Textures are all Around – especially During Bushwick Walks
TEXTURES are a way to build depth in our reality. They are everywhere; small, large, rough, smooth, tall, short.
By changing our perspective and how we observe, we also shift the outcomes of everything that we make and do in our lives.
— — —
We use the words “generate”, “generator” and “generation” interchangable with the words “create”, “creator” and “creation”
Textures
When I do not have time to head out into nature, I stroll around the different neighborhoods of New York City a lot. I walk slowly, allowing myself time to dive into a detail in case anything catches my eye. This can drive the person who has joined me that day a bit nuts. I start and stop a lot at the oddest places. I can’t help it, I love playing with details and using my time in this way.
A couple of months ago, I walked around during the different sunsets when they emitted themselves onto Bushwick's buildings and the area’s lesser existing greenery. (It is there, just not tons of it).
Often, I end up checking out the textures up close and from afar. Gazing up the walls, down to the streets, up to the rooftops; how the skyline meets the sky, the light hit my shoes, and so on. Moving my eyes around plenty to make sure I do not miss a single moment of anything worth seeing. I am there to experience it like an adventurer that treks out in the wilderness. I am trekking too, but slowly and intently like a grandma that has nothing particular to do that day while she strolls around the neighborhood observing every stone, every flower, and every color of each door.
Observation
&
Playtime
Observation is such a key component when it comes to creating and forming ideas into a physical structure. Playtime and observing go hand in hand;
Observing is seeing how energy moves without getting involved, and playtime is understanding how energy moves through physically participating with our bodies.
The small details inform us of the larger, the larger informs us about the smaller. Going out in nature is awesome (it is one of my favorite activities), but exploring how a city’s construction is pretty mind-blowing as well.
There are many precise pieces that must come together in order for a city and its inhabitants to move in symbiotic flow. Many textures that must be in place for everything to function. It is really astonishing when you look at it more closely; the patterns, the movement, the moments when the energy braids together, the instances when it all disperses. Textures and patterns are everywhere. The doves that circle in elegant formation above the Bushwick rooftops, their synchronized deep dives form a consistent pattern towards the backdrop of the sunset sky — all generating texture. The loud Puerto Rican music bumping alternated with the hipster millennial interpretation of how a branded bagel should be served, generates a texture as well.
This neighborhood is one apparent pattern — sometimes a very classic industrial area mixed with the new take on how wine should be bought, empanadas should be eaten, boulders should be climbed, coffee should be roasted, and dogs should be walked. Not too flashy, yet so modern that it looks almost homemade by your grandparents and upcycled with a flare.
Here I find plenty of textures also for the nose. One block can reek of intense trash, around the next corner huge bold scents from a spice wholesaler may hit the face.
Cumin, turmeric, nutmeg, and cardamom.
Interesting experiences created from the dramatic difference in the scent spectrum.
Removing
"Do Not
Touch"
From Your
Creative
System
A great playtime exercise is to re-teach ourselves that it is all right to touch things, objects, and plants in our environment when we are outside. Oddly enough, many of us have a hesitation built-in when we are out and about; that we are not supposed to touch or feel whatever is around us. If we want to be great at forming and shaping while creating, we need to understand how the materials and their properties act. This requires us to shift our perspective and play with seeing something that we have seen many times before in a new light.
A way to understand this is to use our senses fully to comprehend what is physically happening.
You can’t create a texture if you do not understand its pattern more in depth; temperature, roughness, softness, friction, the differences in directions in its grain and molecules… all the properties that build the underlying material’s overlying surface.
We achieve great textures when we work with either bumping up the contrasts or bringing them down to make it all more silky smooth. There is no right or wrong, but certain materials really favor expressing themselves in specific shapes.
Sometimes we try to mimic the texture of another material by synthetically forming it. Some examples that come to mind are when people manipulate particle board to look as reclaimed oak, plastic made to look like fur, silk made to look as if was a flower.
Whenever this is done, there is always something inside of us that can sense that the energy running in the object is not quite what it is presenting itself to be. It look the same, feel similar, and at times even smell very identical to the original material.
Sum Up
The more you observe, the more information you will gather on how everything physical is constructed, as well as the energy behind it.
You can use this data in anything that you want to create, and through that, alternate the outcomes. This can be done in everything from music to building relationships. Great outcomes requires an on-point-texture, this is achieved through understanding from which vantage point your perspective is being produced from.
Textures can overload your brain in a great way if you let them reveal to you their stories that you may not have heard, seen, tasted, felt or touched before. Try to not project your own story onto the textures— you have heard that narrative a million times.
The variety of textures builds physical depth and are essential to diversifying our outcomes.
“ The more you observe, the more information you gather on how everything physical is constructed, as well as the energy behind it. “
words and photo: Kissey Asplund
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Kissey Asplund is a creative consultant specializing in the process of generation & creative subatomic energy. She is the founder of the creative wellness hub Generation Watts, and has gained international recognition as a music producer, multi-disciplinary artist and DJ. Her journey of researching how to use meditation to enhance creativity began at 17. Today, she teaches others how to connect to their inner superpower and hone their creative-mastery. Learn more about her virtual creative consulting service: The Equation Sessions™
