Sunday, April 7, 2019

Be Proud, Little Lamp


"Draw what you see," goes the "creative" wisdom. This lamp is on a cabinet top in my digital studio. I've had it, and two others just like it, for a long, long time and they continue to serve me well. They are a bit faded and dusty, but they work fine. I have no reason to replace them or throw them out. 

But then you see this little lamp in a famous IKEA commercial, which just breaks my heart. A young lady removes the lamp from her table and replaces it with a slick, glamorous, modern-looking IKEA light. And on a dark, rainy night, she goes outside with the now-discarded old lamp and tosses it onto a bag of trash. You see the Little Lamp in the rain, as it wilts with sadness, thrown out into uselessness, cold, wet, and alone. I just want to cry when I see this, which is the intention of the ad people. 

And next, someone shows up, a shadowy man in a raincoat. You think he is maybe going to save Little Lamp. But no...he stares at the viewer and says in a gruff Swedish accent something like this: "Vot you feel sorry for a lamp Dumskull?" Returning us to a reality where a lamp is only a lamp and ordinary objects have no souls.

This won't happen here! My lamps will illuminate as long as there are bulbs for them and they still work. I keep my enlightenment with me. I am not giving out the YouTube address for this. Here we are in my digital studio. Be proud, little lamp! Keep on shining!

Sepia brown tech pen on sketchbook page, 4 1/2" x 5", April 6, 2019.

2 comments:

Gypsy Witch said...

So cute. I shall pat him and pet him and call him George. :D

Stacey said...

I feel the same way but my wife will happily chuck something out that works just fine, which is exactly what happened to the microwave that I had for 35 years. Sigh.