It’s all about context

A cheap candle in an art gallery is a sculpture. The same candle in a garage is junk.

Nothing about the candle changed. So what did?

Most people would say the gallery made it look expensive. That's not really it. Look closer at what a gallery actually does. Blank walls. Careful light. Empty space around a single object. Every choice in that room exists to strip away everything that isn't the work, until your eye has nowhere else to go.

A gallery doesn't add to the art. It removes everything that competes with it.
That's not decoration. That's intention. Someone decided exactly what you would see, in what order, and what you would ignore. The room is doing work you never notice, and it's the whole reason the candle reads as art.
Put that same candle in a garage, surrounded by noise, and your eye never lands on it at all.

It's a strange thing to sit with, especially if you make things for a living.
More on that Friday, because in our business, this is the whole game.

When has the right setting made you finally notice something you'd have walked right past?