inspirationdriventoabstraction

Inspiration:

A Place Where We Go (Driven To Abstraction)

Driven to Abstraction/To Them That's Left

I originally started writing this page, March 23, 2010. I am heavily editing this page, August 13, 2015.

See also an edited version of a letter to my sister detailing more of the motivation and inspiration for this story.

Click on this link, to read about the inspiration for my radio drama, "Driven to Abstraction".

To read a detailed description of each character, check out the alphabetical listing on the "Who, What, When, Where" page.

Find below the following text, some "drawings" I did via Window's, "Paint". They are how I envision Nigel Mumford's, "flat" (apartment) in London, (England). They aren't very good but they give you the, "gist" of how I pictured things.

Things that inspired my radio drama story, "Driven to Abstraction"...

1. I have prayed a lot about this story.

2. I found a photograph on the Internet that was interesting. It showed someone in a doorway. It caused no end of speculation about what sort of door it was; what was inside beyond the door etc. It was like seeing a door that says, “Do Not Enter”, or “Employees Only” and curiosity causes you to want to know what is beyond the door. Someone I know said the doorway was to a house. Then they sent a picture of the type of house they thought it was. I like looking at architecture. I also like looking through decorating magazines. Sometimes I see a photograph of a façade or a door and wonder what it looks like inside. Legally and ethically, I can’t go and satisfy my curiosity and find out what’s behind the doorway we found. I put those emotions into this story. In other words, I “made up something” that satisfied my curiosity somewhat.

3. “They” were selling my grandparent’s house. There were a lot of emotions attached to the “old home place”. It was “home base” for a lot of us over the years. This house was the place of family gatherings and other memorable events. There was some “grieving” on my part at the house being sold. I know it had to be done---this was a good thing really. I am just sentimental at times. I had to vent one day and those emotions ended up “on paper” and that got incorporated into this story.

4. Title is a pun of “Driven to Distraction”.

5. I was also “inspired” by a phrase in a book. “Abstract,” is a type of “modern” art. The phrase that inspired me is the depiction of the house in the quote below… (The phrase, “the House looked like nothing so much as an ultramodern art exhibit gone completely demented”.) I wasn’t keying on the word, “demented”, but the phrase, “ultramodern art exhibit gone completely”… which I took to mean that the decoration, was like a very modern art exhibit that had gone wrong. When I read that phrase, I thought of, “Abstract House” and “Driven to Abstraction”. It made me think of a house with walls painted with abstract murals. Or maybe it was a house where an artist or hippy types lived. A sort of “bohemian” decorated house came to mind. I was not thinking of any other part of the quote as “inspiration”… From Mystery Reader’s Walking Guide: London… “Chester Row leads to your left into Chester Square. It was in this vicinity that the House of the Sacred Flame was found in Ngaio Marsh’s Death in Ecstasy. It stood at the end of one of her pet fictional cul-de-sacs called Knocklatcher’s Row, off fictitious Chester Terrace. One rainy Sunday, reporter Nigel Bathgate looked out his window and saw a small hanging sign made of red glass and shaped to represent a flame rising from a cup. Bathgate went to investigate and found that, inside, the House looked like nothing so much as an ultramodern art exhibit gone completely demented. There was a feathered serpent on the alter, and the walls were lined with Nordic gods and goddesses, all proving, as Dame Ngaio wrote, that there are ‘many strange places of worship in London and all sorts of little religions squeak, like mice in the wainscoting.’”

6. Josephine Argyle is being driven every day to the flat of Nigel Mumford, which is located in a house she euphemistically calls, “Abstraction House”. She needs a name to call the house rather than call it by its real name. The man living there is very picky about his privacy. In the U.K. sometimes houses have a name to them. Rather than being, “No. 4 Such and Such Street”, it might be, “‘Such and Such House’, So and So Street”.

7. “Abstracting” the “best” or “most relevant” parts [actually, only the parts “someone” wants people to know] of their life and putting that into book form. Rather than tell all there is to know about someone in their biography, [rather, memoirs] they, “abstract” [take out] only the best parts, or they “abstract” only the parts they want people to read about.

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Find below an, "imitation abstract painting" I drew with a mouse via Windows, "Paint". It isn't very good probably. I like the colors in it. This is a copy, of a copy, of a copy, etc., so it isn't exactly like the original. This, "painting" is supposed to be the one on Nigel Mumford's living room wall. I had the description of this written out in words. Then I went to, "draw" a "painting" that would fit the description. You can click on the image below and view a slightly larger version.

I also did up two, "drawings," of Nigel Mumford's, "flat," (apartment) via, Window's, "Paint". The drawings are how I envisioned Nigel Mumford's, "flat," in London, (England). They aren't very good, but they give you the, "gist," of how I pictured things. The first, "drawing" is the living room. The second one is the kitchen. The more I think about these drawings, the more I realize how unrealistic they are. I just needed a mind picture of the space that the characters would be moving around in.

Find those drawings below the, "imitation abstract painting". For some reason they get cut off on this page. To view whole and slightly larger versions of these drawings, you can click on them and see them via their own page.

You can click on the pictures below in order to view whole versions.