Beauty and Inspiration in a Parking Lot

During my employment as a landscape architect and planner, I designed my fair share of parking lots. Small, large, paved, gravel. I'm here to tell you, as if you didn't already know, that there is nothing glamourous about designing a parking lot - or being in one for that matter.  

The grey and black asphalt grows so hot during the summer that you can actually see the heat rising. The bays, sectioned by fading white lines, are stained by oil slicks and residual AC fluid. Traffic jams. Competition for spaces. Paying for a space.

I write this blog to remind me that even when the whole of something is mundane or ugly, elements of it can be beautiful and inspiring. A parking lot is hardly inspiring, but smaller vingettes within a parking lot, really set my mind in motion - the way the lines make patterns on the ground, the arc of the trees grown to provide shade, the subtle changes in shades of grey. 

This is true in reverse when we create.  Sometimes we find ordinary items -  ribbons, buttons, paper.  We examine, rearrange, and choose a composition for the pieces and, whatever it is, it really satisfies our need to make something beautiful to us.  The pieces ordinary pieces inspire us to create a more beautiful whole.

My point is - whether you deconstruct something unappealing or make something new from ordinary parts, there is can be beauty and inspiration.  It all depends on how you decide to look at it.   

Snow Women

I've noticed recently that during particularly difficult rough patches, I am ferociously creative. Doodles and drawings pile up next to patterns and books on my desk. If I can get to the computer, I run through the blogs, listed at right, just to see what they've made. It's as though I MUST make something.

The kids are allowed to use almost anything inside the art drawer (except playdough) in the hopes that I can steal a little more time with the pen and paper and, more importantly, that I can teach them to love creating too.

Part of the "great make" this time includes The "snow women". I've been drawing them, sewing by hand and machine from handmade and dyed wool felt. Making the felt is almost as satisfying as creating something from it.

Each is different from the last - evolving into something more my style each time. The first and third prototypes were bundled and bound in layers of overcoats and sweaters.

The second, the "English Nanny", got away with overcoat only as Livy stole her from my desk before I could finish the hat and scarf. She did return it briefly only so I could add the missing face, but she is still being snuggled as I type.

For now, I'm hoping the need to create will subside. I love making and get great satisfaction from it. But, I don't like feeling of being bound by a need that I can never satiate - like a thin coat on a cold day that doesn't quite keep you warm.