Contrast

10 September 2007

19 December 2006

How would we know day if not for night?

I deliberately took the recent late summer photo (top) to contrast with the one below it that I took last December (on what would have been my mother's 96th birthday, were she still alive). I wanted the concrete visual contrast of differing seasons in the framework of this familiar sight, the sidewalk I traverse leaving work.

A few millennia ago when I was an undergraduate, Mme Crosby shared a definition of art in a course on French Renaissance literature: "art as a frame to contain contradiction." Certainly all the "fire and ice" language that occurs in much Renaissance poetry lends credence to such a definition, and I think there is truth in it. Through our art we express the tensions of existence, struggling to show "both sides of the coin" if you will. It is the dissonance that gives music its forward thrust toward resolution, the tension of sundry conflicting needs and desires that launches storylines that we can care about. Without contrast and tension there is no texture, only sameness, a static condition without interest. It is not even true rest, only boredom.

Part of the joy of creative artistry is setting a challenge for oneself and puzzling out how to meet it. I remember how celebrating the Day of the Dead on the Sunday of the Bishop's visitation some years ago led to a creative challenge. We already had scarves for our Ethiopian processional crosses made of an African fabric with bright marigold orange and black plus bits of metallic gold. Perfect for Hallowe'en and Day of the Dead. But I wanted to make some new vestments. My love of color and design ran amok to create what I call the "festal green" set. The design is worked in blues and greens and reds with other highlights, but the lining is California poppy orange! Somehow it all works (and the vestments have been pictured in this blog). Who knew what would come out of trying to make certain shades of orange into liturgical colors?

A challenge, a struggle, a creative result.

Tension.

Contrast.

Resolution in some new whole that contains the tensions and contradictions.

[All the lofty discourse above is simply justification for the fun of posting the two photos. Confession is good for the soul.]
--the BB