the man who went away...

in light of leaving town sunday morning for a five week residency in marfa texas, i figured it was a good time to share these two postcards, each featuring one of harold bell wright's temporary writing studios.

aside from their reference to working in non-city temporary digs amidst nature, anyone who visits the blog regularly knows i have a soft spot for objects residing within the intersection of the homespun and the modern. i'm not sure if bell wright designed and/or built these beautiful things himself, but regardless of who did the design work, they are awkward and wonderful in all the right places (and yes, i could've titled this post "when circus tents meet straw bail houses").

my introduction to bell wright came a few months ago, through the discovery of the following quote, which comes from his book "the man who went away" - an out of print novel that i'm still trying to find for under $100...

"from a bewildered frightened, money-mad, war-crazed world this man - the creature of his little materialistic day - had come into the vast tranquility of 'hempsted forest'. in this place of the redwood, he sensed time not as men greedily measure their hurried hours, but as it is - measureless - holding the infinite past, the present, and the infinite future as one. the silence of these primeval groves was the silence of that mystery from which which all life issues."

bell wright's studio forms and silent primeval trees seemed a nice little parting note to let you know my postings will probably be sporadic for the next month or so, as i will be seeking days filled with a similar silence...

when tents make music...

"the thing to keep in mind about tents is the way they sound. a decibel meter's delight, they flap, sigh, creak, groan, rustle, and when used as enclosures for revival meetings, conferences, circuses, and the like, they give the assembled public the choice of listening to speakers, or the snarls of caged beasts, or the near-subliminal symphonies created by the responses of the fabric and ropes to the shifting pressures of air movement.

it is also a fine thing to see what tents do with outside light: they diffuse the sharp rays of the sun and seem to shrink with the passage of clouds. overhead shadows of things nearby, ropes, cables, bits of hardware, are razor sharp and these too move occasionally in the wind.

a permanent feast for the senses, tents are also - and have been for millenia - structures of unsurpassed elegance and economy, first cousins to the sail, as fluid as a full clothesline in a breeze, kinetic sculpture in its most nearly dematerialized form..."

george nelson, architect/designer, 1978, in george nelson on design. (image: 1923 postcard of japanese band in front of tent...)