Exploding Flowers. Business. Layers of Chaos!

Flowers.  Beautiful.  Simple. Form. Color. I'm obsessed. 

I'm even more obsessed with what is beneath them.  Dirt.  Bugs. Stems. Leaves. Weeds. Alive. Changing. Chaos.   

We focus on the color. The pretty!

It's like advertising and running a business.   We focus on the beautiful model.  Or product.  Or emotion.  We forget or disassociate all the chaos that brings it to us.   

As a CEO I saw a lot. As an artist, I see more.

Telemarketers on the phones pushing product.  Beneath the happy demeanor there is chaos. Some are upset they can't pay their bills.  Or, they don't have insurance.   Still, they put on a pretty face. 

Inventory misplaced.  A customer is angry. The CEO is mad at Accounting.  Accounting is mad at inventory control people.  Inventory control guys are mad at the folks in the warehouse.  It was Jimmy's fault.  "Who gave Jimmy the day off?".  Is everybody mad? Just find the product.  "Boy we wrecked our productivity numbers today." 

We don't see that through the flowers. 

More. The website is not current.  Someone's expense report it wrong, or late. I'm not paid enough, or as much as the next guy. Or, girl.  But, girls are never paid enough. (I knew other CEO's that worked hard to only hire married women because they wouldn't need as much money or benefits.)  

So we give girls flowers. 

And please.  Don't think about the environment. 

See, businesses involve people (they are not people - sorry Supreme Court you got it wrong in Citizens United).  People have lives.  They have families.  Relationships. Health issues. They drink too much. "Can IBM get drunk?" Chaos.

Some business and consultants make money by fixing the chaos.  "We can make your operation smoother and more productive, Mr Vega".  Really?  How much will it cost?

Better yet, advertisers make money by presenting our lives the way we want them to be.  Or could be.  "Can we retouch that model just a little more?" They don't want us to see the wrinkles.  The chaos.

I have wrinkles. 

We see flowers because we want to see flowers. 

We don't want to see the chaos.  The weeds.  The dirt.  The bugs. We don't want to think about it.

See, I'm obsessed with flowers and what is beneath them.  What allows them to live.

In my art I hope you see something beautiful.  And, I hope you see the chaos from my gunpowder and fuse explosions.  It burns in a beautifully chaotic way.  

Like people. 

Stick Vega is the American Gunpowder Artist.  He creates and blogs from The Blast Factory in Madison, WI and Bucktown, Chicago, IL.  Follow Stick at Facebook and/or Twitter.