Nothing But Time

Last week I discovered Hong Yi’s amazing art; as you can see from the link, she’s on a mission to play with her food for a month. Her work captivated me and I became an instant fan. I think she’s clever and wonderful, and I would love for her to press ahead with her dreams of making her food art into a how-to book so that other people can also play with their food.

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If you like what you see you should go like her on Facebook and give her some love. Oh, and she’s also been interviewed by DesignBoom and featured on Colossal. Check out the rest of her portfolio here on her official website.

I was saddened to see some sarcastic commentary on some of her posts, all amounting to ‘Oh, you seem to have too much time on your hands’. It made me think about that statement for a second.

We creative types often have all sorts of accusations levelled at us. As a writer who doesn’t have to work at a 9 to 5 job in order to pay the bills, I hear it all the time. ‘Must be nice.‘ ‘It’s alright for some.‘ ‘Well, aren’t we lucky?

Every wonderful thing that gets created takes time. Every painting, every sculpture, every book, every invention. Accusing an artist of having too much time on their hands, instead of genuinely marvelling at the beauty they’ve created, is the most insensitive thing that you can do. How long do you think it took Leonardo da Vinci to paint the Mona Lisa? Wikipedia suggests that he painted it for four years, leaving it unfinished, and then resumed the work again later. It is estimated that it could have taken him a total of eight to ten years to finish the painting, although he was possibly not working on it exclusively beyond the four-year period.

Time is irrelevant to the creation process. Don’t mock an artist for having too much time on her hands. We have nothing but time.

5 Comments

  • jo f (@httpoet) 5th April 2013 at 4:52 pm

    I do conceptual and minimalist art, and by damn does it take a lot of time to create something that looks as though it took no time at all…

    Reply
  • Mary Horsfall 6th April 2013 at 6:23 am

    Any creative process takes time, not just in the ‘doing’ but also in the daydreaming and thinking that precedes the doing.

    Reply

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