One afternoon in my last semester in design school, I came back to the studio to work on what was not working. I joined two other classmates. I don’t remember how our attention fell on Lottie’s sculptural solution to our assignment. But this women who didn’t seem to have the same attitude to design had arranged on her desk the most beautiful collection of foam-core surfaces that met the challenge of the assignment in a way that was so simple and understated it took my breath away. One of us called it to the attention of the others. Enviously we admired the structure. It dawned on us that perhaps she hadn’t yet attached the elements together. There was a tension and energy in the room and a sudden burst of laughter as we disbelievingly finally touched the structure to test our perception. And then the whole hypothesis dissolved as each one of us through gales of laughter realized this was just a discarded pile of material. I laughed so hard I had to hold onto the door jam to get my side to relax. And then we stopped laughing, like you do when you can’t stop in grade school, as Lottie came in with a new pristine sheet of foam-core from the supply store.
The memory still fills me with such playful delight and joy. I sense perception dancing, casting a spell over the room. That sense of each of us drawn magically right along on each other’s coattails. I hope we didn’t hurt her feelings. I can’t imagine how we could have explained the event. I think we three just went away playfully transformed.
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