(approximately 3 min read)
When I was eight years old I wrote a little book entitled ‘Funny Poems and More funny poems’.
In hindsight the title is far funnier than the poems were themselves.
Not wishing to destroy my childish enthusiasm by analysis (but I’m going to do it anyhow) I wonder now, why is repetition funny? Is it funny? Or is it just enjoyable.
The fact is, years later I still find myself attracted to repetition.
On regular walking routes, I take the same path every time. Although new places can be refreshing, I prefer to discover a friendly cafe, and frequent it. Become a local.
I secretly relish the repetitive motion of ironing, or vacuuming. (Am I the only one?)
In the process of making our serving tools there is a visual excitement in twenty five pieces laid out flat next to each other, waiting to be formed.
Each piece is never exactly the same and still requires much individual attention to bring it to its final finish.
To see one thing is fun, to see it repeated en masse has a wondrous quality to it, belonging to Alice in Wonderland.
The repetition of a pattern brings joy.
Perhaps its the theatrical. Perhaps its community.
Perhaps it reflects the pleasure of habits and routines, the eye has a chance to enjoy the repeated theme.
This is why sets make such lovely gifts. If you give a matching set of things it is somehow charming. The objects belong to each other and so have a place.
Once they are formed, one pair of dome tongs on its own is satisfying.
Two pairs speak to each other.
And when you have more there, the pieces start to play together.
Interestingly, when the pieces are figural, like the Stepping Out shoe serving tongs, something else happens. As soon as you have more than one, stories start to surface. They relate to eachother, corresponding or opposing, with angle, with attitude.
The eye seizes on the chance at the slightest hint that we have moved beyond geometry to make a story, a drama, a comedy.
As we grow older repetition can also become a source of great personal challenge. We all repeat ourselves. Personal consistency and security requires repetition. But it also can produce boredom and frustration, even anguish. As someone once said- “Wherever you go, there you are…”
To finish with a quote from the philosopher Gilles Deleuze, which bears repeating:
“Repetition changes nothing in the object but changes something in the mind which contemplates it”.
