Beauty as a driving force

“Encourage the beautiful, for the useful encourages itself.”

— Goethe

In these first two weeks of spring semester, it seems the primary focus is in developing our overarching vision and focal point as designers and creators. What do we truly care about? What do we want to doggedly pursue? While last fall was predominantly an exploration into form and materiality, it is now time to determine our motivating force, what compels us to create and contribute to the world.

This is a question that I really oscillated on when I got to Parsons. I believe my path as a designer is a result of my innate love for beauty and aesthetics; I’ve used the magnetic draw of beauty as my internal compass for as long as I can remember. Coming to art school, however, made me waver momentarily — I was intensely inspired by the creative expressions of peers, alongside their clear-cut visions: projects that represented our planet’s ecosystem, human interconnectedness, the passage of time… Similarly, the mediums we could explore were overwhelming in their possibilities: audio-visual installations, immersive VR, wearable tech, kinetic sculptures.

All these worlds sound intriguing to me; the difficulty arises in figuring out what my personal driving force is. I believe the most powerful thing a creative person can do is to identify that and then nurture it in everything they create; without that sense of purpose, these interesting projects and explorations fall flat.

Beauty as a driving force sometimes seems a bit superficial in the face of these complex endeavors, but in reality I think dedicating my life to beauty is probably the most noble thing I could do, in terms of my creative practice. I believe that making life more beautiful has far-reaching impacts, that I will continue to explore this semester — I’m quite glad our theme is utopias and dystopias, but more on that later.