Imagination

Oriol Maspons. Photographer. Barcelona, 1928

 

Every time I come across the Spanish word “imaginación”, I write it in English. I can’t help remembering and then immediately humming an American song that made an impression on me in my teens, because we used to dance to it in the discotheques, with the most brazen girls we could find. It’s one of those unforgettable “slow” tunes. / I’d recommend young people to listen to it if they get the chance. I don’t know who sang it, but I suppose there are several versions because it must be almost a classic that only Lucky Guri can remember. / For me, and I suppose for Oscar as well, the word imagination makes much more sense, in terms of creativity, than good old inspiration, which in fact is more of a state of mind, and a useless one at that unless the muses have imagination. I suppose it was Picasso who said that if inspiration was going to come he hoped it would arrive when he was hard at work. / I think quite a few of us feel this slight disdain for inspiration. The important thing is to be able to sketch what we imagine, and then our craft will help us to recreate the image. / The thing about inspiration is that it is like a divine gift that couldn’t have led Oscar to create his “orondo” (rounded) tea service, of which the very name is a literal reflection of what he imagined.

With Luis Clotet, Oriol Maspons and Alexander Cirici Pellicer at the studio of Oriol Maspons. The photo was taken for the book Arquitectura Gótica Catalana.