Thursday, July 26, 2012

"You find beauty in ordinary things, do not lose this ability."

Is it too much to ask that these fortunes be written in proper English? I see enough comma splices in my work; I don't need them from my online seer. (Though, perhaps that title is stretching it....)
There are some ordinary things that I find beautiful, true. But maybe they aren't really ordinary. Maybe by recognizing them as beautiful, they are elevated to extraordinary. Who gets to choose what's ordinary, anyways?
In college I took a couple of drawing classes. I was crap at the still lives- my bottles just didn't look like bottles, I guess, but something about the live models in my life drawing class worked for me. Maybe it was because the lines didn't have to be so rigid but flowed and curved as living flesh.
Our models weren't completely naked (not at my conservative college they sure weren't!), but their bodies were well displayed. The man was probably in his sixties, fit, but not taut, and the woman was older, and curved marvelously everywhere. They were both beautiful as they stood in the middle of the room, and we focused our young eyes on them and sketched.
Now sometimes I stand transfixed in the supermarket, marveling at the red bell peppers, that twist and curve, or the radishes, so visibly crisp. No wonder Weston elevated vegetables to high art.

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