Material Studies, 2026
Record ID: 005
Date: March 24-2026
Subject: For the Time, Being
Filed Under: Self / Practice / Confession
Unrealized sculpture, aligned with my current way of thinking and working.
In personal matters, ambivalence is often misunderstood as indecision. It creates tension, conflict, and instability. There’s an expectation that clarity equals peace.
In my world, ambivalence isn’t necessarily confusion. It can be a form of awareness. The ability to hold multiple perspectives at once without forcing them into resolution. I found myself thinking: If coexistence can happen between people, why not between ideas? Nothing is fixed. Most things are still in motion while we’re experiencing them throughout our entire lives.
Within this period, there is still a responsibility in how that state is held, especially in relation to others. To recognize when something is still forming internally, and not project that instability outward without consideration.
With a certain level of self-awareness, we can allow for discovery without introducing unnecessary conflict into each other’s lives. This is where pragmatism takes over. Where existential questions become unavoidable. We still make decisions. And within those decisions, more follow.
In relationships, I’ve let things extend longer than they should have, waiting for clarity to arrive on its own instead of making a decision. I continue to lead with sincerity, immersing myself fully even while knowing a form of pain is approaching. I accept that cost, while still holding a quiet disdain for it. I’ve started to distrust clarity. It can feel like a thief in the night. The moment I feel sure of something, something shifts and takes that feeling away. I assume answers will bring satisfaction. But when they arrive, I question them. I ask, “who sent you?!”
I am a soldier of contradiction. But I don’t step into that battlefield, I live in it. The uncertainty pushes back. It creates resistance. I become chaotic in that way. Not because I want to, but because I don’t fully accept what’s in front of me.
I’ve come to see the relationship between ambivalence and resolve. If resolve is a temporary outcome of ambivalence, one cannot exist without the other. If ambivalence is the friend you can sit on the couch with for days, resolve is the one you meet for a drink every now and then before heading back home.
In my practice, I am especially drawn to things that don’t fully resolve. Surfaces that reveal and conceal at the same time. Structures that allow for partial visibility. Light that feels inviting but immediately restricting. The work doesn’t begin from clarity. It begins from tension.
As we approach the work, we become curious. Our brains perceive it with the level of information we have at the time. Not as a measure of intelligence, but of presence.
I aim to bring tension. Even in the smallest way, otherwise discovery is limited.
Susan Sontag writes about this in Against Interpretation, placing more value on the viewer’s experience than on fixed meaning. That initial ambivalence, even discomfort, isn’t a limitation. It’s part of the process.
I asked a few friends how ambivalence shows up in their relationships, work, and creative practice.
AF: Ambivalence in my life usually means uncertainty for too long, friction. Which is usually resolved by distancing altogether, removing myself from whatever is stirring such conflicting feelings.
Love life: trying to qualify poor qualities with redeeming qualities in a person in hopes of a net positive. If not resolved or removed, can turn into resentment.
Work/Artistic: If soemthing isn’t clear it’s either tabled or workshopped until it’s defined. Very Brancusi “simplicity is complexity resolved.”
EA: Ambivalence might actually be the thing that happens right before victory or harmony or conquering a basic skill set like drifting in a car… except that in our life, our meat suits are the vehicle… Today I wanna drive to the horizon line and sunset… tomorrow I might not want to step outside.
HM: Ambivalence feels like a rollercoaster for me. It can be uncomfortable, but I also find it fascinating because it pushes me to explore the contradictions within myself instead of rushing to resolve them. Having conflicting feelings sparks curiosity about myself and others, and sometimes even makes me feel free, as if questioning my desires opens paths I hadn’t considered. Even when ambivalence leans toward the negative side, it offers new perspectives and reminds me that freedom often comes from embracing tension rather than trying to fix it. For me, ambivalence is simply part of understanding the complexity of being human.
BC: I carry two answers in the same breath, one that wants to choose, and one that refuses.
Ambivalence is not a problem I solve, it’s a room I pace in at 3am, barefoot, thinking of Gandhi whispering that everything I do will dissolve into dust yet somehow still matters enough to keep my hands moving.
I don’t trust clean answers. They feel like new paint over old walls, like certainty bought too cheaply.
I’ve always felt closer to the in-between. The magic in life comes at the point of solving. Once solved, I’m back to something else. The journey is more important to me than the destination. I don’t care about the result as much as the work.
In love:
I am both all-in and already grieving, falling while watching the fall, holding someone like a found object that I know was once discarded and could be again but choosing, anyway, to call it sacred. To be open enough that I could be crushed at any moment, but knowing the openness is needed to find something true, something real. The mix between giving someone the ability to break me and trusting they won’t.
In work:
I build things I don’t fully believe in at first, just to see if belief follows action, like dragging meaning behind me hoping it sparks. The mix of expectations, requirements, rent due, bills, a talent, hours traded for money because someone somewhere decided for me that I needed it to live.
In art:
I don’t resolve the contradiction, I exhibit it. I frame the hesitation, stretch the canvas between yes and no, leave the mark and erase it, leave the erasure visible. I place two opposing objects together, sometimes feeling confrontational. The idea always comes first and the idea is always open. I like to pose questions more than make a statement, and when statements are made, they tend to be laced with irony or some kind of satire.
Ambivalence is my medium.
Because the truth is, I don’t want a life that is decided. I want a life that is lived through, even if it flickers, even if it contradicts itself, even if it means loving something I can’t hold still. What I do may be insignificant, but I do it anyway, because not doing it would be the only real loss.
And maybe that’s it. I don’t resolve ambivalence. I walk it, crooked, and call that honesty.
Uncertainty, especially when encountering something unfamiliar, is often treated as a failure to understand. But it may be a necessary stage of perception.
There’s a tendency, particularly in Western thinking, to move toward clarity. To define and separate things into stable categories. In contrast, certain Eastern philosophical frameworks, particularly within Daoist and Buddhist traditions, allow for contradiction. They make space for opposing states to coexist without requiring immediate resolution.
I live with the idea that we can remain ambiguous about many things in life until we reach the end of our lives. Multiple positions can stay active until we’ve experienced something in full. It exists as part of a larger process that hasn’t reached its end. If we’re lucky, we’re able to decide without pressure to stabilize too quickly.
Everything is still in motion.
Ambivalence exists because nothing has finished becoming.