Designed to be Functional?

I’m a great believer in the form-follows-function philosophy of art.  I love Eames chairs (like the one at Noel’s house) and the old Bell helmets (like the one I used to have in my motorcycle days.)  Clean lines.  Comfortable.  Useful.  Classic.  Right up there with ‘no-fuss-no-muss’ and ‘waste-not-want-not’ – also attitudes and lifestyles I believe in.

So, the discussion at our Friday gathering last night was of particular interest to me.  Among participants were several of the ‘usual suspects’ plus Tucker’s life-long friend, sculptor Eric Jensen and our neighbor Cyndy, CEO of the artist-in-residency program, Willapa Bay AiR.  Topics under discussion ranged from Oysterville happenings to public art installations.  We landed squarely on the Maya Lin Fish Cleaning Station at Cape Disappointment.

“It was never intended to be functional,” Cyndy said.  “Yes, it was,” I countered.  And we argued – not very vehemently because, as usual, I wasn’t too sure of my facts and everyone else stayed quiet.  (Doncha hate it when that happens?)  Besides, Cyndy said she was a participant in the Confluence Project ( a multi-location interpretive art project which included the fish-cleaning station at Cape Disappointment) since its beginnings.

As I ruminated over our discussion this morning (and actually looked up the history of that controversial art installation), I thought about my brain.  And brains in general.  And the whole form-follows-function thing.  I’ve been told that we only use about one-tenth of our brain’s capacity.  I don’t have the brain power to even understand how that’s possible, let alone how efficient and useful the human brain design might be.

My thoughts wandered back to my elementary school days when we learned in Health Class that our bodies could be compared with automobiles.  I think the brain was the engine – the driving force.  After many decades of use and uncountable mileage, I’m sure my brain needs an overhaul.  It may be a classic design, but it’s not functioning to optimum capacity any more – if ever it was.  I am a failure at an intelligent argument.

Come to think of it, that never was my strong suit.  I have always been superior at waking up the morning after with a clear vision of what I should have said.  This morning, though, I relied on the good old internet to remind me what the intent of that fish station sculpture was.  The most recent article I could find was by Katie Williams and had appeared in the August 20, 2015 Chinook Observer.  Under discussion was the closure of the Maya Lin Fish Cleaning Sculpture.

In the article, Colin Fogarty, executive director of the Confluence Project, was quoted: “We’re on the side of the fishermen,” he said, while questioning the advisability of closing it “at the height of the fishing season, using that work of art as it was intended to be used.”

Unhappily, my only partially functioning brain doesn’t know the rest of the story.  Is Maya Lin’s sculpture still closed for use?  Or is it now back to functioning as intended?

2 Responses to “Designed to be Functional?”

  1. Cyndy Hayward says:

    The Confluence Project grew from a notion of creating for the bicentennial a series of artworks examining the Lewis & Clark legacy from the Native American perspective. Maya Lin’s piece at Cape Disappointment is described as “a hunk of basalt, outfitted with a fully plumbed sink and inscribed with the Chinook creation myth. It was a wry update of a cruddy, stainless steel fish-cleaning station that preceded Lin’s redesign in this location.” At the launch of the Project, Portland Monthly wrote a long article on Lin’s career and the Confluence Project. When one attendee at the ribbon-cutting at Cape D lamented that “. . . the fish-cleaning table, people will use it; I can see it all covered in fish guts,” the response was “Besides a rather profound cynicism, the statement expressed a misunderstanding of Lin’s intention that the table actually be used.” As we know, the artwork did get used to gut fish and did become covered in muck, making the carved creation myth hard to read. And, the officials decided not to continue to pay the cost of cleaning it up. The point that I think is important is that the artwork is intended to commemorate Indian livelihood that was threatened by the “achievement” of Lewis & Clark. It certainly was not designed to serve recreational fishermen, even if it has done so.

  2. sydney says:

    Yes, that’s what I understood you to say last night, too, and thought that my memory of the installation and of the table’s stated purpose was faulty. I thought I remembered that Maya Lin, herself, had spoken about the table’s functionality and, indeed, I found the statement she made at its dedication: “You’re not coming here to see what I’ve done… You’re coming here because you’ve always come here, because you’ve just caught a king salmon that’s two and a half feet long, and you’re going to cut your fish here. And then, maybe, you’re going to start reading… and maybe you’ll get a hint that this was the sacred grounds of the Chinook Tribe.”
    To me, it is clear that Lin’s intent was for the table to be functional for all fishermen.

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