One day during my sophomore English class in high school, my teacher, Ms. Bradbury, asked a question that I don’t remember. I responded saying, “In order to think outside of the box, one must first know how to think inside of the box.”
“Where did you hear that phrase, Patrick?” Ms. Bradbury asked.
“I don’t know.” I replied.
“From me. You heard it from me. I said that last year in your English class when I lectured about Shakespeare.” Sure enough, she was right. The year before a guest speaker came to my English class to talk to us about Shakespeare. At the time, I didn’t understand why she was there, especially since we had already wrapped up our section on Hamlet. Now it’s clear to me that it was part of Ms. Bradbury’s job interview.
For a long time I reveled in being a contrarian, so this idea was a big deal to me. At 15, I took pride in thinking outside of the box, rebelling, and being different at every opportunity. (In truth, I probably wasn’t too different from my peers.) So as a contrarian, I wanted to disprove this. I was special and didn’t need any sort of structure. I could buck any convention presented to me. Alas, I didn’t put much effort into disproving Ms. Bradbury’s idea.
I’ve thought about the quote on and off since then. I may have even said it out loud a couple of times. A few years ago I asked Ms. Bradbury what it meant. She explained that “claims need a certain amount of proof to be useful in an analytical argument. And unless kids are forced to include such evidence and explanation of that evidence, they’ll just write down baseless claims. It’s like any other habit, though: familiarity breeds comfort. But, once basing claims in facts becomes habit, form doesn’t matter as much. Form, in fact, as in poetry, can be used to clarify or emphasize ideas. But the ideas must come first.” In essence, she’s saying that one must know the rules before being able to break them.
This is also how abstract art came to be. Artists who were trained in traditional methods, techniques, and theories, decided to experiment, thereby creating something new. They knew what they were doing, and artists have continued to do this.
My uncle Kevin Firme (I specify because I have two uncle Kevins, granted my other uncle Kevin isn’t an artist) is one of these artists. While he does many drawings, his main focus is steel sculpture. The sculptures throughout this post are all his, and they’ve been in my parents’ yard for the past ten years. It’s fitting that they’re outside because his focus is on the contrast between the natural and the man-made. A booklet about sculptures on the University of Notre Dame campus mentions this. Kevin wrote that the piece referenced (which is not shown here, sorry) “exists as a drawing of the dialogue between the natural world and an industrial intention.” I didn’t read that until a few years ago when I received my first piece from uncle Kevin. Before reading that quote, I didn’t understand anything about his sculptures. Regardless, that didn’t inhibit me from enjoying them. The statement gave more context for his approach, and helped me enjoy his work even more.
Seeing uncle Kevin’s work my entire life taught me that art doesn’t have to look literal. This is a big deal for me because I’m not a visual artist, and I don’t know much about art theory. Now that I understand Ms. Bradbury’s quote, it is helpful for me to think about this idea of “thinking inside of the box” when I view art. It serves as a reminder that the artist didn’t simply decide to weld steel in a particular way just for the sake of it. Or that there is a reason the paint is splashed all over the canvas, even if it doesn’t look like anything recognizable. In order to get to that point the artist had to master “thinking inside of the box.” Like many people, I oftentimes don’t necessarily know what I’m looking at when I’m in a gallery or at a museum. However, I don’t let that hinder me from enjoying the experience. You don’t have to understand a piece of art in order to enjoy it. Sometimes it can be more enjoyable when you don’t know what it is. Personally, it gives me a chance to spend me time with the piece, view it in different ways, and find things I wouldn’t see otherwise. Thanks to uncle Kevin that process is easy for me. So here’s to all of the uncle Kevins out there who help people enjoy so many types of art, and appreciate artists who have mastered thinking inside, and outside, of the box. (And here’s to the Ms. Bradburys out there who make statements that stick with their students for decades.)
