Day 230 Ephemeral

July 27, 2015

(This is part of a 365 project during my 70^th year where I write and illustrate a blog on each day’s gift.)

The National Gallery of Art exhibit, The Memory of Time.  
“I stop being just the observer of light, as it spills into the house and moves through it in the course of the day. Here I have become a participant in creating these images of light  I am moving the curtain to change the formation of a line of light that starts out being razor-thin and over the hours grows into a thick band of light.” ~ Uta Barth

The relationship of time and truth to photography continually prods me. With some hubris, I delude myself that I have power over time with a slight movement of a finger on a shutter. I believe that I can capture the present—a moment of meaning—and suspend it within time’s dervish. Light waves of truth bend around my perception. In the future, I can return to this past and re-arrange it to create my own reality. When photographing, I am always in the present but when looking at photos, I am in the past.

Today I saw a thought-provoking photography exhibit at the National Gallery of Art, The Memory of Time. The introduction describes it as “…work by artists who investigate the richness and complexity of photography’s relationship to time, memory, and history.”

From a very early age, I have always held a sensitivity to the power of light and shadow. Lives slide through this narrative landscape of light and shadow but the edges never remain the same because light constantly moves. Maybe this is why I was especially struck by Uta Barth’s triptych of light entitled “to draw a bright white line with light.” She immerses us in the transient nature of light and shadow. I stepped back to take a photo of the three photo panels with David standing in front of them. 

Truth is always a subtle blurring of time, light and memory.

My gift today is The Memory of Time.

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> Day 231: Coming Home

You can find links to my other posts on this project here:
http://bjschupp.blogspot.com/2014/12/365-gifts.html

Day 164 Wonder

May 22, 2015

(This is part of a 365 project during my 70th year where I write and illustrate a blog on each day's gift.)

 

A dragonfly and its shadow

“Come here, quick!” shouted David. It was a tone of voice that did not signal danger but rather wonder. After 35 years of marriage, I can distinguish the difference in my husband’s voice.

I ran outside and saw that he was holding his finger out with a dragonfly perched on it. He was astonished that the dragonfly chose to land on him. I am not. I ran back inside to get my Nikon but it flew away before I could return. However, it decided to land on the windowsill right outside my office window. Perfect! I carefully pulled up the venetian blinds, raised the window and raised the screen. Miraculously, it still clung to the sill. 

As I observed it through my macro lens, I could see that it was a dragonfly and not a damselfly. The former holds its wings out and the latter folds its wings close to its body. Because it seemed to want to cling for long periods without flying, I believe it had recently emerged from the nymph stage.  I’m sorry I didn’t witness that. What I did witness, however, was a beautiful insect with an amazing shadow. Its veined wings cast a delicate shadow and the sun projected the yellow in its wings on the sill. 

It is amazing that a tiny insect can influence its environment by casting such a beautiful shadow, more beautiful than any I am capable of creating. This small creature, by just being, has created shadow art and stirred wonder in two adults. 

My gift today is a dragonfly’s shadow.

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> Day 165: A Trim and Some Dirt

You can find links to my other posts on this project here:
http://bjschupp.blogspot.com/2014/12/365-gifts.html

Day 35 - First Memory

January 13, 2015

(This is part of a 365 project during my 70th year about gifts that each day brings.)

I began my journey, squirming inside a shadow cocoon, hearing pulsating echoes, sliding toward the light. Somewhere in between the shadows and the light, I was born. But I don’t remember any of this.

Life began and continued with a rhythm of senses—before memory kicked in. Is there some sort of switch when an instant activates memory—memory that will shape who we are and who we will become? Or does memory, like birth, struggle to emerge from shadows and slide into the light? Does the lens of memory begin as fuzzy focus and gradually slide into sharp edges that separate light from shadow? How do the ghosts of memory mingle with stories we hear? How much do we change to suit how we define ourselves? We never know.

My first memory slides into consciousness as a blur of movement with my parents pushing muffled sounds toward my ears. Swooshes swirl about, temporarily imprisoning me in sounds and darkness. Hands lift something over my head, shut out light briefly until my eyes slide through the other end of a silk dress. My mother caresses my hair, twisting uniform Shirley Temple curls that once wisped out searching in all directions catching light. I am around two and a half or three years old.

I wait in the womb of the car with my parents. I was to be a flower girl in their friend’s wedding. The color of my dress does not register. Is that because I hadn’t yet learned the vocabulary of color or because my earliest memories were in black and white, shadow and light? Words drift in my direction, “Bonnie, if you’re good, we’ll give you that doll in the car window. Look.” Sounds from first memories drift in and out like a radio station on the edge of its reception area.

My eyes land on the rear inside ledge of the car. In an instant awareness and memory collide. My eyes study the scene while words swirl about my ears. I mentally turn down the volume to focus on the edges of light and shadow. A doll rests on the ledge. I notice only how light and shadow interact with the doll. Light from the rear car window falls on the doll, casting its face into shadow but illuminating tiny fingers reaching out from a hand. How the light chooses to bless some areas but hide others in mystery fascinates me. I remember no excitement about owning the doll but rather the power of light and the mystery of the unseen.

A sensitivity to light and shadow grew as I grew—how a scene could look entirely different because of the power of light; how lives slide through light and shadow; how edges never remain the same because light moves, how there are parts of us revealed to the world while other parts live in shadow; how memories are bright or dark; how people and things we love or fear change with the light.

Does a first memory shape who we are to become and how we will perceive the world, or is it merely an indication of who we already are?

My gift today is awareness of light and shadows.

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> DAY 36 In a Mirror Darkly

You can read my other posts on this project here:

http://bjschupp.blogspot.com/2014/12/365-gifts.html