Today in critical studies, Lane Relyea proposed a question while talking about art pushing to infiltrate everyday life in past years. He asked, why do we want art to be a part of life? Why do we want to merge art seamlessly into daily life? For me this brought up another question, "why don't I want art to be integrated into life?" In my mind, design is where art meets life.
For a while now I have been rocking back and forth on the merits of design and its ability to bridge the gap between art and life. On one hand is this utopian view for a future world, where every object is well designed and durable, yielding less need for consumer consumption. On the other I look at design as a lesser form of art, creating for the consumer rather than for the self. For some unknown reason I have the strong urge to separate art and life.