cognitive dissident

Last night, I received a chain email with some (gorgeous!) images under this heading:

"This is very unique - but seriously..some people have wwwaaaaayyy too much time on their hands...."

The images, two of which I have included below, were described as: "Entries for an art contest at the Hirshorn Modern Art Gallery [sic] in DC. The rule was that the artist could use only one sheet of paper."

I thought many of the pieces seemed rather...similar, so I did a little research online. I found out that they weren't contest entries, and didn't have anything to do with the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum. All of these amazing paper sculptures were created by one person: Danish artist Peter Callesen. Check out his website for more examples of his work.

I find it offensive that artists are belittled by claims that they "have wwwaaaaayyy too much
time on their hands." If anything, artists are pressured by economic forces into having far too little time to create. Accordingly, I offer the following sentiment as my Quote of the Day:

[W]e shall never know how much genius has been lost to the world by reason of the need to make a living. We willingly provide free board and lodging for lunatics, but recoil before the idea of doing so for first-class minds. (Clifton Fadiman, The Lifetime Reading Plan, p. 172)