Our Uncommon Sense @

by Randy Naylor

Well, common sense would warn one not to sell out, that heritage, culture, identity is an intrinsic value that cannot be bought or sold.

Our Uncommon Sense is our ”Self-Interest.” We live in a boom town, we represent an unsustainable march propelled by a leaking oil economy. We respect no past, no future, only our self interest of exploitation of our present natural and human resources.

The fire sale of our Hepworth sculpture personifies our anthropocentric character and ironically Figure For Landscape is a work of art that defies anthropocentrism. Henry Moore and his robust reclining nude females represents the anthropocentric. Hepworth was guiding us in the opposite direction, into the biocentric sustainable alliance. Her sculptures have hollowed out spaces, holes to breathe and sing with the winds. That in itself makes her work contemporary (biocentric).

The children of our new rich anthropocentric inherited thier curtain of Self-Interest. Their Self-Interest is not about longevity, community, integrity, intrinsic value. It is about Me Me Me. It seeks power, position and slander, a post moderen top down bureaucratic propagation. This is the Art of Uncommon Sense Exhibitionism.

Perhaps this now missing Figure For Landscape can serve to revive our Common Sense. That there are some things one just does not sell and that through the power of intrinsic value, if listened to, would have guided us into a social and economic sustainability. A path way and pact to a Relational ecology of mind and nature. We would become Figures With Landscape.

”It is the epochal shift from the industrial growth society to the life sustaining society. And it is a matter of survival. First, that an economic system that depends on ever increasing corporate profits on how fast the Earth can be turned into consumer foods, weapons and waste is suicidal.” (Joanna Macy )

Our aborted Hepworth case gives us a now chance: do we choose to continue to practice an Uncommon Sense or will we replace the Hepworth with an intelligent value system, one that fosters and promotes sustainable goods and services.

So with or without the Figure For landscape, we have to figure out where we stand, collect our common sense and memories, redefine our values and create an Art together that is relational, environmental and promotes lonegevity.

( In 1986 Pia and I curated the Sola International Art Festival . We invited Simon Hepworth Nicholson, son of Barbara and Ben to create the inter-active/paticipatory childrens project on the beach. This was in tribute to the Barbara Hepworth Figure For Landscape and to continue the tradition and introduce participatory art practices.

See www.randynaylor.com YouTubes ”Sola International Art Festival ”