Where art meets meaning, and your space meets you
The AI created the feature image based on what it read about the blog. The four images above are what I took myself. Other parts of the blog show examples of AI generated images to create design scenarios.
This week’s AI generated featured image gets an 8/10 it resembles the mess when you are doing product photography.
This week, I was reminded of my academic interest in the Journal of Organisational Aesthetics, which comes out of the highly lauded Tavistock to explore how human senses and artistry inform businesses and many other company practices found in charities and government.
Since I currently work at the intersection of art and organisational behaviour creation, I thought my take on organisational aesthetics might be unique and was looking forward to presenting a couple of papers to this scholarly community.
However, I later discovered that the very thing informing the presentation of my art practice is mostly from my experience in my first career, where appealing to the customer’s five senses was what we were all about in the world of the five-star spa.
I had an intense weekend. Synthesizing a range of ideas in re-doing some product photography. I had to fit in with Etsy’s new rules for sizing from listening to some of their reasserting of the preference of the algorithm for light backgrounds, in pictures. I also had to remember what my shelf styling class taught me about arranging items with natural materials. Additionally I integrated what the product photography coach said about getting good lighting with proper window positioning and using tools to get filler light to remove shadows and cast secondary light on areas of the product. Those are the three main main pieces of aesthetics advice that Etsy sellers get. It’s given as a recommendation of appealing to customers and selling more items. And the practice would appear to be in the thick of organisational aesthetics, however the scholars do say they distinctly focus on beauty for the sake of engaging the senses and not just for profit or sales.
I dug deeper into what organisational aesthetics might mean to me and the art I do and how I present it. I asked myself:
Q: What is this Aesthetic that I create and cannot avoid repeating? Where does it come from?
A: It comes from within and some of it might be the imprint of your spa and beauty years.
After a few struggles and wondering why my arrangements do not look corporate in the slightest, no matter how many books and staplers I insert. I then realised my style comes from an imprint from my early career induction into the interior design and decor values of five star spas, Mayfair clinics/ treatment centres head offices and London’s West-End retail (my first proper Saturday job was Miss Selfridge in Knightsbridge).
It also dawned on me that this is a group (except the West End retail) that might welcome some help. I remember being a sole trader in my city of London treatment room, unsure how to fit out the space I was renting. However, my friend Rachel helped to wallpaper in Timinney Fowler and fit the blush-coloured carpet at the reception. I just had a flashback of getting the electrician to install a gothic lamp and fill up our IKEA cabinet; it would have been nice to have someone to discuss shelf displays that might make the products look more appealing through storytelling other than piling the boxes boxes of moisturiser and serum high.
If you are an independent trader or sole operator in the beauty and spa world and agree that product houses could help more with your displays please comment below.
If you are in any other industry and a sole operator and wondering how you learned to present your professional and personal brand and how organisational aesthetics fits with what you do, please comment below.
How did you come to know what your style or aesthic preference is? How does your organisation use organisational aesthetics not only to bring in revenue but just for the value of having something beautiful to look at?
Below is a list of the posts you might have missed from August
Continue reading “Organisational Aesthetics: Unconventional Influence of Spa and Beauty Industry”The AI created the above featured image after a few attempts of not getting it quite right. I then asked it to show me an image of a black woman doing finishing touches to artwork and photography. I give it 8/10 this week.
This week I was able to do finishing touches, like mounting an abstract painting on paper onto canvas and setting up for product photography. I also completed the remaining x15 A5 sized artworks on art board.
It has taken over a year to complete the series of about 30 + mixed media artwork featuring paint skins for texture. I’m also glad to have come up with the concept of paint skin to create abstract versions of the monogram underpainting.
I love the interesting mix of textures that the offset mosaic like arrangement in the colleage creates.
The knife-sculpted paint skin allows me to extend the boundaries of the canvas, reminding me of overgrown nails. 💅🏽, which I later trimmed down. This has inspired future works.
What things did you finish off this weekK?
The featured image above was generated by AI after it analysed all the images on this post. Interesting 🧐 not sure I like it this week.
Now that all the lamps have their feet attatched the look is completed. I like that the feet echo the organic black shapes in the poured skin that surflaces the barrel of the lamp.
In creating a series of painted and poured skins and assembling each onto lampshade making backing I first thouhgt I was a bit crazy, but I didnt mind because people had volunteered that they loved what I had created. I later discovered that I am not solitary in making sculpural forms out of paint integrating a clear foundation for a more etherial spirited look. I had learned about sculptural skins before as we were taught that in my mixed media class at Central Saint Martins. But I hadnt come across an artist who had had integrated the clarity of acrylic sheeting in their work.
Yet, this week I found new company for this sculpural element of my artwork in the work of Lillian Thomas Burrell. This American artist born in 1927 and five years younger than my mother, wrote a book called From Painting to Painting as Sculpture: The Journey of Lilian Thomas Burwell, by Lilian Thomas Burwell, Hampton University Museum.1997. I have orded a signed copy of it.
I learned about her this week, when Kitty Gurnos-Davis of @artistic.identities posted a reel on IG (16th August 2024) talking about the work of Lilian Thomas Burwell (saying she was ashamed to not yet had discovered her). From watching this reel, I entered into a new world. My internet research took me on a journey. I discovered the images of her sculptures made of painting canvas over a wooden form. There are also images and videos of her use of acrylic sheets with wood in her paintings on canvas.
My prior career as a management academic allows me to understand the importance of asserting and connecting with the seminal works in my field. I know that using paint skins is something that is a constant in all my work. Seeing and using paint’s sculptural potential is what only a few artists do. It was encouraging to digitally meet the work of Lilian Thomas Burwell this week. I’ve downloaded the book to discover more about this genre and even asked for a signed copy so I can have it to hand for future reference and inspiration..
I shall be making more of these poured paint sculpure lamps in other colours. Purple and gold was requested on instagram and I might do a deep red and organic green and even a yellow and blue later.
What colour would you like to see?
AI created the featured image above after it read my post. I wouldn’t say I liked the first one it chose, but I settled on this one as the colours tied in with the green and gold that I talked about this week. This week, I’m reviewing the different themes in bookshelf backdrop styling that I do for my own shelf in my 9 to 5.
You can theme your shelf or backdrop beyond the colours of the books. The pictures below show how I have fallen into the trend of colour-coded bookshelves and am working to curate more meaningful staging for myself.
Consider curating talking pieces on your shelves to help you connect with colleagues. Avoid those bland vanilla Items you got because the influencer told you they look great. It might be a good idea to plan your shelf styling. You could take a picture on your phone and get the AI to rehash it to produce a simple outline like the one I did below. This might give you a sense of where the lines of the styling need altering so that they form that V shape or pyramid going across.
Remember that it’s all about your personal branding (the extent to which you, in your backdrop, epitomise the organisation or company brand/ strategy), especially if you are a leader. It is also about your well-being through the social connection that can arise from extended chats about you and your curated collection. So what you place on the shelves should open up tales of your interesting travels, curious pieces of art you bought because you liked what the artist said or the strange way they made their art. There could also be pieces that tell of your scrapes and how you got through things; some examples below have those.
Whatever you do with your shelves in your 9 to 5 backdrop, ensure they are on message for you. Remember, it is your home, but it also plays a significant role in your personal branding and your potential in the organisation. The way we present ourselves on camera is now as crucial as the attire we used to carefully select for meetings with the boss.
Our backdrop is our new jacket.
What do you think or do about your backdrop for meetings? Think about it if you want your professional personality to shine beyond using the standard images available in Teams and Webex. Zoom, etc.
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