I remember two
years after my first daughter, Alessandra, was born, lying in bed, taking
advantage of resting, while she was napping. Sick and exhausted, I was
pregnant with my second daughter. Alessandra’s nursery was just across
the hall from my bedroom, allowing me to see into her room from my bed.
Though it was mid afternoon, her room was made completely dark by blackout
curtains. Having my girls in the absence of my mother, who died on the
Fourth of July in 1999…happy birthday, independence…was profoundly difficult,
and on this particular day, I was overwhelmed with that reality. Beside
Alessandra’s crib, and the rocking chair in which I nursed her, was a small tea
table with a framed photo of my mother. I could see it from where I was
lying, when a streak of light miraculously made its way through those
impenetrable curtains, for a few minutes illuminating her photo…
Light bathes
us the same way water does. Sanibel plays host to so many unfoldings, and
mirrorings, that its light chemistry could never really be understood. A
second sun lives in the water.
In summertime,
afternoon thunderstorms roll off the Gulf to collide head-on with the setting
sun. They rose visibly all morning, the truest white you have ever seen,
piling heavenward in gorgeous crenellation. Their sky lines grid the
blue, as far as you can see, askew to the land, yet regularizing the ether up
there. And, by afternoon they’re drawn to the heat-staggered island,
whose very air trembles with a tension of wind, light, movement, and
color. Their undersides turn lime green when light bounces up off the
water, like the sea grapes blowing back and forth in the dunes.
I held a pen
shell up to light one day. I love the double reflection-lines on the
water, on the tidal pool and the Gulf itself, how the tree forms and distant
cloud line echo one another, the striations of the near-clouds and the shell,
the family of moons refracting on the lens in various states of eclipse, and
the figures right on the exact edge of the light.
“this
clouding, unclouding sickle moon,
whitening this beach again like a blank page”
-
Derek Walcott
I think, no I know, that Light is a communicator of all things transcendent. How else can you explain the pinpoint placement of creation manifest? My first serious piece of work- Baseball- was done in loving homage to my father whom I shared both much and little. This body of work was my opus to him- my love letter. Begun in earnest weeks after he died, there was a single moment that I knew things that I could not explain. Like how I could be chosen, in this capacity to do this work.
ReplyDeleteThe answer came all at once and for evermore. In 1993 I decided to dedicate my Baseball photography to my father's memory,but never expected a dialogue in return, what I got was was an un-coded message that was delivered in private and received among thousands.
My first time out photographing after my father's funeral was at Atlanta Fulton County Stadium during the first round of the playoffs. Normally, I sat in the media box, next to the VIP's in the closest area to the "Action". Not today.
Today I went high in the stadium and perched in a reserved area, called the crow's nest, that was actually a box that was literally separated from the crowd and was cantilevered above the crowd. Immersed in my photography, wearing headphones to disconnect me from ambient noise, I worked and shot and thought of my Dad. It was cold, gray and windy-- a raw October afternoon, not baseball weather at all! But I felt warm and at ease.
A man tapped me on my shoulder and asked, "Whats Your story??". I started explaining that I had clearance to be there and that he should leave me alone. "No" he said, "why are you the only person in this stadium that is being hit by the sun?"
He was right, because of he design of the stadium, my unique viewpoint and the fact that the sun actually broke the clouds for just a minute-- my seat was the only one among the sixty thousand or so patrons attending that was illuminated.
I smile, turned away and felt a tear roll down my cheek. I knew the answer as well as you did when you noticed the light on your mother's portrait. The universe has a unique way of settling scores, as artists we have an obligation to pay attention and record what we know and feel.