Suraphan Road, Petchaburi - not yet a tourist destination
Just a quiet back street in the small city/big town of Petchaburi at the top of Thailand's peninsular. And I only include barely twenty metres of this road, but if it was up to me I would make it recommended viewing for all visitors. Petchaburi has plenty of other places worth visiting but none that I have found are quite as striking as this one. But that could, perhaps, be the weathered glasses that I wear.
Abstract worlds worth exploring
Or is my mission to get more people to turn their eyes towards the glorious detail of urban decay a bit too obscure? It's just that it is right there in front of us and we actually turn our eyes away from it! Dismiss it as an eyesore! Even complain about how bad things have become around here! I despair and really struggle to understand people sometimes.
On one scale I admit it is ugly. The scale of prejudice against a different view. The scale of being taught that bright, new and shiny is beautiful. Sorry, but it isn't, bright, new and shiny is garish and totally lacking in subtlety or character. Give me old, comfortable clothes with stories to tell any day. Scuffs, scrapes and scratches build more than destroy.
On the alternative scale of fine detail it is quite beautiful. It's a scale that demands pausing, even bending over a bit, but it's a scale that opens up whole new worlds.
The flaky blue parts are my favourite
This section of Suraphan Road has an old fence poorly constructed from even older corrugated metal. Each sheet once had a good thick layer of coloured paint over it, sometimes more than one colour in more than one layer. But then the weathering started and turned it into something special. The paint cracked and flaked, some bits fell off, other bits stayed on but changed in tone and strength of colour. This was merged with the weathering of the metal itself as rusty patches appeared and produced a surface with great sublety. It's an ongoing process but not one that you would ever notice is happening.
One of the secrets of its beauty, I believe, lies in the fact that it contains repetition: lots of cracks, lots of flakes, but every single one of them is different. Our simplistic patterned designs, which can be lovely, are generally just repetitions. Nature's work produces repetition-with-variation and that can hold an eye for hours. I can lose myself wandering over abstract weathered patterns like these as I become immersed in their textured beauty. It can be surprisingly uplifting.
Almost feels like there is too much detail - just take your time...
Ultimately, I am talking about nature's ability to reclaim our workmanship. The problem is that society takes it personally, as though somebody has come along with a brush and re-worked the artistic painting that we spent hours creating. I see it as the efforts of a teacher gently guiding our view back into a balance where we can work together with nature not insist on domination.
In looking at these images I hope you can see beyond the negative view of what they are and focus on the aesthetics of what they have become.
How long will it last?
My greatest fear is that one day I will go back and find that Suraphan Road has been "beautified". The horror!
