At least once a day I'm confronted with this concept but I only see it in the periphery. I know I'm seeing it when I get that zing, like an endorphine rush. Or sciatica.
I see it here in the barnacles-on-oyster-shells my nephew, quasi-niece and I painted with cheap neon paints they brought up to the cabin. It's somewhere in the understanding that barnacles and oyster shells are not to be doused in day-glo, that neon'd natural forms do not belong in a rural setting.
It's a subtle sabotage that raises questions, starts conversations. It activates the idea of crack in beauty.
I would like to believe I'm able to let go of the 'pretty' and embrace the power of the 'pretty/ugly' but I'm not quite there; the rest of the painted logs and rocks and shells were left outside to dry overnight and the next morning the water-based colours had run, leaving only traces of the neon paint job. Liz Magor would have probably liked that. She might even have made that little 'whoo' sound like she does when she likes what she sees.
I chucked them back onto the beach.