Small Things Big Ideas ©
By Michael Casey
I thought I’d better write something new today even though I’m
a bit tired, then I looked at an old bucket and I was inspired. Yes, my muse is
an old bucket, Picasso and famous writers had dusty maiden, me I have an old
bucket. So today before the girls get back from choir practice I’m going to
talk about how things inspire us.
As a child I had a big imagination, no change there, me and
DmC used to use a paperclip and it was a car for the Leprechauns, we drove
their car through the grooves of the brickworks, you know the mortar between
the bricks. We were very happy to have Leprechauns even though we didn’t even
have a plastic car for them to sit in, all we had was a paperclip.
This illustrates how we and children generally can use
anything they find to create an imaginary land with all kinds of everything
used to create structures. A discarded cola can is used to represent The Rotunda
in Birmingham, which happens to look like a cola can in reality. A fag packet
can become a block of flats, a shoe box a shopping centre. An apple can become
a recording studio and so on.
When you grow up you become an architect and your ideas are
seen as revolutionary, because you have a giant apple as a fresh produce
market, a giant book is a book shop and a giant phone, the old style phone is the
new Apple headquarters, with a slice cut
out to allow light and a central
stairway to be slotted in. Now to some this may sound very avante garde if my
French is correct, but really all the great architect is doing is remembering
all the fun he had in the playground with his best friend DmC.
The butcher shop was of course shaped like a cleaver and the
doorway was like entering via a pig’s buttocks, and the light fittings looked
like a cow’s udder with lights coming out of the teats. This made the shopping
experience feel more like a visit to an art exhibition.
The Public in West Brom did of course fail and was turned into
a school, which proves Art should be left to real experts, not councillors who
call themselves cabinet members, but know nothing about, woodwork.
Modern computer games do allow you to create spaces and so forth
and these can be expensive, but do you know what are the best tools for
creativity? Imagination is the best tool of all and a bit of paper and some crayons.
If when you walk home from Aldi with your kids and you encourage them you look
around and notice all the people all the beautiful people, what is the result? They are observant.
They may even become writers like dad, but their minds are filled
with shapes and noises and best of all with ideas. If all your kids do is
trudge home resenting having to go to the shops with you, then you have missed
an opportunity. Open your kids’ minds, don’t just fill them full of sugar, fill
them with ideas and love and hope.
A hand-made card is made with love and skill, it keeps you
kids busy for ages while you have a cuppa, or a sly pint of Stella Artois.
Expand their minds with words and shapes and sounds and craft stuff, then you
will have the next Laura Ashley in your home, and best of all batteries are
excluded.
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