A series of essays....
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| OLAFUR ELIASSON--REALITY MACHINES A 'WALK-THROUGH' INSTALLATION OF ART |
....as seen through my eyes!
By: Jacqueline E Hughes
Never take what you see around you for granted. Your eyes will always be the windows into the multi-layered world of shape, color, textures, and....light! If we capture our view of the world thinking in these terms, we will better understand how to perceive our surroundings and return to Mother Nature all of the love and respect she deserves.
I remember waking-up in the middle of the night as a child and being so excited about greeting the next day; giddy about celebrating another birthday, getting to wear my Halloween costume to school, or hoping Santa liked his cookies and milk before leaving gifts under the tree. It always took awhile before falling back to sleep. Anticipation is an amazing thing. I still feel this youthful enthusiasm about life. We stimulate our lives, enhance our excitement as human beings, and open-up the creative mind by allowing ourselves to enjoy the simple beauty of the life and light that surrounds us.
Having access to light is our opportunity to benefit from everything the world has to offer.
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| COLOR SPECTRUM KALEIDOSCOPE - 2003 OLAFUR ELIASSON |
As a child, light helped to keep the scary Bogeyman at bay while we snuggled under our blankets in preparation of sleep. We got to create interesting shapes and write our name in the night’s darkness by the glittering light of a sparkler, a popular firework that emits little sparks when lit. A flashlight hidden beneath the covers, its intense light held beneath the chin, allowed us to be the Bogeyman we hoped to avoid a few months before. The cone of light from the corner streetlight permitted you and your friends to play another game of Hangman using chalk on a slab of sidewalk during many warm, summer nights.
Our teenage years endeared us with our family by knowing that the porch light would always be on, welcoming us home from a date, a long day at work, or a weekend home from college. To understand that someone was inside to greet us and make us feel safe gave that light the utmost importance during our vulnerable years of challenges and uncertainty.
As an adult, we have been given ample time to take in and appreciate all of the natural beauty that makes up the world around us. In terms of light, we may have already built our careers around light as a photographer or photo journalist. We may have been bedazzled by the configurations caused by the natural electrical phenomena of light in the northern skies known as the Aurora Borealis. Or, unforeseen setbacks due to job loss or illness may have us looking longingly at the proverbial ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ for answers to our future well-being and progress.
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| SUNRISE OVER NICE, FRANCE |
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| AUTUMN SUNRISE IN KALAMAZOO |
Who among us has not marveled at a rose-splashed sunrise or the brilliant orange glow of an elaborate sunset? These are truly God’s display of art via light and offered to anyone willing to look up into the heavens to enjoy them.
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| SUNSET OVER LAKE MICHIGAN |
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| MICHIGAN SUNSET |
I believe that as we age we become more attuned to the world around us. Indeed, we have more time for observation and analysis and appreciate many things we had taken for granted for so many years.
Good friends recently had, literally, tons of huge rocks and boulders, buried since the last ice age, dug up on their farmland to be sold to landscapers to build natural walls and rock gardens for major projects around Michigan. Since many of them outline the border of the farm, Janis has discovered a genuine passion for these beautiful specimens that have anchored the Earth for centuries. And, after they’ve been brought back into the daylight, it is inspiring to see how time has shaped, colored, and artistically painted each one; like 'solid' snowflakes, each possesses its own design, value, and characteristics. It’s easy to see why my friend has become so enamored by their beauty and calculated strength within the history of our amazing Earth.
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| THE ARTIST HIMSELF ~ OLAFUR ELIASSON |
Olafur Eliasson, a Danish-Icelandic artist of high acclaim, works with light, water, and air temperature in various ways in order to create many of his large-scale, ‘walk-through’ installations of art. He is often asked if it is The Design of Art or The Art of Design that labels his inspirations. He will tell you....both! I have become fascinated by his spatial research and his personal discovery of light and how it impacts all of us in different ways.
Are you feeling SAD? Even though scientists agree that winter depression remains a mystery, they do agree that people who suffer from ‘seasonal affective disorder,’ or SAD, have one thing in common: They are particularly sensitive to light, or the lack of it. Because winter days are shorter in the Northern Hemisphere, we get less exposure to sunlight and this plays havoc with our system and mood. We can replace lost sunlight with bright, artificial light....but, a trip to a sunny climate for even a short time might do the trick much better!
Mother Nature is an entity that has been crying out for love for a very long time.
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| NERI OXMAN |
Neri Oxman is an American-Israeli designer and professor at the MIT Media Lab where she leads the Mediated Matter research group. She is best known for her art and architecture that combines design with biology, computing, and materials engineering. Her goal is to demolish plastic in the world and utilize all natural materials such as silk, layers of glass, pectin from apples and other fruits, and cellulose, one of the most abundant polymers on earth which comes from plants, and chitosan, (polymer extracted from ocean crustaceans).
“There are two ways to live your life: One as if nothing is a miracle and one as if everything is a miracle.” ...Neri Oxman.
I choose the latter concept always, truly believing that everything is a miracle...
Mother Nature can be the answer to all that ails Her these days, given enough time, finances, and dedication by people like Neri Oxman who believe in Her power and abundance. This could be the ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ for today, tomorrow, and many generations to come.
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| PHOTO TAKEN IN A TUNNEL DRIVING ALONG THE BLUE RIDGE PARKWAY - 2019 |
Copyright © 2019 by Jacqueline E Hughes
All rights reserved
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