Common Treasures

Philosophers have for centuries contemplated that which separates humanity from beasts of the field, air, and sea.  The ability to see beauty has long been thought to be one of those things that make us special amongst the earths inhabitants.  Plato and Aristotle argued whether beauty is "in the eye of the beholder" or an intrinsic property of a thing, but both agreed "beauty is certainly a soft, smooth, slippery thing, and therefore of a nature which easily slips in and permeates our souls." (Plato).  But surely the bee understands the allure of a flower, and there are plenty of handsome birds vying for the attentions of the ladies.

We've come a long way since the 5th century BC, and our idea of beauty has changed over time (alas, if only the rubenesque woman was still in vogue!), but I think we have evolved beyond identifying and creating beauty, to discovering it in new, less obvious forms.  Trained in the sciences I have spent years building the functional but along the way have been given the gift of seeing the absolute beauty in the ways things work, the way things are, and the way they came to be.  Paulo Coelho identified this lesson for me in his book "The Alchemist" by recognizing that all things have their own "Personal Legend."  The lunar gray color of basalt may work nice as a "neutral" in your living room design scheme but this stone is also an exciting survivor of explosive volcanic action that shaped our world and inspired the legends of Pele, goddess of fire, dance, lightning, wind and volcanos. Bronze though it cannot hold the shine of gold has it's own "age" in the history of humankind. Bronze alone will be a future post unto itself for sure.

So in the end it is the discovered beauty of common treasures that inspires much of my work as does the desire to protect the amazing experiment of wind, fire, earth, and air that is our planet.  I hope to share with you here, in Common Treasures, my journey through the ordinary to discover the beauty there.