The Wham | Modern Hanging Art Mobile in France by Mark Leary

 

Mobile: The Big Wham (42” x 22”) in Paris hanging with Rothko

 

On the scientific method

“Is hope a hypothesis or a fact?” asked red fox.

“There’s only one way to find out,” replied bear.

And the experiment began.

Thoughts while making
Celery. Water. Red dye. 

Yep, the almighty celery experiment. Just about all of us have done it. Dunk that celery stick in colored water and watch what happens.

Depending on the teacher and your age, you’re learning about osmosis and selectively permeable membranes or transpiration and xylems or capillary action and the circulatory system.

Often the experiment is used to introduce the scientific method. You know, the process by which we come up with an idea of what’s going to happen in a certain situation; where we form, test, and tweak our theories – systematically observing and measuring, assessing outcomes and making conclusions about what we’ve seen.

I was in kindergarten when I first saw it. Celery leaves turning a tie-dyed red. I remember being totally unimpressed, thinking “Of course, if you plunge anything into a glass of water with dye and let it soak for days, it’s going to change colors.”

The scientific nuances were lost on me. The obvious, well, seemed obvious: We soak up that which surrounds us.

When a dear client of mine sent this photo of The Wham spinning in his Paris flat, I was mesmerized by the Rothko; immediately seeing a stick of celery (sorry Mark) soaking up red dye.

It got me thinking about the times in life when we are celery, and the times we are dye.

It got me thinking about hypotheses + conclusions.

It got me thinking about the choices we have as to where we dunk ourselves, what we soak up, what we sprout, as well as how the colors of our thoughts and words and actions dye those around us.

What would you like to soak up this week? For me, it’s silence and quiet and stillness.