Little wooden block

When I was about 5 years old, living the Philippines, I remember there was a kind of divider/wall that divided the kitchen and the living room of the house I lived in. The bottom half of it was just a wall and the rest was made up of small, wooden, varying rectangular blocks the size of my hand (at the time). They all connected together vertically to make a pattern with spaces in between so you can see the other side. During the afternoons, you can see the sunlight from the outdoor terrace (right outside the kitchen) casting dramatic shadows into the living room.

The single blocks themselves were the objects of my attention as a child. I would find loose blocks and push it out with my tiny fingers and play with them. They were made of an airy and light wood, dark burnt orange in color. It didn’t have a much of a taste except for a slight hint of laminate. Sometimes when I’d take a piece, a clump of connected pieces would fall. I’d try to fit the angled ends together to make my own shapes before I got in trouble for defacing the wall. The little wooden parallelograms were of a simple design, but it fascinated me how versatile it was. You could make many different patterns and shapes with many of these little blocks. They could be a play toy or designed to be part of a beautiful piece of art or furniture in a house.

It makes one wonder how a person was inspired to create a design such as that wall. It all started with one little wooden block. Maybe it was just found one day, one the side of the street, or in the back of an old factory house. A person, a designer, came upon it and was inspired to create. In this case, he or she wanted to create more out of a simple plain wall. Why live in a plain world, when we have the capacity to do more, by creating something aesthetically pleasing, as well as practical, that enriches the world?