MATERIAL WORLD, AND WHAT TO DO WITH IT

Mashing two words together to make ‘material world’ brings up a long list of ongoing problems, some more distressing than others.

Scientific American shares this story from 2020:

 

Human-Made Stuff Now Outweighs All Life on Earth

Artificial objects have gone from just 3 percent of the world’s biomass in 1900 to on par with it today.

And the amount of new stuff being produced every week is equivalent to the average body weight of all 7.7 billion people.

 

A lot of heavy stuff is made with concrete.

Which leads to other problems:

 

As a material that creates the majority of the world’s bridges, roads, dams, and construction, concrete releases an extreme amount CO2 each year.

It’s the highest consumed product on earth besides water.

The cement process is sole reason why the concrete industry makes up 8% of overall global emissions and 12% of emissions in New Jersey.

Cement is made by firing limestone, clay, and other materials in a kiln.

CO2 is emitted from the energy used to fire the material, and the chemical reaction produced from the mixture when it is exposed to heat.

 

Luckily, the material world is more than concrete.

Instead, it’s all of the stuff we see around us, and the tools used to turn raw material into something useful.

Watch a few episodes of ‘How It’s Made’ to make your head spin.

 

What To Do With Your Stuff

Everyone tackles their material world from a different angle.

For some, they can never get enough, where for others it’s a sin to have more than you need.

Aim for the sweet spot in between both extremes.

Take some baby boomer advice, millennials, when you start hearing, “Do you need a new set of,  ‘fill in the blank.’

Dishes? Pots and pans? Silverware? Dining set? Bedroom set?

“It’s a family treasure,” is the usual selling point.

“This was the table I grew up with as a kid,” says Mom.

“This is the table I grew up with as a kid,” says her child.

Dad says:

Load up the truck with donations and recycling, load up the dumpster with memories long overdue for removal.

The broken lamp that needs a little work? Flattened.

The rug remnant in case you needed to patch a piece? Gone.

All of the wood saved for fine woodworking? Out.

Keep going. It’s a big dumpster.

If you have a sledgehammer, bring it out to adjust the load.

A hacksaw? Cut stuff to fit.

The main thing is getting the lid to close flat, so pile it in right up to that point then move on.

Take the furniture in the truck to Community Warehouse.

Take the file cabinets to an office products place.

The ones they don’t take there? Go to Far West Metals.

 

Temporary Material World On Display

These are the remains of the Peter Iredale on the right, my wreckage on the left.

One of us contributes more to the weight of the material world than the other.

Both of us are losing mass year by year. At least that’s my story, and I’m not the rusty one.

And we’re both temporary. How do I know that we’re temporary?

The bonafides:

I saw a volcano blow and scour the earth down to bedrock.

What had been a vibrant and vital forest turned into a lunar landscape with all of the trees gathered together in a lake like pick-up sticks.

Temporary forest?

I saw video of the Thailand tsunami, the Fukushima tsunami.

Temporary party beach; temporary nuclear power plant?

I saw what the Alaskan tsunami did to Charleston, Oregon in 1964 when I was a wee ten year old blogger.

In Portland during the 80’s I saw the KOIN Tower go up and block the view of Mt. Hood from the east end of the Hyw 26 tunnels.

I was here before Big Pink.

The most recent material world giant in Portland is the tower that sits where the Veritable Quandary used to snuggle in near the Hawthorne Bridge.

It won’t be the last big project.

 

Material World Interpreter

There are people, teams of people, firms full of people, companies with connected teams of peope all engineering, drawing, and building the huge things we walk past with hardly a thought.

Cement, steel, and glass towers? Meh.

Morter and brick? Fine.

No one man does it alone, no matter the name.

Frank Lloyd Wright?

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe?

Frank Gehry?

 

The man in the picture is Pablo Picasso the prolific painter.

Did he do his work by himself?

Let’s say yes, and ignore the printing industry.

 

From 2020 to 2025, Picasso print sales have consistently ranked among the top five in global print auction results.

In 2023, his prints grossed approximately $17 million globally, with a slight correction to $14 million in 2024.

Yet, the long-term trajectory remains bullish.

 

Artists, both famous and obscure, take from the material world what they need to accomplish their goals of creation.

Through instinct and training they fuse memory and observation into a vision on canvas, in metal, wood, and textile.

They make us feel what they feel.

 

PS: When you visit a museum and start feeling the weight of how long it took someone to finish a work of art, it’s normal.

PSS: It’s too heavy to comprehend when you start thinking how long it would take you to finish a similar work of art? Move on to the next gallery while you still can.