Imagine spending three years researching someone you’ve never seen an image of. We humans are a visual tribe. The mind will fill a visual void with a “placeholder” concept of who you picture that person to be. What would it be like to one day finally discover what they really looked like? Would their real appearance affect your understanding of who they were? Did you expect the person to be handsome or homely? Tall or short? Imposing or bookish? Proud or humble? Had I expected Sir Richard Lane be portly, like his predecessor, Lord Keeper Littleton? Or perhaps gaunt? Would his hair be fair, thin and curly, or perhaps thick, straight and black? It seems a human truth that we never seem to feel a tangible sense of someone until we have the chance to “look them in the eye”…
Tag: richard lane
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Designing a Memorial for a Historic Figure (and his Wife)
This quest really began when I wondered what it would be like to visit the grave of the author of the ancient book I’d recently purchased at a Denver antique book store. At first, I doubted there would be any discoverable record of him at all. And initially, there wasn’t. My searches returned a sea of flotsam references to this or that person named “Richard Lane” over the centuries, or someone simply named “Richard” who lived on a “lane” somewhere! But when I began combining his name with words from the title of his 1657 book, I finally encountered articles that introduced me to the man. What I could read of him was intriguing, though. I found myself repeatedly choosing to look into “one more thing” before setting it aside and going on with my life…
5280 Explorer 