[ watch video clip about the object ]

[ watch video clip about wearing ugly things ]

[ Jan takes Chun's quiz ]

The tie was part of a larger costume worn by Jan at a family gathering.  Jan and his three sisters were orchestrating a series of tests for one of his sister’s new boyfriend.  These tests were designed to test whether the boyfriend was worthy of dating their sister.  For one test, the blindfolded boyfriend had to identify the correct sister through touch.  Jan is a bartender at café 'Skek on the Zeedijk.

The object (the dotted tie) is going to hit the road with me on the trekking journey in the Indian Himalaya area for 2 months. The plan is to let the object transform organically during the trip while I encounter new people and experience new places. I do not know what to expect from the trip and try to stay open with what’s coming my way, including what will happen to the dotted tie.

living/sleeping/all-in-one room of a family of 5

The ancient Chinese philosopher Lao-Tzu once wrote in his Tao Te Ching (chapter 2):
“When people recognize beauty as beauty, the idea of ugliness exists. Equally when people recognize virtue as virtue, this creates the idea of wickedness…”

I realized that often, the idea of beauty or ugliness does emerge from making comparisons. When the mind determines something as beautiful, then the other things become ugly; similar to how we define something as long or short, difficult or easy, good or bad, etc… So there I was in the Indian Himalaya with the dotted quasi-tie carrying with me the thought of what is ugly or beautiful while being part of a very simple life (or what our modern people might call “poor” since people have very little here). But yet, you still see that people try to make their house more beautiful than that of their neighbor…

Then I was sitting in my meditation retreat with my eyes closed. The words of the evening discourse from the master came into my ear: “Many illusions are created by apparent, consolidated, integrated reality—for example, the illusion of physical beauty…”

Oh, “beauty”, the word I have been chasing after. Then he went on to explain with examples…

The hair and hair or the nail and nail; they are substantially the same things but placed in different circumstances they stimulate different feelings of beauty or ugliness. So maybe it is not the object that is ugly but the judgment of ugliness depends on people’s perceptions and how they look at something?

Same, Same But Different
textile, paverpol

I decide to strip the tie back to its essence.
I took out the fibers of the textile, knotted them together, and knitted the thread into this hat.

Having made a quasi-hat from the whimsical quasi-tie without extra material, I am not sure if I really “beautified” this object. However, my aim was to see the object for what it is, in its pure state, and re-make it with all the love and attention.

As one of my favorite artist, Anish Kapoor, said in an interview: “You cannot make something beautiful. It is either beautiful or it is not. You cannot look for beauty: you either have it, or you do not have it. And I think the same is true of a work. I believe very deeply that works of art, or let’s say things in the world, not just works of art, can be truly made. If they are truly made, in the sense of possessing themselves, then they are beautiful.” (Kapoor quoted in Sherry Gache, “Interview: Anish Kapoor,” Sculpture 5, Feb.1996)

I think I did make this object truly.