Artistry

This man is an artist.

Some days ago I walked the length of the new paving that is half complete on the seafront, took hundreds of photographs of the intricate patterns - somewhere between cobbles and mosaic. It was the detail that got me. The skill it had taken to fit in drains and lowered curving kerbs for wheelchairs, the places where new stonework joins to old buildings, crumbling concrete, rotting wood all accommodated in a harmony of colour and shape. None of my images captured its quiet grandeur, none made it to Blip.

Today was a glorious bluster alternating showers and sun. After a conversation on here with Arachne I went out intending to snap some of the mountains of scaffolding around the place. The workmen blew me away. I took a leaf (or two) from Kendall's book and engaged them in conversation, complimented them on their efforts, thanked the scaffolders for sweeping up after themselves. They were utterly charming and, perhaps, charmed not to be ignored or treated as a nuisance.

Then I came across the team actually laying the new paving. I hung out around them for a while, got chatting, discovered the hierarchy of skill, timing, who was doing what. Their sense of camaraderie and good humour very nearly made me weep. But this was the guy, the main man. The one who got to choose, measure and lay the precise stones to fit each nook and cranny. He sang to himself, smiling as he worked, concentrating in a relaxed, fluid kind of way. He knew I was watching, and was happy with that. But he didn't want to talk. I watched him for a good while, then slipped away happy, his smile in my heart. I shall think of these guys (and there are so very many of them) whenever I walk that way in future. Truly they should work the motif 'paved with love' into the design.