When I was a kid, in bed and unable to sleep at night, I would look up at the ceiling and imagine what it would be like if the world was turned on its head, studying the shape of the room from the perspective of the empty expanse of the ceiling.
If I lived on the ceiling, how would I get through the door? I’d need to clamber up to the doorway, suspended a couple of feet from the floor (ceiling) surface. The windows would be low the walls. The lightswitch high up. I’d need to avoid the light fitting, standing bolt-upright in the middle of the floor (ceiling). The shape of the room would be the same - but feel completely different.
In other places, strange guestrooms and relatives’ homes, I’d try to find faces in the floral wallpaper, or figures in the curtains. Contemporary Habitat tulips housed a dutch girl with pouting lips. Geometric Laura Ashley diamonds could be squinted at until they overlapped and the wall became three-dimensional. The plaster ridges on the bathroom wall became a ragged coastline, with harbours and islets. Mum lost her temper when I drew on a couple of boats, looking for a port.
Looking at common shapes and forms and environments in a different way became a relaxing habit - the shapes are pleasing, light falls in ways which make you question perspective. I like that.
