Noticing

nurture

Jun 20

Aside from the kitties on the porch who are getting more vocal by the minute about the necessity of breakfast (they began asking in earnest a good hour before usual this morning), it’s been a quiet morning. First cup of tea, already gone. Nellie, waking up to show me her favorite toy, now back asleep in her chair. Birds singing, no matter that we’ve woken to the latest in a string of drippy, overcast days. Personally, I love the drippy days. Love how water and diffused light saturates colors.

Isn’t it good to have these touch points, these accents to notice as we move about our work? Check the list for the day, add several lines to it, then look at the definition of the landscape outside the window. Or the definition in a single leaf. Or the way the wooden bench by the fire pit looks, saturated like that. The flower-filled clay pots sitting on the front porch are no longer a chalky salmon color, but a deep terra cotta, thanks to the soaked soil within them.

Noticing. I suppose you could say this is filling the reservoir. I’ll never know what may emerge in my design work later in the day, or the next, or one day next week - a color combination, a texture, a shape, influenced simply by my pause on a rainy day to see. Surely, I’m no master of this, nor am I highly accomplished with creases crisp and my top button buttoned. I’m simply a caretaker of beauty, gathering it, keeping it for its time.

I’ll be at my drafting board for much of the day today, creating rooms in houses, drawing what I see, erasing, drawing what I see that’s even better. Thinking in three dimensions, thinking in color, thinking in texture, thinking in form. Letting light and dark discover each other. Letting colors find their way. Letting the design unfold between my mind and my hands. Not being surprised at all when the color of deep gray in the saturated wooden bench and the strong terra cotta of the pots on the porch come together in my finished work.

I suppose it’s similar to how an apron-clad person who works in flavors puts together the purest, simplest foods and synergistically creates a result more exquisite than any of the ingredients could be on their own. Or how a person who works with notes and chords and rhythms blends their singular forms into an experience of sound that’s layered with mood and story.

The substance of our creative work is born simply by noticing.