Ahde Lahti
"Lowest Common Denominator for Art"
About Ahde Lahti
I’ll have to admit that I have never been able to create, alone. I have always relied on my partner for the best creative work, and her name is “Nostalgia”. There are a few ideas which may be wonderful to explore: nostalgia and her objects. The creating of Art means a new empty space which needs to be brought to life, with things… which makes one feel comfortable.
Nostalgia is a beautiful person who lives across the street, Rue de St. Severins, with a balcony where a guest sits, a cigar and a burgundy wine late into the night, but in the morning when the fog lifts, the street is not there.
Nostalgia is a memory of the wonderful music heard in Morocco when the power went out and the waiters brought out candles to keep the atmosphere secret and personal. You had a Doubonnet and time ceased to exist. The only thing you now have is an African patterned pillow with the velvet rope fringe on an over-stuffed oxblood colored leather chair in the study.
Nostalgia never sits, she lingers.
Nostalgia always wears a hat.
Nostalgia may be bought but cannot be married.
Nostalgia is the Orient Express.
Nostalgia rides the Orient Express, but the conductor never collects her ticket
Nostalgia always sits at the outside corner table in the French Café.
I find that I can take a practical look at the past, and tip my hat, yes, it was good, maybe even great!
The montage of life can never be seen twice like a movie. We can see the outtakes but never the script or the reel. Looking backward, you will see your footprints, but only you get to write the ones ahead. Dance lightly and make the most of all your prints!
I don’t know. I do know that I find that my life is an existential experience. It goes back to the original premises: and does little excursions, which seem to keep being played out in the same manner. I know I’m stuck in a place that’s not much different than the 1961 entering art student. Lost, and facing the new day with wonder and awe, but naively thinking I have made progress.
I have adapted — went into art, naively — still holding the naivety — notion that art is representation — had hard time with abstraction even when in the middle of pure geometry. I obsessed with technical skills and my work reflected it! Thinking back on my education: I needed the newest creative methods to solve problems. Hi-tech was a portable typewriter in 1962. Everything I experienced was new!
I took a notion, abstract idea and turn it into a recognizable product that was real, had material being, was: on paper, on clay, on metal, on concrete... exists in this world (not the mind). I made that transition with the power of sketch. The process that takes ideation and makes concrete decisions about form and content, actually creating the new form.
I needed to rethink what the lowest common denominator for art. It’s origins. I found that it is not an outside source, but the ability to connect the information trapped within my mind and project it into the world of material life. I rotated the bowl of mist and condense it into a solid form.
I have worked as my own boss since arriving in California in 1969, there is no source except my work. I am a unique, a productive entity. New and creative energy doesn’t start with leftovers. I had to start tasting and trusting what was in front of me, not what is in front of someone else.
“The olives taste so good, three at a time, right out of the jar. There is almost no need to even mix the drink. There is a sense of pilfered innocence, reaching into the star jar and dipping my fingers into the brine to fetch up a bunch of green pimento stuffed olives. I occasionally search the liquid for the floater, the red slice which has become pickled. I didn’t want to start out this way, it was the evolution over years which lead to this jar. I needed to scream out loud, this may be the scream. It may be a raspberry in the crystal cathedral (Notes from Underground, Dostoyevsky). It is me. There is a language that I cannot express in all my paintings, there is nothing like this in two or three dimensions. It could be a game, the war, the arcade game played with the fingertips while the eyes are closed. Should I correct all the mistakes? I cannot continue with my eyes open, there is a dream-like feeling which cannot live within me, it needs a keyboard, it needs its own life. I have opened my eyes (for a moment) and looked at the world, I was not going to be caught up in another’s war. Mine was sufficient. This is not about the real live things, it is about what is not here.”
Ahde Lahti
www.lahtidesign.com
About Ahde Lahti
I’ll have to admit that I have never been able to create, alone. I have always relied on my partner for the best creative work, and her name is “Nostalgia”. There are a few ideas which may be wonderful to explore: nostalgia and her objects. The creating of Art means a new empty space which needs to be brought to life, with things… which makes one feel comfortable.
Nostalgia is a beautiful person who lives across the street, Rue de St. Severins, with a balcony where a guest sits, a cigar and a burgundy wine late into the night, but in the morning when the fog lifts, the street is not there.
Nostalgia is a memory of the wonderful music heard in Morocco when the power went out and the waiters brought out candles to keep the atmosphere secret and personal. You had a Doubonnet and time ceased to exist. The only thing you now have is an African patterned pillow with the velvet rope fringe on an over-stuffed oxblood colored leather chair in the study.
Nostalgia never sits, she lingers.
Nostalgia always wears a hat.
Nostalgia may be bought but cannot be married.
Nostalgia is the Orient Express.
Nostalgia rides the Orient Express, but the conductor never collects her ticket
Nostalgia always sits at the outside corner table in the French Café.
I find that I can take a practical look at the past, and tip my hat, yes, it was good, maybe even great!
The montage of life can never be seen twice like a movie. We can see the outtakes but never the script or the reel. Looking backward, you will see your footprints, but only you get to write the ones ahead. Dance lightly and make the most of all your prints!
I don’t know. I do know that I find that my life is an existential experience. It goes back to the original premises: and does little excursions, which seem to keep being played out in the same manner. I know I’m stuck in a place that’s not much different than the 1961 entering art student. Lost, and facing the new day with wonder and awe, but naively thinking I have made progress.
I have adapted — went into art, naively — still holding the naivety — notion that art is representation — had hard time with abstraction even when in the middle of pure geometry. I obsessed with technical skills and my work reflected it! Thinking back on my education: I needed the newest creative methods to solve problems. Hi-tech was a portable typewriter in 1962. Everything I experienced was new!
I took a notion, abstract idea and turn it into a recognizable product that was real, had material being, was: on paper, on clay, on metal, on concrete... exists in this world (not the mind). I made that transition with the power of sketch. The process that takes ideation and makes concrete decisions about form and content, actually creating the new form.
I needed to rethink what the lowest common denominator for art. It’s origins. I found that it is not an outside source, but the ability to connect the information trapped within my mind and project it into the world of material life. I rotated the bowl of mist and condense it into a solid form.
I have worked as my own boss since arriving in California in 1969, there is no source except my work. I am a unique, a productive entity. New and creative energy doesn’t start with leftovers. I had to start tasting and trusting what was in front of me, not what is in front of someone else.
“The olives taste so good, three at a time, right out of the jar. There is almost no need to even mix the drink. There is a sense of pilfered innocence, reaching into the star jar and dipping my fingers into the brine to fetch up a bunch of green pimento stuffed olives. I occasionally search the liquid for the floater, the red slice which has become pickled. I didn’t want to start out this way, it was the evolution over years which lead to this jar. I needed to scream out loud, this may be the scream. It may be a raspberry in the crystal cathedral (Notes from Underground, Dostoyevsky). It is me. There is a language that I cannot express in all my paintings, there is nothing like this in two or three dimensions. It could be a game, the war, the arcade game played with the fingertips while the eyes are closed. Should I correct all the mistakes? I cannot continue with my eyes open, there is a dream-like feeling which cannot live within me, it needs a keyboard, it needs its own life. I have opened my eyes (for a moment) and looked at the world, I was not going to be caught up in another’s war. Mine was sufficient. This is not about the real live things, it is about what is not here.”
Ahde Lahti
www.lahtidesign.com