This is a brass fountain pen, albeit being a tad on the chunky side and slightly stylized to function as a paperweight. I think I wanted to show the isolation that writing can bring along with it. The sense of foreboding, of creating something from apparently nothing. Yet nothing comes from nothing so in reality the ideas are already there, already formed in a sense. From that standpoint, they just need coaxing out. The coffee table surface looks almost as bleak as the surface of some featureless moon with an inherent blackness beyond; the nothingness, the vacuum. However, as the quote underneath describes so well, you can write of beauty, of colour or of vast craters of the imagination light or dark no matter wherever you may be. This small paperweight simply reminds me of this when I forget and make mental excuses, thinking often the task at hand too unformed to grasp.
"I wrote to find beauty and purpose, to know that love is possible and lasting and real, to see day lilies and swimming pools, loyalty and devotion, even though my eyes were closed, and all that surrounded me was a darkened room. I wrote because that was who I was at the core, and if I was too damaged to walk around the block, I was lucky all the same. Once I got to my desk, once I started writing, I still believed anything was possible."
— Alice Hoffman
The photo is quite unique Matt, and I can sense the isolation, and isn't it ironic how a writer will endure isolation in order to bring joy to others? But yet it is there where most profound ideas are born.
"nothing comes from nothing so in reality the ideas are already there, already formed in a sense..." I like that. I think this is a great concept to elucidate your thoughts. And good luck coaxing the words out.
I have one just like it!!!!