winter light & new work & risk
the day has slipped away. i leave my room for a moment and see the skyline silhouetted against sunset. not quite used to the early arrival of night. setting back the clocks makes me want to settle in, hibernate, breath on the glass as i look at the world outside. nostalgic for something that seems so close but unachievable. winter is what i always see in my mind. a snow covered hill, a stand of black apple trees with no leaves, crackling upwards. the world is just before darkness, we are walking up the hill through the clouds of our breathing. i see myself in the scene, from behind, walking away up the hill. sometimes the memory is of a daylight blue sky. the kind of frozen clear-day summer sky that descends in winter. crisp and sharp. a clarity. the blue of winter light. i don’t know who the other person is.
seasons are colors to me. rather seasons in certain months. october and november are orange. a rusty deep orange. december and january a dark dark midnight blue fading to silver edges. february is violet and ash. the color spectrum trailing october to february. perhaps it is because i am so paralyzed by the cold in between and it is bookended by autumn’s arrival and by my february birth.
anyways, this was to begin to tell how late i am in beginning to write today. and how i have to leave the house in an hour to go to a dinner party. sigh. so much to say and so much time needed to pull apart what has become tightly raveled.
i’ve been working on this today::
researching sheet metals and wire. strings of pennants flying in through a crack in a window. sweeping up, streaming into the room. each flag waving (hopefully i will have studied the physics of this) as if in the same gust of wind.
i bought metallic pennant strings months ago – a string of silver, turquoise, and magenta-orange. i think the pennants i bought are a little large (12″ x 18″) and that i want them to either be 6″ by 18″ or 6″ by something smaller.
i am also toying with them being purely made out of metal OR lining the flags i have with metal to make them bend the way i want them to… i is exciting though to begin to envision this piece existing. i have wanted to make something(s) that are more physical in their production. something(s) that require my hands and body in movement to create them.
it is also exciting to have a place where the piece could actually go. that helps for motivation!
i may also get a string of black flags (or make them) and go ahead with the idea of slogans on pennants, black text on black flags… the winter could be a good time for such indoor experimentation.
this quote is pinned to my wall::
“…it’s never been my prime mission to give comfort, unless somebody’s in drastic need. i’d rather give pleasure, or shake things up.” – susan sontag
i am not sure if i have the time now to react to why i am thinking about this quote.
it haunts me a bit because i think that i am not actively of this mindset. which is not a bad thing- to be one who comforts, consoles, cares for… but i think constantly comforting/consoling or worrying about hurting someone or worrying about doing the wrong thing or about pushing someone somewhere that might be uncomfortable… it leads to paralysis. to NOT taking risks that may be important or pleasurable or producers-of-growth-and-change.
to not try to read what may be needed in a given moment. to act rather than respond. to put forward. to be forward.
i need to be pushed. pushed to take risks. pushed to expand out into the world, to relate to others … in ways that may be scary to me.
i need to change my circumstances. new situations. new ways of relating.
to be trouble
to touch what
isn’t mine to
and yet, still
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