Monday, February 06, 2006

Canvas of light

Click on the photo to go to flikr to see the slideshow of the photographs my 15 year old daughter took of her 53 year old mother that night, or the sidebar of Rubies in Crystal for a flikr montage of photos ...

A Canvas of Light


Moving across the canvas, shadows. In the lights once I counted five shadows, some short and close, others long and stretching far. Did that mean I existed? How do photons spin around us and collide into the wall leaving a dark imprint of our shape? Are our obscure lives the canvas that catches us? I dance through the hours of my days, sitting, walking, sleeping, eating, talking. Breath is a dance. Displacing the air, sending the light spinning around us, the impulse of our thoughts flinging ideas into being through our bodies. Is a dance. You at the computer screen with your dancing fingers on the keys playing music for me who reads you. A grammar of light flies off into incandescence, shadowing, spotlighting, a flux that captures us, moments burnt into negative space, where it's empty, in the vastness of dark energy between the luminescences. Give me a moment, this pensiveness, before I turn and gaze upon you, love.


(the "you" in all my pieces is always the reader, you, my unbidden, golden muse, without whom I would write nothing.)

8 comments:

  1. Amazing, compelling, and enticing work - both photographically and poetically. I want to live another life and play in the fields you've found. -mg

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  2. Hey! This is really interesting work your exploring! I need to run right now, major appointment, but will get back with some thoughts. Good work kiddo!

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  3. Beautiful imagery. And the writing touches on things that fascinate me.

    Are our obscure lives the canvas that catches us?

    Ach, I don't... can't find the words...

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  4. Brenda, have you given any thought to exposing your form in front of light sensitive paper? There is some large-scale fast-time paper out there that would document some of these real-time narratives you are exploring. This is really exciting stuff. It adds a whole new dimension (yikes) to your wonderful writing. Keep us posted.

    I think mb's comment that captures your quote is right on! "the canvas that cathces us?" Why not?

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  5. I'll second that. I'm glad Lhombre found some words where I couldn't. And I think his is a really intriguing idea! I hope you'll let us know if you explore it.

    Maybe it's just my mood today but, though this was not your intention, this piece (imagery & words) plucked a thick string in me that is very resonant, very existential. It's a sometimes difficult sense of flickering, of fragmentation, feeling that life shows up in pieces not entirely integrated. Yours is a far more beautiful and very loving riff on a similar sense, perhaps, which I appreciate. I should say, for which I am grateful. This is beautiful and fascinating.

    There. I got it out! (Sometimes I frustrate myself with my wordless intuitive responses!)

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  6. Mary, what can I say? Thank you. Your insights reveal me to myself. Your comments are a poetry themselves...

    MB, yes, flickering, the way light dances around us, the dance itself. It's integrated by the dance, isn't it, all the bits, particles of light, shadows, uncertainties.

    lhombre, 'exposing my form into front of light sensitive paper' hmmn - I love the idea! The only photograph that I asked my daughter to take was from the back, I'll post it here, which she did, but no feet! What did inspire her were the shadows, and she took a small series of photos, and when we put them up on the computer screen I was quite amazed. She's, well I'm her mother, but talented. Maybe we'll do some more. I'd need full length light sensitive photo paper and technical know-how: and I will definitely keep your suggestion in mind for future exploration. Hope your appointment went well. Thank you...

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  7. I need to dance more.... grinning...

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  8. I've posted my daughter's photos from that night, at flikr: here. You must forgive me, I'm going to be 54 in a month, and no longer care about posting photos of myself, and I want to showcase my daughter's aesthetic eye. xo

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