In 2014 I commissioned an artist in Dunedin, New Zealand to create a reproduction of this Patent drawing of a Dynamo from 1883. I was obsessed with it as a symbol of largely obsolete but influential technology. I still am.

A Patent diagram showing a section drawing of a Dynamo patented in 1883

I brought it with me in a shipping container when my family moved back to the USA. However, the painting is in a storage container in Atlanta and I am in Bellingham the city of ‘subdued excitement’. It is unwieldy and large and would be extravagant to ship again across a coast but it lives in my head, remembering those days of beginning in technology, now obsolete or left behind for now.

A hallway picture of a giant reproduction of the Dynamo patent section diagram

Inspiration!