Day 80 – The Tilt of Light



February 27, 2015

(This is part of a 365 project during my 70th year where I write and illustrate a blog on each day's gift.)
  
I found an old bronze something. Something because I don’t know what it is. This small, old, brown, scratched piece of metal stands alone, maybe intended to hold a small object. At first glance, it is rather ugly.  I was ready to dispose of it until I tilted my hand and it caught the light in a particular way. The metamorphosis was striking as I saw golds and blues on what had appeared at first to be a dull scratched surface. How could I throw out something that was sometimes beautiful when I held it a certain way? I never would have seen this patina unless I had accidentally changed perspective.

Patina has several definitions according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary:

  • a usually green film formed naturally on copper and bronze by long exposure and often valued aesthetically for its color
  •  a surface appearance of something grown beautiful, especially with age or use 
  •  an appearance or aura that is derived from association, habit or established character

Patina changed the way I looked at an object today. Sometimes, in the same way, people are dismissed because they seem old, wrinkled and dull. Maybe they appear one way in a certain light but, in a different light, their beautiful patina shines. One Veteran’s Day in D.C., I began a conversation with an old man in a wheelchair and wound up listening to a story of when he had been captured by the Japanese during World War II. He was fascinating.

I hope as I age that my patina will grow. In the meantime, I will remember to tilt my perspective so I won’t miss any patina, whether object or human being.

My gift today is patina.
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> DAY 81 Traveling the Curve

You can read my other posts on this project here:






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