VISUAL TREATS presents VISIONS OF WINTER / DAY 2

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Peeps,

I am hopelessly drawn to the worn and battered, darned and mended; objects, environs, and individuals who seem to have experienced life in all its complexity, or simplicity if we remember the teachings of wiser heads.  Today's visual treat is of a sitting room, or home office where the purpose of reading or writing remains foremost.  To some it may seem that the look of the room is of little concern to the dweller, for it is not 'done' in the conventional sense.  Yet there is much to delight the eye (as well as nurture the spirit): natural rugs which offer warmth and comfort, stacked books suggest an inquisitive and intellectual disposition, and hung artwork certainly suggests an interest in the representation of our reality (via the vehicle of art). On the book-stands pushed against the walls, three objects capture my eye.  First, the white bust of a child, possibly a store mannequin, or a childhood doll.  Next, I see an antennae, could it be for a short-wave radio?  I seem to remember hearing more technologically savvy friends disparage the radio, and the record-player, and the Polaroid (and many other things that we all grew up with quite well) as dinosaurs, things of the past.  The transistor radio with its short-wave reception capability always reminds me of my father, who loved to sit out on the verandah late at night, listening to Latin Jazz broadcasted from Cuba, or awaiting the results of the ' Panama,' the weekly lottery sold throughout Belize by the Chinese vendors, with the winning numbers excitedly recited several countries away.  The Remington touch-type machine sitting forefront incites my already fertile imagination, and I immediately visualize a famous novelist or an acclaimed essayist spending long afternoons pondering on lofty ideas, wrestling creative demons, or merely questioning (the meaning of it all) in a place of quiet solitude.


I've already seen photographs of Gore's famed retreat on the coast, and this it is not.  Jeanette is long gone south and living above the shop.  Perhaps it's Rupert Thompson's secret English retreat (known only to he and a small group of confidantes).  Yes, that's it.  It must be!!


Hope you find today's visual treat as interesting as I do.


Sincerely,
Shane