BEAUTIFUL INSIDE STORIES
It’s the beauty on the inside that counts the most, yet it this beauty is often unseen. We’ve collected some surprising views of the inner beauty of objects most people never think to open up, like golf balls and chain saws, as well as the souls of violins and trumpets. And we’ve got some new books featuring beautiful interiors for you to dive into.
Photo: James Friedman. Cross Sections of Golf Ball.
Photographer James Friedman doesn’t play golf. Yet he loves to play with the insides of golf balls, as you can see in his project entitled Interior Design. He cut the balls open to reveal colors and textures inside that you would never expect from their hard white dimpled exteriors.
Photo: James Friedman. Cross Sections of Golf Ball.
Friedman explains: “Curiosity led me to cut my collection of golf balls in half to see what the cores looked like. To my surprise, what I found inside inspired me to consider that I could discover, in the unlikeliest of places, elegant formal qualities and surprising metaphorical possibilities.”
Photo: Todd McClellan. Things Come Apart.
When most people consider the beautiful insides of cars, they usually think of things like plush leather and burled wood, or, if you are a motorhead, you think about what’s under the hood. But photographer Todd McClellan goes deeper inside to show us the beauty of the innermost workings of cars and other mechanical and electronic things.
Image: Courtesy of Thames & Hudson.
In order so get to the beauty inside, McClellan takes things apart. He documented a series of these studies in his new book, “Things Come Apart: A Teardown Manual for Modern Living.”
McClellan dismantled fifty design classics and arranged their parts in order of size and complexity, almost like a biologist dissects a specimen. He present them all in exploded view.
Photo: Todd McClellan. Things Come Apart.
As they come apart, a camera, clock, piano, iPad, bicycle, espresso machine, chainsaw, and other objects we know only from their exoskeletons, become more fascinating. The intricacies of shape, texture and color of the pieces, laid out on a flat surface, feel like nudes, revealing intimate inside glimpses.
Photo: Todd McClellan. Things Come Apart.
Things Come Apart is an expansion of the original Disassembly Series. While the book touts 181 color illustrations, the piece de resistance is the Zenith CH-650 airplane, fully disassembled and displayed in a 3-page foldout.
Thames & Hudson ( 2013)
Photo: Andreas Mierswa and Markus Kluska. Inside the Music.
Music comes from the human soul … and from the inner sanctum of instruments. You’ve probably never seen violins, trumpets, or organs from the insides out before. Which is why, photographers Andreas Mierswa and Markus Kluska, of Mierswa-Kluska Studios, were compelled to show us.
Photo: Andreas Mierswa and Markus Kluska. Inside the Music.
In a series of photographs commissioned by the Chamber Orchestra of the Berliner Philharmoniker, Mierswa-Kluska makes us see as Lilliputians might. Cunningly lit, narrow places become cavernous spaces.
Photo: Andreas Mierswa and Markus Kluska. Inside the Music.
The viewer feels like a clutch of notes ready to bounce of the inside walls and rise up and out of the f-holes and pipes. While the commission was in 2009, we had to include it here because these photos are still among the most stunning examples of beautiful insides we’ve ever seen.
Artwork: Courtesy of Wendy Wallin Malinow. Paper animal insides.
When an animal eats, it changes inside. The imagery that comes to mind doesn’t seem pretty. But artist Wendy Wallin Malinow sees the beauty of insides, using both anatomical reference and symbolism.
Artwork: Courtesy of Wendy Wallin Malinow. Paper animal insides.
Malinow cut paper into skeleton shapes to form a stylized x-ray view to reveal what each animal ate for dinner. We see a squirrel’s acorns, a wolf’s little red ridinghood, a bird’s worm, as well as other creatures and their meals.
Read more about Beautiful Insides, as they relate to Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact in our posts throughout this week.
Get busy and enter the BN Competitions, our theme this week is Beautiful Insides. Send in your images and ideas. Deadline is 11.17.13.
Photo: Courtesy of InterActiveMediaSW.
Also, check out our special competition: The Most Beautiful Sound in the World! We are thrilled about this effort, together with SoundCloud and The Sound Agency. And we can’t wait to hear what you’ve got!
