I love my phone. It allows me to keep track of my family’s schedule, see where the boys are, listen to audio books, or any music I am in the mood for. I’m writing this on my phone, while sitting in a hotel room in New Haven, CT. Passing time before we have to go to our youngest’s basketball game. I use my phone to take pictures of my art to post, I have lists of art ideas and locations, to-do list, videos and pictures of the boys, and of course, the news. Though I try to only read it in the morning. How I miss an analog newspaper.

But has this pocket computer trained us to miss out on what is right in front of us? The quiet wonder and beauty that is around us? I think it has. Often I find that when I am trying to capture the moment, for example at a sporting event, that I am not seeing what is going on. Then the moment is over and it is a good thing I took a video because I can’t remember it.

Having spent enough time sitting yesterday, I wandered the halls and the adjacent parking lots of the hotel. On the way back to the room, I opted to skip the elevator and take the stairs; where I discovered there is a beauty in the utilitarian simplicity of pipes. I looked at the pipes for a moment noticing the contrast of the black and red, the signs hanging. It was a work of art in the corner. I thought about taking a picture and going back to the room to draw it. Then dismissed the idea, why draw from a picture when I could draw from the real thing. I went to the room to grab my sketchbook. The stairwell was not conducive to art making and I quickly realized that in dim light I really needed my reading glasses. However, all my art is a semi-true story so I took the slightly blurry page as an extra challenge and continued; though I inked and colored the drawing back in our room under better lighting conditions. I like the way it turned out. A good reminder that there is an interesting beauty in the utilitarian, if we just take a moment to see it.