Occasionally a random arrangement of light and shade will stop me in my tracks, interrupting my conscious thinking, transporting me to a place where time and space mean nothing. It’s the place where the part of me which loves to make pictures lives.
There’s nothing unusual about the taps in the kitchen near my day-job office. I use them several times a day, while making cups of tea, or filling a glass with drinking water.
On this particular afternoon I had a head full of computer stuff, but the angle of the sun coming through a skylight crashed into that, giving me a chance to do something I find infinitely more interesting during the few moments it took for the electric kettle to boil.
The embossed, clear plastic warning label, barely visible in this photo to the left of the yellow printed sign, ever reminds me to keep studying my Braille alphabet, which doesn’t come naturally to me. Of course, a Braille label doesn't need to be visible at all to those who need it, but my eyes need to learn to decipher the code, because my rude fingers certainly can't. It says, quite simply, "hot water". Capital letters are not strictly necessary in most Braille, since they merely clutter the line with superfluous symbols. But if you want to get top marks in an English exam, and you are a braillist, then you must include them.
They look like frail bent-over little grannies, I love them!
Posted by: shara | Sunday, 27 May 2007 at 04:15 PM
Yes, I see what you mean. This now reminds me of that early European film animation, whch was a sort of shadow-puppet genre.
I was once fortunate enough to meet a then quite elderly Lotte Reiniger, who let me play with her hand-made cardboard figures.
http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/528134/index.html
Posted by: Peter Bryenton | Sunday, 27 May 2007 at 05:53 PM