The Vernacular and Aesthetic in Context

In viewing the vernacular as the "everyday, concerned with function," as Bruce previously brought up, and the aesthetic as something beautiful or visually pleasing, I would say that a visual artifact could be both vernacular and aesthetic. The distinction would depend upon the viewer's background, the context in which the artifact is viewed, and a cultural society's decision about what is constituted as aesthetic as opposed to vernacular. I would agree with Christine that the act of looking is an integral part in determining what the categorization of the artifact is.  What we see and how we see are both determined by the many complexities associated with the way we look.

While thinking about drawing a distinction between the aesthetic and vernacular, I can't help but think of Alice Walker's short story Everyday Use. In the story, two African American sisters vie for the inheritance of a family quilt. One sister who is homely and uneducated wants to keep the quilt for "everyday use," while the other sister, who is highly educated and engulfed in the Back to Africa movement of the early 1970s, wants to hang the quilt on the wall for purely aesthetic reasons. If the movement she was involved in had not deemed authentic African artifacts as popular, this sister would probably have had no interest in the quilt. As Helmers states, "collective memory allows societies to agree on what is important, what should be saved, and what should be commemorated" (77). Aesthetic artifacts are connected to community, in that the community determines its degree of aestheticity and whether the artifact is worth preserving. Vernacular artifacts are also associated with cultural societies, as using a certain artifact or even language, as Molly pointed out, can give a person entrance into a cultural group. However, the worth of a vernacular artifact is not determined by beauty, but by the effectiveness of the artifact in carrying out its function. Since vernacular artifacts are used individually, their effectiveness is determined on a more personal level. 

It seems that vernacular and aesthetic artifacts can both be used as visual rhetoric  once they  have been framed to do so. For example, the quilt in Everyday Use could be viewed as visual rhetoric because of the historical story going on in the background. The Back to Africa movement was intended for African Americans to become more cognizant of their African identities. Would a quilt hung on a wall or used for its actual intentions prove to highlight a person's African-ness more? The quilt becomes rhetorical and communicates because of the contextual setting it exists in. However, outside of this setting, the quilt would just be a quilt. Meaning making can only occur where there is an opportunity and exigence for meaning to be made.