{"id":1523,"date":"2025-05-13T00:03:26","date_gmt":"2025-05-13T00:03:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aiadallas.org\/columns\/?p=1523"},"modified":"2025-05-13T00:03:27","modified_gmt":"2025-05-13T00:03:27","slug":"the-weight-of-the-ordinary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aiadallas.org\/columns\/the-weight-of-the-ordinary\/","title":{"rendered":"The Weight of the Ordinary"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Solitude is not about silence.<br>Solitude is not loneliness.<br>It&#8217;s finding the signal in the noise.<br>It\u2019s the ache in your chest when no one is left to impress.<br>No story to keep straight.<br>No image to refresh to hold someone\u2019s gaze.<br>You sit in it\u2014<br>Bare, bored maybe, raw\u2014<br>And after a while,<br>The voices that aren\u2019t yours<br>Start to fall away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Art\u2014your art\u2014<br>Not the polished kind, begging for applause,<br>But the kind artists like Duchamp or Bansky show us.<br>A urinal, an aerosoled wall, a busted wheel<br>Because somebody dared to see it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is no right way to feel in solitude.<br>No right way to read a piece of art.<br>No critic, no friend, no god with a red pen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s just you<br>And whatever rises when the noise dies down.<br>The meaning is not found<br>It is made<br>In the everyday<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A cracked mug,<br>A weathered highway sign,<br>A silence that extends too long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>All of it is art<br>If you are brave enough to see it.<br>All of it is solitude<br>If you are brave enough to sit with it.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Solitude and art are not revelation,<br>But the decision to stay long enough<br>To see what\u2019s been there all along.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\"><em>Thumbnail image depicts the sculpture <a href=\"https:\/\/gagosian.com\/artists\/michael-heizer\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Levitated Mass (2012) by Michael Heize<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.artchive.com\/artwork\/levitated-mass-michael-heizer-2012\/\">r<\/a>. Image provided by The Jon B. Lovelace Collection of\u00a0California\u00a0Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith&#8217;s America Project, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Solitude is not about silence.Solitude is not loneliness.It&#8217;s finding the signal in the noise.It\u2019s the ache in your chest when no one is left to impress.No story to keep straight.No image to refresh to hold someone\u2019s gaze.You sit in it\u2014Bare, bored maybe, raw\u2014And after a while,The voices that aren\u2019t yoursStart to fall away. Art\u2014your art\u2014Not [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":true,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Weight of the Ordinary - Columns - AIA Dallas<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aiadallas.org\/columns\/the-weight-of-the-ordinary\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Weight of the Ordinary - Columns - AIA Dallas\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Solitude is not about silence.Solitude is not loneliness.It&#8217;s finding the signal in the noise.It\u2019s the ache in your chest when no one is left to impress.No story to keep straight.No image to refresh to hold someone\u2019s gaze.You sit in it\u2014Bare, bored maybe, raw\u2014And after a while,The voices that aren\u2019t yoursStart to fall away. 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