A Colorful Beginning for the New Millennium (2001 A.D.)

This morning, the first morning of the first day of the New Year and the New Millennium, I was awakened with a start – but it was not sound that did it. It was color. Since I am in the northern hemisphere, at ca. 38.9 latitude, right now the sun is rising to the south about as far as it can get. Thus the Winter Solstice, and now the earth begins its tilt the other way. Our bedroom gets no sun at all from October until the spring. It is dark at dawn in there, and throughout the day, really. Today was very much different – there were mid-level clouds that were catching the rising sun’s rays and exploding with orange, fiery pink, gold, and colors that I cannot name, right through the window and through my closed eyelids, obviously. I hopped out of bed to go get a better view. Below those brilliant clouds, the open sky was deep blue and purple, and the conifer trees across the canyon were all in black silhouette. It was the exploding colors on the clouds bouncing fire into my window that woke me. The colors of fire. That big old fireball about 93 million miles from here, my favorite nuclear reactor - (the only one I like!)

I have not and will not make the requisite resolutions for the New Year, but I do want to remind you all to try to take the time to STOP! Don’t just look at something, study it. See it, absorb it. Those of you in the snow, look at those deep shadows – aren’t they cobalt blue? Look at the angle of the rays of the sun now, and how that angle differs from those in summer. Winter light, summer light, changing light. Take a look.

http://krom.www.media.mit.edu/~krom/mone...

Do you feel dreary in the gray weather? Rain, fog. Look at the effects on the images all around you. Isn’t snow beautiful? (But I am glad I don’t have to shovel it any more!) Even though we all live in artificial environments, heated, cooled, shaded, etc., we are still creatures of nature. We do respond to our surroundings, even if only at a deeply subconscious level.

Artists have always noticed these natural phenomena, and either exploited them, such as the Impressionists did, or ignored them, as the Abstract Expressionists did. The Impressionists were responding to the environment outside them. The Abstract Expressionists were responding more to the feelings within themselves, not from outside.

Go To Page: 1 2