My drawings and paintings have evolved into a visual language, words, sentence. Representing philosophies I have. On what is happening in our urban environment and the social and psychological impact it is having on us as a world-society. with cellular phones, computers, faxes, pagers, cash machines, automated everything we are closing off ourselves from human interaction.
We are learning to become more familiar with plastic and metal than with a handshake. People are numbers and figures to be used as statistical information. We are spending less time socially with our family and friends than ever before. There are whole sub-cultures incapable of simple social skills. Our world is getting smaller but at the same time so is humanity. We as a society are desensitized and accept horrors of real life as if it were a movie.
There is an overwhelming feeling of apathy in our nation right now, many people have no hope in the future especially the children. They are being taught by overworked, underpaid, apathetic teachers. Who try hard to teach but are faced with outrageous conditions. Extra curriculum classes are being cut out of school systems right and left. There are less afterschool sports programs, clubs. The parks are closing, leaving the children to be latch key kids and getting involved in gangs and violence. These are just a few of the problems of America today. With all these involved aand complex problems it is easy to be apathetic.
My Coffee Cup series represents the sense of community. Coffee houses for business meetings and to meet friends. People drink coffee in the morning to get going. There is the coffee break a time to think over the rest of the day, to relax and unwind. There is coffee served at dinner or after dinner. People serve coffee to guests to be social.
Coffee to me is a symbol of communication stopping and smelling the flowers and enjoying life for today. it is a time express and exchange ideas and thoughts. It is a time of interaction. I feel society needs to focus on communication. Working inwards outwards. Solving problems of the home, then community, then country, state, nation and then the world.
These works are just a part of a whole idea to reinstall the sense of hope and sense of power in one’s self.
-Robert E. Schmolze