Everyone’s a Musician

Several years ago I was at the Art Institute of Chicago when there was an exhibit of work by an architectural draftsman named A.G. Rizzoli. Unrelated to his normal professional architectural work, he spent time drawing people in the form of physical buildings. Some were tall and elegant, some were stocky and solid. Some were delicate, some brick. His own mother he portrayed as a structurally strong building, a few stories tall. His neighbor he drew as a whimsical, tall house with graceful gingerbread trim. I love the idea of thinking of people like that. I don’t remember what prompted the conversation but my brother and I talked about this when he called the other day. I don’t think of my brother as particularly imaginative and I was surprised when he told me he sometimes thinks of people as musical instruments. He described one relative as a violin, another as an accordion. I absolutely agreed with his take on them. I asked him what instrument he saw as himself and he said he hadn’t thought about it before but then said, “Maybe a trumpet or trombone”. I decided that was probably a decent analogy. So I got to thinking about people I know and considered what sort of instruments they might be. So many instruments, so many possibilities. It was fun.

Photo courtesy of takazart on Pixabay.com