Several weeks ago at our SoDo office I made a trek to Daniel Smith to pick up some pens and rulers. And because I am sans automobile, I had to take a strange route to get there in order to avoid the closed sidewalks due to construction. I found myself wandering through a back lot along a train track when I noticed something peculiar. Jumping out at me amongst the sea of grey and brown, gravel and garbage, was an ear of corn. It had already been plucked of its kernels, but there it was, right next to a crushed plastic cup that had obviously been there much, much longer.

The corn struck me, not just for its contrast in color, but for how hilariously out of context it was. I realize corn is a delicious snack, but it doesn’t really come to mind as something I’ll gnaw on during my break from work. Generally we have a habit of bringing more portable and easily packaged items with us when we eat at our workplaces and avoid anything that is accompanied by “a husk.”

This assumes though, that the corn was left there by someone who worked in the area. It’s quite possible that it was brought there by someone traveling through, and didn’t really have a connection to this particular lot (I find it hard to believe that an employee of the nearby businesses would leave their food garbage on the ground, bio-degradable or not).

As I continued my journey I couldn’t help but think about the power of contrast and placement. How the simple act of moving an object from where it’s expected can inject new meaning and associations into it. Not only did seeing this object remind me of the object itself, but caused me to think about the person that brought it there. It was a reminder that sometimes being slightly out of place can make all the difference in being noticed.