Colors, Patterns and Decay

The land flattens as we travel through Indiana and onwards to Illinois. The land here is farmland, broad fields of something plant-like cover all that can be seen. Amongst these fields are old billboards and barns, decrepit and forgotten by their previous owners. They stand in stark contrast to the crops they sit in, which are also dying, but as the crops die they seem to grow in beauty, unlike the billboards and barns*. The fields are golden yellow, almost glowing in the bright sun. They sit behind a green-brownish green brush, underneath a line of green trees, underneath a blue sky—the combination of colors is mesmerizing. Is our perception of beautiful color combinations based on the natural world around us, or have we come to the conclusions on our own and nature just fits so damn well? Also amazing is the patterns formed by mans touch, the lines of the fields, the brown and green alternating in perfect spacing. I constantly crop my view and wonder how pissed Brian will be if I stop…and stop and stop to take pictures. I think he will so I just stop once. The varying patterns and color schemes are practically endless but unfortunately the gas tank is not and I begin focusing on approaching signs (the non-decrepit fully-functioning ones) for a place to stop and not the land beside us.***


* Although in their own way, old billboards and barns, with their incoherent letters and peeling paint, can often be beautiful**.

**Unless of course the peeling paint is lead based, in which case it's only beautiful in a dangerous mind-altering way.

***Funny in a way that the actual act of driving never distracted me from the view. Multi-tasking at it's finest I dare say.