Utility and Beauty in Telephone Poles

What if telephone poles were beautiful like trees? What if they were, to borrow a phrase from Moses, a delight to the eye and good for carrying electricity. They have the utility down, but not the beauty. Cars, however, often have both. Perhaps if telephone poles were part of the consumer market they would have both. I suppose poles made from trees (like the one above) retain some of the tree's beauty that the new metal ones do not. At least they have a wonderful texture and particularity. They also have some individuality in that they are sort of put together for a specific location.


Actually, I think after looking at Bernd and Hilla Becher's photography of thousands of water towers and the like, I have come to appreciate each pole's individuality and slightly fantastic look.
Shaun Tan, who I mentioned earlier is similarly inspired by "the pattern of plumbing on the wall behind my local supermarket". I get that from drawing telephone poles.

This is one of the Becher's books, I first found out about them through the amazon wishlist of a favorite digital artist of mine, Matt Gaser, who incidentally, now has a blog. And yes, I make an attempt to stalk all my my fav. artists and authors amazon wishlists.