“Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it.”
- Confucius
Who wouldn't find beauty in decaying linoleum tiles? Just imagine the wonderful faded textures, the shadow patterns cast between the warped and broken tiles, and the allusions to landscape created by the perspective grids. Who could resist going back at sunrise and sunset to capture unique lighting effects? And what about reflections within wet tiles on a rainy day, or tiles trapped within glistening ice in winter? Maybe I don't need to make that trip to Death Valley after all...
A Tiling Experience
I was first drawn to a location a few miles away from where I live here in central Illinois to take pictures of the grain elevator located there, but my attention soon turned to the remnants of a linoleum tile floor that covered the foundation of a truck weighing station, now totally exposed to the elements. After making a couple of additional trips there, before returning again I felt it would be good to make sure I wasn't sticking my nose where I shouldn't. Luckily, when running by the site one day to show my wife, a worker was on his way out in his truck and I was able to flag him down. He put a call in to his manager on the spot and gave me the go-ahead. When I took out my phone to show him examples of the artwork I was producing with the tile photos, he simply smiled and said "To each his own!"