Back as an undergrad I had this art teacher who I didn’t really care for that much. Kinda boring, didn’t really spark an interest in art, but it was one of those easy credits that were mandatory.
But he did have an unusual single-themed focus in life. He had a fetish for windows. He roamed the entire state of Arkansas and Missouri, photographing windows (of course it’s a wonder he didn’t get arrested or shot at). He would return with the pictures and then do window paintings. He had hundreds of slides of his work that he showed one day.
He didn’t do doors. He didn’t do roofs or chimneys. He was singly focused on windows. I’ve got to admit, that he had me fascinated there, showing all his window paintings. He, of course included the window frames, so there was a natural frame, and the frames, some of them had character with paint chipping, cracks, ivy, you name it.
Sometimes a cat was framed in the window. Or a horse in the case of a barn window. For a 2 hour class showing nothing but windows (it was a summer cram course that’s why the 2 hours), I left having visions of windows for some time and it’s a wonder I didn’t become a peeping tom after the experience.
I get fascinated in the same way looking at single-themed layouts. Other layouts are great, with industries of all type, the requisite yard, roundhouse and reversing loop, and other “essentials” you’d never dream of not using.
But it is the single-themed focus layouts that really get my attention. These uncompromising characters were so firm in their goals that they were not distracted from adding that “must-have” item that would detract from that goal or vision.
You know the types. Fertig (sp?) and his Davis Steel Mill, a guy in latest 05 MR trackplanner who focused just on a Great Lakes port in which several scale vessels took up a good portion of his real estate. The one guy who just modeled an engine shop with multiple engine tracks to move his locomotives around on (hey if yo