Thursday Challenge: Rocks -

"Rag and Bone, Iron and Stone"
photograph by Mick Mather

Rocks is the Thursday Challenge theme this week and as I was out and about on Tuesday documenting a piece of public art I spotted this reflection of Syracuse City Hall reflected off the glass tower of the more modern and currently vacant NYNEX / VERIZON building. As I began preparing this for tonight's post the idea of contrasts was on my mind. Questions like old vs new building materials - iron or stone? It struck me that such a question, and the visual contrast offered in this photograph, might also speak to the worth of the craftsman who built this beautiful castle that's still a downtown landmark. Working class men who understood the meaning of sustainable, local materials two centuries ago. Subsistence level urban pioneers touched by the industrial revolution who probably benefited little by way of being able to acquire mass produced, factory items that could be cobbled together from recycled material. A time when the junk peddler went street to street offering old, affordable and still useful things. A reflection here of an era passed within the panes of modernity whose entropy quietly awaits a post-modern rag and bone man.