When I look into a bottle of water, if it’s a bottle of colored glass, I can see into a different world; my imagination starts to rise and go off in many directions. I start to explore landscapes only created in dreams, people who are people, yet they are authentic; they never existed in this world; I can touch and talk to these people. With the right music, I can journey anywhere in that glass bottle.
Someone had once built a shelf across a window with all kinds of bottles; some were antiques, others were modern. This is what nurtures my imagination for me. The bottles combined with the window and a landscape outside with a cliff and seashore create a strange feeling for me. Plus, the house was old, probably built in the late 1800s. And the community where the home was located was quiet, with winding roads—this stimulation to imagination and creation and inspiration for writing. Yet, at times I have to think and let the scene call me to something so that I can write something exciting and not dull.
To see an overcast sky in a place surrounded by foliage and grass, which is wet, there is a comfortable feeling where I can see a story starting to emerge. There is something I remember from childhood when it was raining, and my mother used to read novels. Fairytales used to get my imagination going, so now, when I see an overcast sky with grass, trees, mountains, and glass bottles, something lights the fire to creation; I don’t know why this happens.
Anything stimulates the imagination, rain, sunlight coming into a room, the evening lights in a city, the flow of water, and everything visual that nurtures my thoughts to create places unseen.
Anything can call the imagination, but the last thing for me is peering into a bottle; there are lands in there, a whole universe, and memories that stimulate beautiful things. The bottle is filled with liquid; by looking through it to a distant scene, there are feelings and voices from the past, nurturing the future. Strange cities emerge, people never born or seen emerge, and a whole world opens up.
Glass has magic. Its translucent qualities are like a dream; it’s like paper; here, glass is the subject, and it has a voice of its own; individuals have to find their voice when they look into a glass bottle. The refraction and reflections of glass create wonders; if the mind is in the right power and mood, it is possible to see things elsewhere. Another magic is observing a glass bottle through a glass window with an overcast sky and a green landscape. It’s like a dream, and stories start to emerge.
It takes the concept of opening the mind to all things to see what a simple glass bottle can do. What can be seen through glass, or how to use a glass bottle for decoration and a pleasing arrangement? There is nothing beyond a glass bottle or imagination.
Imagine cities that appear like glass but are not; they are made of solidified light and materials that resemble light. This is what a glass bottle can do. Even sand along a shore can be conjured into anything like a magician through creation and imagination.
Robert J. Matsunaga
