Tip of the Tongue vs. the Mountain Peak

The phrase "on the tip of my tongue" tells us where tips are and differentiates "tips" from other endings. A word or name "on the tip of the tongue" is just out of reach, so close you taste it but not close enough to possess it fully. (Is this a clue to the underlying "feeling" of a tip - you can have them but not possess them?)

Posted by Daniel Wiener on November 17, 2005 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Introduction (Draft 2)

(Rewritten Feb 20, Mar 3, 2004)
I want you to think about tips. I want to you look at tips, notice their abundance and their variety and their ubiquity. The crocket at the top of a building, a dragon's tail and tongue, the pointed _________ of a seed pod, the taper of a decorative scroll and the sharp point of a canine tooth are all tips. If I were to ask you to point to the tip of each item in this diverse collection you could easily point to the tip, but more difficult is to define the word "tip". What comes to mind most readily is that a tip is the end of an object. This is clear enough, until scrutinised. Where exactly does an object end? If you begin to think about it, an object ends everywhere its surface meets the space around it. Why, then, does a tip feel like the end of an object? Not an easy question to answer, nor perhaps one this is frutifully pursued. For the time being let us simply agree that some areas of an object feel more like the end than other areas.

Posted by Daniel Wiener on November 11, 2005 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Introduction

(Rewritten Feb 20, Mar 3, 2004)
I have been thinking about tips, the end of things, the end of objects. I want to investigate the subject in depth and in the end to produce a visual essay. While blogs are meant to be personal diaries I use this blog to present and develop a work in progress. Much of "Tips - The End of Things" is devoted to photographic examples but this introduction dwells on the questions and confusions that shape my query. I would appreciate comments and suggestions for examples of tips.

Posted by Daniel Wiener on March 20, 2004 | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Knives

Posted by Daniel Wiener on March 17, 2004 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Animated Vessels 1 - Soakies

Instead of a bulging tip there is a head. These plastic shampoo and bubble bath bottles for children are part of a long tradition of "animated vessels" (more of these later). The term of art for character bottles is "soakies". One soaky, many soakies.

Posted by Daniel Wiener on March 07, 2004 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Antoinette

In a rare exception to the rule that contemporary objects shun tips, some font designers have brought back the serif, the flourish, the arabesque, as in this instance to a pleasing excess.

Posted by Daniel Wiener on March 05, 2004 | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Embarassing Tips

Some tips must be hidden. Knives and swords are sheathed. It is impolite to point the finger, to expose the tip fo the finger. Rules govern which tips are exposed and which are not.

Tips are embarassing. That is, body tips. The tip of the penis and the nipple are required, by custom, to be hidden.

Are only the powerful, dangerous tips that are hidden?

Posted by Daniel Wiener on March 05, 2004 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Random Ideas 2

added feb 13, 2003
I was wondering if tips have anything to do with desire. It seems as if some kind of yearning is implicit in a tip but I am not sure that this is central or a helpful path to pursue. More important is that tips infer a relationship. I am not sure what the right word is - "make", "create", "require" "force" - but where there is a tip there is a relationship.

Posted by Daniel Wiener on March 02, 2004 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Modern Objects

A modern coathook is a rare example of modern/contempary design utilizing tips. An almost humorous, comic-like version of a bulging tip.

Posted by Daniel Wiener on February 29, 2004 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Toys

Posted by Daniel Wiener on February 28, 2004 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

A Baby's Toes

The tips of these toes seem more passive than other tips... not yet ready to grab the floor for balance and movement.

Posted by Daniel Wiener on February 26, 2004 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Intermediate abstractions.

In art we have tended to focus on the most abstract of abstractions. I want to look at a subject that is slightly less abstract (and all the more fertile for being so).

Posted by Daniel Wiener on February 25, 2004 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Finial, Luxemborg Gardens, Paris

Is this shape called a "finial" or is it called something else when it a sculpture on its own? What a strange thing... to isolate a decorative element and make it an autonomous object.

Posted by Daniel Wiener on February 22, 2004 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Candelabra, Vases and more

A Design for a Candelabrum, by Micelangelo Buonarroti, c. 1535

Posted by Daniel Wiener on February 22, 2004 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Finials Queens New York May 2002

Finials from some homes in Queens, New York, taken on a walk in May of 2002.

Looking at these finials, one after another, makes me wonder "Why do we do this? What happens at the end of things that makes us want to decorate them, elaborate on them/with them?" It is as if something different MUST happen when a shape reaches it top. This does seem to happen more at the top than at the bottom of things. But it is mostly a feeling of astonishment at the fact of their invention and the need to invent "out on a limb".

Posted by Daniel Wiener on February 21, 2004 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Tip of the Tongue

Goofy's tongue and other famous tongues.

Posted by Daniel Wiener on February 06, 2004 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Random Ideas

Really random ideas. Collect them, then put them together later.

The tip as a kind of climax. As in the steeple of a church. Or a cross.

added Feb. 12, 2003
Tips seem to be lacking in the modern and contempoary periods in comparison to the faraway past.

Posted by Daniel Wiener on February 03, 2004 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Architectural Elements

A cloche and a gate.

Posted by Daniel Wiener on February 03, 2004 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Objects, Tips, Children, and Art

Continue reading "Objects, Tips, Children, and Art"

Posted by Daniel Wiener on May 10, 2003 | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Finials May 03

Finials from Brooklyn and The Cooper Hewitt Museum in Manhattan

Posted by Daniel Wiener on May 09, 2003 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Reitveld's Chair

Tips create a (harmonious) transition from an object to the space around it. Modern objects truncate this transition.

Posted by Daniel Wiener on May 08, 2003 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Flowers

Passion. Stamen.

Posted by Daniel Wiener on March 14, 2003 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Buildings

One Jvjol, as of yet.

Posted by Daniel Wiener on March 14, 2003 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Tip of the finger

The bud of a flower balancing on the tip of my finger.

Posted by Daniel Wiener on February 24, 2003 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Weapons

As for now a picture of spears.

Posted by Daniel Wiener on February 11, 2003 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Random Finials

A few more pictures of finials.

Posted by Daniel Wiener on February 11, 2003 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Buds

Pictures of buds. Blossfeldt and others.

Posted by Daniel Wiener on February 08, 2003 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Teeth and Tusks

Posted by Daniel Wiener on February 08, 2003 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

List

A list of categories of tips. Things to find, things to think about.

Posted by Daniel Wiener on February 04, 2003 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)