Saturday, August 23, 2008

. . .could see clearly


Driving around running errands yesterday, I had one of those days where absolutely everything I looked at had an artistic possibility. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me.
It all started when I happened to be stopped behind a truck at a red light. All of a sudden, I notice that the truck, while pristine and clean everywhere else, had two rows of rust running vertically down its back doors, and at random places, the rust turned into, yes, dots, spots, circles of rust. Very graphic. And the door handle at the bottom had some interesting oval and semi-circular rusty shapes, too, much like the picture above, but not yellow.
Later, because of highway construction, I had to take back roads to where I was headed. As I'm driving along these fairly familiar roads, I notice. . . power lines. . . lots of them. . . everywhere. And they formed very interesting angles: different sized wires extended to the ground, wires crossed in the air, all very geometric and interesting. And not a circle to be found. And not only did the angles of the lines inspire me, the crossbeams and equipment attached to the wires were interesting, too. As construction creeps further out to the suburbs around here, I suspect we will experience the demise of overhead power lines. Already they are buried in the new subdivisions. I will remember to take my camera and will plan a wire snapping outing. I'll bet I could use those photos not only for inspiration in painting, but also as backgrounds for photocollages featuring what would appear random scratchings.
Days like that don't happen to me all the time, but it makes me remember that there is art everywhere around me, and I just have to be open to the possibilities.

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