Image Inspiration

Inspiration for me often comes from recurring images. Things in the field of vision that you just can't get out of your head. Like this picture of tree-serpents hugging Greek columns in Oakland.

Sometimes all you need is an image you catch on the fly and then catch again and again. One of my most accomplished stories, 'Hysteria In Autumn' or so I think its accomplished based on the number of drafts of it I wrote, was inspired by the site of a porta-pottie being lifted into the heavens by a crane. At the time I was going through a tough spot in my life (involving bad decision making in the romance department) and I took a lot of personal refuge in ironic images, or at least interesting contrasts that made me laugh and entertain hope at the same time.

THE holy toilet that so captured me, however, was carried aloft at the construction site for the Catholic Church in Oakland below known as Cathedral Of Christ The Light. Unfortunately, I never managed to capture it on camera there, so the above photo from a different site will have to suffice.

I did however spend many of my work breaks over a year or two watching the church evolve from glorious raw scaffolding to ovoid launch pad to its current state as iridescent glass vulval egg that some people claim is more Ikea than Holy.

I'm not alone either in noting the suggestive shape of the center part of the church. I can't tell you how many people I've overheard walking around Lake Merrit exclaiming, "Wow, that church is going to look like....look like...a vagina!" NO offense to church-goers or women; tis more a commentary on architecture than anything else.

Meanwhile, at the beginning of my reconnaissance, I was enthralled by the virginal scaffolding and the strange men that moved within that cocoon:


THE close-up was particularly inspiring.


THE WHITE CRANE was the one that lifted the porta-potties high into the sky.
FIAT LUX!



My office building is the large steel-grey megalith filling the left side of this photograph that completely dwarfs everything else in its path.
HERE is the wonderfully autumnal view from my work window:

Anyway, it all makes me curious what other landmark/thing/specter in the field of vision will provide similar inspirational fodder.

I'll keep you posted.