Tuesday, October 2, 2012

The Headwaters of Inspiration

"The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."
 Marcel Proust 


I have an on-again, off again project at my other blog, for which I try to take a photo every day, usually while I am out on my morning walk. I try not to fuss over whether it is a good photo or not: the idea is to see. It's so easy to look but not to see. So I try to take photos of things, interesting or beautiful or ugly or curious. Those are my favorites, the curiosities, the ones that make you tell yourself a little story in your head.

Today I took a photo just a block from my house, of this  - what? exhaust duct? Vent of some kind? I've lived here for seven years, and I have never noticed this thing before, although it's not small - it's maybe ten feet high. It is at the back of a building, but still perfectly visible from the road.

This shape would make a great teapot body. I could interpret it somewhat literally, out of slabs, preserving the industrial character of it; or less literally, as a thrown piece, and focus on preserving the proportions. 

Inspiration comes from seeing what is really there.

3 comments:

Barbara Rogers said...

I'll have to come back and see if anyone comments who knows what it is. I also liked your discipline (practice) of taking a picture a day. Excellent idea.

Just wish you wouldn't have the word verification thing on your comments here. It's a royal pain sometimes.

Glenn Roesler said...

Yes, yes ... to see. -gr.

Lori Watts said...

@Barbara - Actually I hate the word verification as well. I just randomly type letters until something matches, like the proverbial monkey at the typewriter. Maybe I'll spend some time this week figuring out how to turn it off.
My other blog used to get a crazy lot of spam without it, but I've recently had bloggers tell me it's not so bad now.