Touching On Design with Michelangelo

From our first part of our design thoughts with Michelangelo, we surmised that a specific core in Nature would produce a unique answer, yet are we to believe that Michelangelo could only produce a singular piece of artwork out of a unique set of conditions that can be described as a piece of marble, albeit a large piece of marble?

I think not!  Why? Because unlike a blade of grass we have the capacity to create an unlimited number of possible answers to a set of conditions.  Yet as Michelangelo approached his situation in a listening stance his design ideas were either confirmed or in fact refuted by his medium…Do we believe that Michelangelo saw all the details of his sculptures and all the process with which he would need to participate in before he started? How could anyone know all the future steps that one will have to take to complete a project? But without studying and realizing a beginning plan and taking the first step the movement towards a creative solution cannot take place.

What are the chances that a chisel point broke off a piece of his intended design as he initiated what he believed was the direction of the flow of material and was not?  Are we believing that what Michelangelo produced in marble, were his first design thoughts, or did they shift as needed in the discovery of what worked out…?

More than likely, he “tested the waters” as he moved into the space towards the form in the marble that by the way, was also moving simultaneously towards him…

 “Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it”.
Michelangelo

Hmmm. Were those the words of someone who was storming towards a destination with only one solution in mind, focused only on his accomplishment?  Really?

Again he said,

“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free”.
Michelangelo

What if we started using our “tools of design” in a way that melded with the energy that was already beginning to form!  Is this a novel idea? Gee, no. But it is one that Michelangelo used! 

As we gather around our beautiful “piece of marble” if we begin to take a listening stance, mayhaps we can hear and see the evidence of something wanting to come into form…our clients way of living, their sense of what they would like to have in design, the building structure itself, the pattern and direction of the rising sun...(cosmic factors?@*!)

To give an ear without thinking that we would have immediate design solutions, but more about being present to listen to what we might just term as factors. In this way we might examine as Michelangelo no doubt did, to see what directions the veins in the marble run so that when we pick up our tools we can start to chip in the right direction!

Stay tuned! I am beginning to wonder if we are on to something! What do you think?