When I went to visit my 88-year old uncle down in Florida, he asked me, “which do you prefer, function or aesthetics?”  I said, “aesthetics, of course.”  He told me that he himself, too, prefers aesthetics, as he continued working on a small canvas set upon a table in the living room, dipping his brushes in and out of the cans of latex paint.  I marveled at the beautiful, solid wood floors gleaming my reflection back to me.  He said his housekeeper, Julie, gets very upset with him as she has the task of cleaning the spilled paint up off of the floor.  

When I looked in my closet and saw only black shoes, I realized my answer to him was possibly not correct.  I must in fact prefer “function and efficiency” over aesthetics.  Black goes with almost everything, regardless of the season or style.  Black does not show the wear and tear or give away the daily routine so easily. Black is practical and economical.  If I had a pair of yellow shoes, I could only wear it with that one dress.

I thought that since I am an artist, artists must prefer aesthetics.  Isn’t that part of the definition?  Artists create things that are purely aesthetic.  There is no function in a painting hung on the wall.  Even works that aren’t purely decorative, that have a message, even a dark message, are wrapped in aesthetics to make them palatable.

Or is it simply that my shoes are all black, because I have limited money?  If I could, I would buy shoes in all the colors of the rainbow.