmatic requirements, being instead an exhibition pavilion or a vacation house or simply a drawn idea. We were asked to enter a new conversation, one for which I at least had no vocabulary nor native interest.
Lots of fields have this division. Publishing clearly differentiates between “literary fiction,” in which questions of language and form are central, and “commercial fiction” that emphasizes pageturnability and adherence to genre norms. Literary fiction is scarce and resource-intensive, which is why so many of its practitioners are employed by universities whose patronage applauds the publication of one moderately-selling book every few years. Commercial fiction and its authors rely on reliably sufficient book sales in order to survive, and thus engage in a different conversation.
Popular music, folk music and “serious” music. Dirt-track racing, NASCAR and Formula 1. Different conversations within the same general category, and thus judged by different criteria. I remember going around the table at our first Bread Loaf meeting, where we were all asked to name a few favorite writers. Mostly I hadn’t heard of any of them, even as the others all muttered after each name with that hushed “mmm” of connoisseurship. I named Walter Tevis (a highly successful commercial writer) and Rex Stout, the author of a forty-year mystery series. And I could feel the pity of the serious writers, wondering how a person of such diminished judgment could ever have been allowed through the literary gates.
So that brings me to the work that’s kept me away for a week. My new play “Old Dogs on the Porch” is having its world premier this Friday, and will run for the next two weeks on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. If you’re in New England, I think it’s worth the trip. Tickets are available here.
This week has been the work of installing the set, getting the sound and lights right, and having the cast become accustomed to doing their work in a designed space rather than around folding chairs and through implied doorways. There are about twenty people who’ve been involved in bringing this production to life, and I’m grateful to each one. I hope to see you if you’re able. And we can have a conversation.
Herb Childress 