Nuance
Item No. 9
“To want to look at nuance is to want to notice that an exceptional range of almost everything exists.”Nuance is a subtle difference in or shade of meaning, expression, or sound. The aesthetic of subtlety. The beauty that exists in an intricate and elegant shade of something. The variety of language that is all around us. The innuendo of shadow, and complexity of shades of meaning and individual signatures. The assortment of color in the sky every day (or every hour). “The artist will go where you also want to look,” Boris Mikhailov, an artist, said. To want to look at nuance is to want to notice that an exceptional range of almost everything exists. We list nuance in this season’s catalog as it is increasingly easy to think in categories. To lump ourselves (or others) together. To land in an echo chamber. To point to broad-scale descriptors, personas, and characterizations that would have us believe we or anything might be grouped perfectly. That our lives exist in simple categorizations of us. That we’re the color of our state’s political map–even though we’re not. That we exactly represent some social construct that we align with ourselves or that others might place us in or that we might lump others together in? That the descriptor of a group of us–or others—is the descriptor of each of us. But if we pause, we might realize none of this is true. There is infinite nuance around us and inherent in each human being. That is, there is an infinite amount of nuance within each of us. It is what we offer this world.
The first cost is obviously the middle ground. That’s what nuance is all about, isn’t it? The gray-scale in-between what we might call black or white? And were we not to recognize or acknowledge nuance, the cost might also be the loss of beauty. The architect Rafael Moneo hints at an appreciation of nuance when he says he thinks about the unique shapes around him. Why this shape?" He said. Why this form? Why does the built world have the shape it has? What is behind the person who created that shape?” The building, he said, represents the architect's personality. A building represents the nuance of the person who created it."Why this shape? Why this form? Why this pattern? Why?” “Look there to find nuance. Look there to find beauty,” he says. So the cost of losing sight of nuance might not only be the middle ground, it be beauty, too. But not only beauty but also a loss of an appreciation for the infinite nuance each human being adds to the spectrum of any group they inhabit. Not to recognize such nuance might be seen as a loss of that human being’s potential and, inevitably, thus, a price we all pay for potential unrealized.
What if we realized everyone’s potential?
(See also: Nuance).
Other specifications:
Look up at the sky and note the color every hour to notice one manifestation of nuance. Or, pause to consider what you appreciate most about a friend, a child, a parent, a colleague...chances are there is a hint right there in front of you about the nuance they bring to (y(our)) life.