Vanishing Texture from Modern Life

I find it sad that modern life seems to be losing the beautiful “texture” we experienced in the past. 

Everything is smooth, new, shiny, flat and dull.  Seamless surfaces without any cracks, crannies, nooks or edges.

Take our phones for example.  No visible way to get into these seamless objects with their flat screen and smooth surfaces.  No sign of aging in the glass, plastic, and metal.  They get upgraded, recycled or cased before any wear can appear.

Times Square in New York City.  Once the epitome of grit, crime and visualize clutter.  Fantastic texture of layers upon layers of 3D neon signs made from tubes of bent glass and energized gases – now replaced by giant flat TV screens.

Wonderful paper which could age gracefully, yellowing, dog-earing, folding, creasing, crumpling – replaced by flat electronic screens.  Just think of all the things we do to paper – cut, glue, fold, crimp, hole punch, type, slice, paint, draw, print, emboss etc.  – now of which we do with a flat screen.

Ever try making a paper airplane or paper chain from a computer monitor?  How about feeling the raised dots of braille?  Or feeling the quality of a handmade piece of art paper from Japan? 

I was reading recently about all of the box companies that used to operate in the forests of New Hampshire.  Pisgah State Park in Winchester used to be home to hundreds of people involved in the industry of wooden packing crate manufacturing.

Back in the days before plastic and cardboard, everything shipped in wooden boxes.  Imagine the texture in those days of the day touch of wood with it’s grain and imperfections.  The wood would become part of your daily life, re-purposed for projects, used as kindling for the kitchen stove.

Life was tied closely to nature.  The process of the material harvest to final product was understandable.  Trees were cut, boards sawn, boxes nailed together.  Waste decomposed or was burned.  The life-cycle of the product occurred in a few years rather than the decades it takes to Westie modern plastic that creates islands of refuge in our oceans and ends up in bellies of our food supply.

As a photographer, I’m drawn to texture.  Deeply cracked wood grain from an old raccoon stretcher board.  The subtle shades of white on my Westie dog. The layers of grit and grime on an old barn.  The rust and cracked windshield on an old car in the desert.

Detail, layers, grunge, cracks, peeling, materials, fibers, rough surfaces – all them makings of a texture that seems missing from modern life spend in front of flat glass screens.