I am boring

So here's the set of images from yesterday's art cum design blog-musing.  The artist chap asked which shape we liked --our best and least  -- well, I liked #1 the best. Though it was rather flat, the design was intriguing (variety of line and shape, nice asymmetrical composition, loved the negative space) -- and I could see that design would beautifully translate into textiles.

My least favorite was #4 -- too busy, to me, an uninteresting scene (who wants to look at a picture of power lines?).

Turns out that my choices were the exact opposite of those of the artist. Then I listened again, and noticed that he asked "which shape do you like best, least?"  Since there was a lot more in the examples than a simple shape, maybe I was going beyond what he asked us to respond to.

So what were the "best" choices?  The world, he said, it divided into interesting shapes, and those that are boring. And interesting shapes have three attributes:

• interesting shapes have two different dimensions -- one side is longer than the other (squares are "out")
  
• interesting shapes an oblique line or thrust somewhere - he defined oblique as anything not horizontal or vertical
• interesting shapes should have "incidents" - something that is sticking out of or into a shape at its perimeter -- he says they should be sticking in or out all around the perimeter -- "something happening" around the perimeter

This video is directed to students of painting, but I would think that he would apply his principles to any two dimensional medium.

My choices -- love #1, detest #4 -- make me officially boring!