The Bricklayer's Narrative by Chipka
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Description
Reading Nabokov is like looking at a brick wall: not one of those boring facades that you find on buildings everywhere. It’s more like looking at the backside of an urban edifice: a wall that doesn’t face a street. Such walls are always far more interesting than the pretty facades that hide them from common view. They’re always rich, textured, and a poetic rhapsody on form, function, and the point at which these two things meet. More than anything else, they’re about this point of intersection.
I suppose it isn’t just Vladimir Nabokov that reminds me of brick walls. There are other authors who strike me the same way: Ursula K. LeGuin is one such writer. Sherri S. Tepper is another, as is the improbably-named China Miéville. I can place any number of great writers on this list. Their narratives are thick and varied in ways that shift my perception of the written word. I can lose myself in their works, forgetting after a line or two that I’m simply reading, simply looking at long lines of black squiggles on white paper. I feel as if I am looking at a wall with individual bricks (and even flourishes of graffiti or pigeon drops) that give life to something else.
As I wander with Corey, photographing the city, I invariably see the backside of a particular Romanian church. I think it was once a synagogue, though I’m not absolutely certain. From the front, it’s a rather nice, blond building. From the back, it’s something rich and strange with rude little windows, some of which have been bricked over. The windows are old, with worn woodwork and the vague shapes of paint cans and toilet paper rolls vaguely curtained from outside scrutiny. The windows are spaced irregularly and far apart. They are jarring contrasts to the bricks surrounding them. But it’s always the bricks that draw me. Their colors are various. Sometimes intense. Sometimes subtle. It all depends on meteorological conditions and the angle of view.
Most recently, I saw the bricks and the windows through twilight and rain, and got the impression that I was looking at a narrative I could scarcely fathom. I am familiar with books. I am familiar with ancient scrolls. I’m even familiar with walls, carved with recognizable hieroglyphic doodles, cuneiform spikes, or alphabet-rendered declarations in Latin and Greek. And now, I wonder at the reality of walls themselves as narrative.
What if the bricklayers and masons responsible for so much urban construction are also writers. What if they are poets, lyricists, or novelists of an arcane pedigree. What if they know each brick by name and by tone and arrange them in ways that only brick-readers may understand. I thought of this as I saw this wall and its ruddy/blond bricks, separated in rows by darker, blocks of clay that looked as if they were stained with soot.
Can you read them from left to right (or right to left) pausing at the punctuation of windows? I often wonder—if this is the case—what vast and unread novels, poems, or songs stand around us, easily seen but not-so-easily read.
As always, thank you for viewing, reading, and commenting, and I hope you're all having a great (and drier) week than Chicago currently faces.
Comments (31)
0rest4wicked
Lest not forget the birth of that brick and where it comes from. the hands that gave it life before the creation of the whole nice complexity of colors in this image
MrsRatbag
I absolutely adore the texture of this brick wall; the mortar that's oozing out between the bricks, the individual colours (no two alike!), the shapes and the overall repetition that gives it the memory of some cellulose-based lifeform like a tree seen under the microscope...industry miming nature? Whatever, my eyes just want to keep feeling the edges of the bricks over and over again... Well done!
auntietk
This is stunning. Wow. The bricks just pop off the screen, as if the entire wall is going to materialize on my desk at any minute. I can see what you mean about reading the bricks. (I think one starts in a corner and goes across and to the right, then the second row is read right to left, third row left to right, fourth row right to left ... do you see?) The composition of the shot is excellent, and it draws my attention like a magnet!
beachzz
I love bricks, just about anyway they come. Row upon row of them, all lined up so perfectly. I think they DO tell a story, but it's in a language few of us understand. I guess then it's up to us to make up our own. Beautiful shot!!
whaleman
Thanks for the close-up of the bricks Chip! I see the pattern now, it is five rows of stretchers (long way), then one row of headers (half bricks), then five and one and so on. I love the patterns masons use, they sometimes make up their own and they are noticed only by other masons usually. It looks like an old wall as there is a lot of character, but sometimes they are built usuing reclaimed brick. I once owned a house and managed to buy some brick from a 100-year-old church to cover much of the front and it had character, like this. I relate to the author analogy, since I am one. Most books are built like this wall, word by word, with variations in texture throughout, yet having an overall organized structure. They stand on the foundation laid below, and may last for hundreds of years. And, perhaps there is a story to be found in the textures.
zulaan
Beautiful and graphic image !
durleybeachbum
That is a most attractive and stimulating concept, wall as narrative. You have set my brain into a fervour of ideas! Also.. I've just had a sudden flash of Pyramus and Thisbe..who of course offer quite a different use for Wall.
kgb224
Stunning capture and post work my friend.
bmac62
Let's see, more than 50 rows, more than 23 bricks to a row layed end to end...something more than 1000 bricks in this image...oh, the heck with it. I love to count things like this...that's a symptom of something a little nutty isn't it? As to a wall telling a story? Why not? Look at all an old wall has seen. Master brick layers lay front facing walls. Apprentice brick layers lay back walls for practice...it has always been this way. So, are the uniform, even bricks layed by the master any better than the rough, more colorful bricks of a back wall? Do the rough bricks tell more truth than the bricks out front keeping up appearances? All very interesting. And, Chip, you've done it again. You've got me thinking outside the box. And that's healthy and creative. Just like your piece here today or tonight:) Always something new to think on...well done!
prutzworks
yup, interesting masonery
flavia49
great shot!! wonderful story.
Bothellite
And somehow your mortar, above, is puckered and bricks are crumbling away (or the whole thing has been Photoshop'ped). You are talking to a nerd who reads books on Bind DNS daemon and scripting languages. And yet I am caught up in your perceptions - and I admire your experience base. I find myself cheering you on! I guess even a nerd brain can sense your gift.
MrsLubner
Aren't those bricks just doing a dance? The mix of color and uniform size... it all makes for a stunning feeling of comfort...organization at its best.
helanker
OH Gosh! it is beautiful and I just LUV bricks....And you know what? Such kind of thoughts, that the bricks are placed in special order, to tell a story, used to cross my mind, when I was at dentist and got laughing gas. lol! I am amazed, that you can think such things without gas. It is so fascinating. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Meisiekind
Most amazing work Chip! The texture and repetitiveness (word??) is addictive! Bravo!
Valentin
Great composition and an extremely photogenic subject!
lucindawind
wonderful texxture lighting and compostion ... I love your narrative comments also on all your work
xxancroft
Really appreciate a good image with an evocative title. Well done!
sandra46
TERRIFIC URBAN ARTPIECE! I LIKE THE ROUGH SURFACE OF THOSE BRICKS. tHEY FASCINATE ME ALSO BECAUSE THEY ARE EXOTIC FOR ME. HERE WE HAVE PLASTERED WALLS AS YOU KNOW AND THE RUDE BRUTALITY OF THOSE RED BRICKS MAKES THE WALL...WELL HARDER....
beatoangelico
interessante story and awesome capture..Bravo..!!!!
Ilona-Krijgsman
The texture is gorgeous...almost glowing stones..I love brick build houses
jmb007
superbe photo!!
Daz1971
Beautiful work!
Sepiasiren
look at that masonry--the colors and textures!
Alex_Antonov
Wonderful!
romanceworks
It is true, bricks are like words, all carefully laid one upon another to build something as solid and as imaginative as a brick structure. CC
FriedaFelicia
Excellent textures and repetitive patterns. Fine composition and love the colours here! Less is more!
shorterbus
Sit me down with a John Grisham and I get the exact same feelings. Oh, and just for a head's up, Sepiasiren has designs on you. I hope for her sake Corey is a dog - dog in either sense of the word.
faroutsider
Wonderful narrative, but I find the syntax of line 32 a bit puzzling.... Marvelous work, Chip!
danapommet
This is a great pattern shot with the different colors of all those bricks. Dana