Photos of my trash inventions & something else

May 11, 2024

High Thought is an intimate infusion of (high) thoughts that are a mixture of frivolous and (sometimes) profound if I’m lucky. Written with consideration for those interested in the creative process or personal peek behind the curtain into a particularly chaotic brain room.
(The best experience is on the website, in my opinion!)

🌸 Good morning/afternoon/evening, depending on where you are in the world. : )

I love my trash hehe

Here we are with some photos of temporary “vessels” I made to start my seedlings outside. I didn’t have any seedling starter cups so I did what I usually do, which is go through my recycling to fashion some temporary vessel to start the seedlings in. I secretly love solving household problems with my recycling bin. This time, I used Spindrift cans, a half and half carton, a coffee bag, and some cardboard that came in a hard drive box or something. I taped any sharp edges to avoid cutting myself on them. Not precise, but efficient.

These photos remind me of a piece I read in a magazine I bought probably a decade ago called Works That Work. The magazine was devoted solely to the idea of creativity and every feature was fascinating. RIP to it. One of the memorable stories in the issue I bought was a feature on homemade “mcguyver’d” stoves and lamps and carts made by civilians during the Siege of Sarajevo.

Seeing the final objects themselves that have been fashioned from necessity with only the materials nearby really intrigues me. I think about these photos in particular all the time for some reason.

It was only in looking back at this series that I realized that the photos were taken by James Mollison. All I really know about this photographer is that I bought one of his books on a whim and it remains potentially my favorite photobook in my collection, which feels like a huge statement to make but it’s by far the one I take out the most to show to guests. It gets the same reaction every time, which is completely enthrallment.

Mollison’s book, Playground, is such a simple but extremely effective book about kids, the world, inequality, play, geography, relationships, power. Oof. It’s just so good and it’s also really beautiful.

I also love the details of the book which sort of draw you into the world of kidhood. In the corner of every page, there is a little line drawing of some detail in the photo.

This makes the book more engaging to kids with a Where’s Waldo-search through the photo and at the same time, Mollison gets you to look at every single cluster of kids.