The Art of Chaos

The Art of Chaos

Last month seemed to be one where everyone and everything was falling apart. Schedules were everywhere, people were panicking about deadlines, life seemed to be perfectly falling apart into an ugly mess. In other words, October was chaos.

For me personally, I was trying to balance school, mid-terms, work, friendships, quality time with family, travel, and I could go on.  I mean, I accidentally shipped my suitcase to South Dakota which resulted in me only having one pair of jeans for a week and a few other various items. It seemed as if I was stuck in the gray area where nothing much was making sense. I was just going through the days and not getting things out of them. There was constantly something on the to-do list, and it seemed I could never check anything off. In other words, October was chaos.

The weather has now skipped from a nice fall to a full born Minnesota winter just without the part that makes winter pretty...snow. October just brought freezing cold wind and some icy roads. I ended up hitting a patch of ice and going into the ditch. Cars are having trouble starting, and the walks to class are brutal.

 In other words, October was chaos.

But chaos always has some underlying beauty that comes with it, something I was recently taught in art class. Mr. Stegman, my art instructor, started talking about graphic organizations in art. There was mimesis, which means  to copy exactly as you see it. There was asymmetrical, which was to promote inequality. There was the rule of thirds, which a lot of photographers use, center of interest, symmetry, golden mean, but then there was the last one which caught my attention.  

Chaos. No design.

How is this even possible? No design in art? The idea of the chaos organization in art is that you tell the story of the chaos in your mind. You don’t create a structure or outline to paint or create, you just do it. You aren't careful to use the other organizations, because yours is chaos. It depicts this story of chaos. 

Most of us have seen the painting “Starry Night” by the famous Vincent Van Gogh. What if I told you that when Van Gogh painted that, it was his view from an insane asylum he was in. Would you believe me? Most people would say no, because he had no reason to be in an asylum, and that he was a well known and rich artist. However, he was not famous at the time, and he was in an asylum. When he painted the “Starry Night,” he explained that the stars vibrated and twinkled but remained motionless in space, and the planets disappeared. People thought he was crazy back then. They saw no art in his paintings as they were not academic. They were chaos, just like the life he lived. 

Now the “Starry Night” is the most famous painting in the world and if for sale, would sell for a significant amount. People see beauty in his chaos. The way he took the stars and painted them and the way he uses chroma and color in his painting. That was his chaos.

In October, if I were to paint my chaos, it would have been a canvas full of dark colors. Reds, tons of black, grey, brown, maybe some green. It would have been ugly and busy. As November starts and I take a look back in October, I would paint a canvas full of white and yellow, purple and orange, to show that there was beauty in my chaos of a month. I learned lessons that were needed to be taught. I went in the ditch that was flat with no cars coming, and overall my luggage was in South Dakota with another  officer who just so happened to be coming up the next weekend. 

October may have been chaos; however, there were some beautiful things that happened that I just did not notice with the mess of it all. 

As we move into the chaos of finals, holidays, and more snow, let’s remember  there is beauty in chaos. Try and find it.



Stationed by the Flag,
Britton Fuglseth