I was on a business trip to the Silicon Valley area last week, and had the chance to enter into one of the most dismal offices I’ve ever been in before. The upper floor had a full set of windows, but proceeding to the basement we found ourselves in a subterranean cubicle farm. The airport-sized room was partially dark as many of the cubicles seemed to have been vacated, but a head or two would occasionally pop up in the far end of the room. The large posts supporting the floors above were labeled by location, and the isles between cubicle rows seemed roomy enough. The picture above was snapped from this basement location.
When thinking about spaces that inspire creativity, this seemed like the opposite of one of those spaces. It reminded me of a print I bought back in 1994 at the Park City Arts Festival that I found rather comical entitled “Cubicle-ism”. I don’t remember the artist name, but his art mainly consisted of pasting different found pieces of art, illustration, and print work together to make a statement or story.
For this particular poster he had taken many of the master painters and stuck them in a cubicle farm, some working at what seem to be very old computers. I’ve always thought the statement he was making both comical and quite thought provoking.
I myself work in a cubicle at my 9-6 job, but unlike those at that dismal basement location, I only have to turn 180 degrees to see beautiful Mount Timpanogos. I took the following picture from just behind my cubicle this afternoon.
I always find it refreshing to take a moment at my desk to look outside and get re-inspired to be creative again.