Andy Goldsworthy Art

On my birthday last Saturday, Priscila and I and the kids were going to go to an
outdoor art museum (Storm King) in upstate New York but the weather decided
that we weren't going to go and so we didn't. The reason I wanted to go to this
'museum' is to see a piece by Andy Goldsworthy.
I was first introduced to Goldsworthy's art by way of a class at BYU about the
Humanities and the Environment. We watched a sort of documentary about his
art, which I later purchased, and it still fascinates me to think about how he relates
his drive to create with his drive to relate to the physical world. Perhaps this is
because I too have performed similar pieces of art as I've 'doodled' with the objects
in nature, though I've never taken it to such extremes. Goldsworthy's art
however, isn't simple 'nature doodling.' His art shows me several important things
about art, nature, and about the artist with regards to nature: art doesn't have to
be displayable or even reproducible; art can be fleeting and spontaneous - in
harmony with nature (the inherent irony in my comments is noted: the artist's
'spontaneity' and the art's 'irreproducibility' are forever cemented and reproduced
in the documentary, not to mention this blog and perhaps many more commentaries,
classes, and discussions on the subject - but the point is that art can be the above
things); the artist must know his or her materials in order to push his or her art to
the point where it truly becomes his or her 'art.' And when this art has to do with a
relationship with nature as nature, the artist's knowledge of the materials takes on
a unique, even phenomenological dimension.

In any case, below I've put a clip of clips, which I took from Youtube, of the
documentary. Someone has taken snippets from the documentary (promoted
at the end of the video) and has put it to some electronic music but you still
should be able to get the point. The wall on the video that winds in and out
of trees and down in and up out of a pond is the piece that is at this 'museum'
in New York that I wanted to visit.

I should mention that Goldsworthy creates his art from things that are site-specific.
For example, what looks like red paint in the stream is actually crushed stone from
under and around the stream (the clip when he throws the clay into the air and it
splashes red in the stream shows this). The stone wall that he build was build by
taking stones that were there from the site where a older wall had existed previously.

Eden is a Place: Fall Color 3: To Blink; To See

To Blink; To See from Mac Wilson on Vimeo.

[I filmed this in a canyon near Causey Dam]

Eden is a Place: Fall Color 2: Time

[I took this picture from within my Parent's bedroom]

Eden is a Place: Fall Color 1: Color Fall

[I took this picture on BYU campus (bottom of ramp on the south side of campus)]

Where is home?

I'm writing from Eden; I'm missing my family.
Where is home?

Some images of my homes:

- Eden

Family:

Lili at SLCTemple

Sam asleep (again)

John

Lili and Mami

John and Papi

Lili Peek-a-boo

Sam

Reblogsponse to Silence

As a response to my good friend Ben Cluff's blog post of a quote from Sting
about the quality of silence in music, I post here a song by Atahualpa Yupanqui.
This song, "Vidala del silencio," is an instrumental piece but this particular
version has a sort of prologue to it wherein Yupanqui explains the origen of the
song:
"Once, in a morning surrounded by a landscape of blue mountains, I observed
several small clouds - the kind that seem to hang on to the rocks halfway up the
mountain. The air, absent; above, the sky blue; and below, the earth hard and
warm. Someone spoke to me with strange words referring to these small clouds,
perhaps already far away, that made the landscape beautiful. Someone said:

'What you are looking at aren't clouds, my friend, they aren't clouds. They are
forgotten Vidalas [a kind of folk song rhythm from the Andes regions of
Argentina, Peru, Bolivia, and Chile]. They are forgotten melodies that await
someone who will comprehend their silence, understand their words, and intuit
their song. A little while after that moment, which I can't translate lightly because
it is beyond my capacity to comprehend, this Vidala of silence was born.'"

My Mayflower Legacy

Inspired by the fact that this year Columbus Day has landed on Sunday,
which is the day that I work on my Family History (oh and the day of the
week that Columbus confirmed that land had been sighted), I'd like to
reflect upon my genealogical connections with the "encounters" between
the Old and the New world:

I am a descendant of a Mayflower passenger. Perhaps this fact should give
me some sort of patriotic pride but my ancestor, John Billington, didn't do
much in his life to inspire pride.

That's right, I am a descendant of the first Englishman to be executed for murder
in the New World.

I'm sure it was all hearsay and gossip that brought him to justice but I am
willing to admit that his status as the "knave" of the Mayflower group may
have some truth to it. And so, during Thanksgiving when someone makes
a toast to the Pilgrims who made their harrowing journey across the Atlantic
in search of religious freedom, I will toast John Billington and his family
who hopped the Big Pond in search of an escape from creditors.

By the way, I'm connected to Mr. Billington through my dad's side of the family.

Here's to Columbus and to you Great-great...grandpa!:

John: God is Gracious

John's a little under the weather today so I'm thinking of him.

God is Gracious, here you are

not for me, but for you.

Your first steps only now are

set to ever renew.

If given the eyes to watch

the light across your face,

I'll never deny the touch

of a fearless embrace.

God is Gracious, true to name.

Vessel from root to stem,

John, your fathers' tale, the same:

God's grace, eternal lend.

-Mac

Eden is a Place: Light 1: Windows 1

My last post reminded me of how much I like to rely on natural light for my photographs.
For the pictures I take indoors, this means light that comes through windows. I have always been
fascinated by the character that windows give to light. Windows are already photographs in
that they frame a specific view and, in a way, they work like photographs because they provide
a level of
protection, some would say a barrier, between the viewer and what is being viewed. Though I'm sure
someone has written extensively on the symbolism of the window in art and literature,
I'd like to think that the experience of seeing and feeling light through a window (either the
stark, bright light that completely contrasts against a wall or a floor, or the diffused, even
undefined light that tempers the colors and shapes of inside life) holds something outside of language,
something that only the experience itself can communicate. This experience is a combination of time,
space, place, and weather. And so I continue to try to capture these moments when I can.

Sometimes I find the image of the window itself enough to convey the moment, but often
I include objects or even people within the moment to give it a place.

The three photographs below represent, at least chronologically, my interest in taking pictures
of window light.

The first photo: "Windows: Easter Homecoming" is really my first picture of this moment
of light. I took it when I got home from my first real independent camping trip to Southern Utah at
the tail end of spring break during my Junior year in High School. The quality isn't that good because
it is a scan of an already beat-up copy but I think it at least communicates the kind of melancholic
nostalgia that I was feeling at the moment.

The second photo: "Windows: Lili's first Winter" was taken while we lived in my Grandmother's apartment.
I took quite a few pictures of this window because of its south-facing position. Lili loved to peer
out from time to time.

The third photo "Windows: Shades of Piscataway" is one that I took a week ago when it was raining and
light was scarce. I thought the contrast between the natural, blue light outside and the artificial,
yellow light of the lamp was a beautiful way to appreciate the difference in quality and color of the
two. And, of course, John is there filling the gap in the window's reflection which suggests how we
as humans are reflected in natural light and not in artificial light (this is the literary critic
in me speaking).

I will probably include some more pictures of this series in later posts but for now I
will leave my "Windows" at these three.

Lili the Gypsy

Lili the Gypsy, la gitana.

Always moving por allá

y por acá.

And then you stopped

to watch the sun

through the rain.

And then I stopped

to watch you.

- Mac