Andrew Schroeder

1. Bean. I love a good word processor. Fortunately, there seems to be an upsurge in new, ultra-functional and lightweight software for getting words out of my head via keyboard. My favorite right now is Bean. It is definitely worth a trial run for anyone that is looking for a reliable, free, fast and pretty place to record their thoughts. Although Apple’s Pages software (part of iWork) continues to be my heavy-duty, Microsoft Word replacement of choice, Bean offers that perfect “one step above textedit (or simple text for that matter)” feeling.

2. The Daily Archive. I’m inspired by Andy Warhol’s practice of collecting items in large, brown, nondescript cardboard boxes. After filling the box to the desired level, Warhol would archive them away in a warehouse. I have been trying to do the same thing with the random files, images, and videos I encounter on a daily basis. My workflow has changed so dramatically over the last year – when I log onto my computer at work in the morning, I automatically make a new folder on the desktop, titled simply with today’s date. As the day passes, clippings of various sorts drift into the folder… which is then archived to DropBox. No fancy Evernote software or massive sketchbook full of notes. Just a simple folder with a day’s worth of accumulation tucked neatly inside it.

3. Tretorn Strala Boots. Winter in Minnesota is a bitch from hell. I’ll just be honest about that. In order to survive in this climate one must indulge both the materialist and hoarder instincts that surface from December to early March. My winter splurge: exceptionally comical looking Swedish boots. Today was their first real test run… and I’ve got to say… trudging through the snow with my coffee, I felt just a bit better knowing my feet were not going to turn blue and fall off.

*****

I’m going to blather on and on today. I started this post, stopped it, started it again, and am now finally finishing it while I dread looking up my checking account balance. That’s the life of a multi-tasker. 

I’ve been thinking too much about the role of the market and salable visual appeasement in art production. This little bit of mental annoyance has led me back to a basic questioning of my stance on idealism and materialism. 

When it comes to both art/life, I’m an idealist. Despite being enmeshed in a thoroughly material culture, I maintain that meaning and value lie somewhere outside of, or underneath material reality. Plato’s notions being conscious, or being able to sense, indicates that there is a higher reality – replete with greater meaning.

Perhaps there is some small part of me that wholly subscribes to this idea. And… perhaps its the role of the artist to indicate other forms of meaning that could be underlying material reality. 

However, there is a very large part of me that is yearning to just give in and subscribe to a fundamentally materialist view of the art world. I’d like to think that it is governed by laws… that there is a rhyme and reason to the production and selling of art objects. To be honest, it might be refreshing to see art as just another realm of objects to be bought and sold… traded off and refurbished when the time is right. To know that if something is marketable it is therefore good, could be the revelation I’ve been waiting for.