Light On Life
Experimenting in our garden at night
Life, and all it’s bumps and blips has, yet again, taken me away from writing this newsletter - a thing I very much enjoy doing!
Creativity has been in the everyday though, here’s what I’ve been up to:
My kid’s school has a lantern walk every Winter. Each family has the opportunity to make a light installation at point of their choosing along a 3km path through the bush behind the school. In the dark (and freezing), we walk as a group, gasping, and oohing and aahing at the magical creations. Vivid Festival, eat your heart out.
This year, my creative ambitions for an installation took me on quite a journey. I thought the bush setting might be a beautiful backdrop for my mesh wall art. A few weeks back, I took one of my piece’s (Calm Couch) rolled up under my arm on a walk with others along the path to pick my installation area. I came across a spot with a set of three gums clustered together. Then, a little bit along, three, very old, native trees (I was told by Kimme, the gardening teacher) with fine trunks and spindly leaves clustered together. I decided to choose this spot. I played around with hanging my work up. The shadows across the mesh made a whole other layer to the design. Would it work lit up in the dark though?
Pausing further along the path to chat with Kimme about the bush, suddenly one, then two, then three, kangaroos bounced right across the path and up a hill behind the track. A family. A symbol of my three boys!
Over the following days, inspired by those sets of three - the gums, the natives, the kangaroos, I came up with an idea; make a camp fire installation between the three gums and then hang on the gums around the campfire a mesh hanging picture. In each, one of my boys would be sitting like they were looking at the campfire. I photographed each of the boys at home and designed the collages and got them printed.
A week or so later, traipsing around in my garden at night hanging up the mesh works and playing with various light angles from the ground and the surrounding trees, I realised, disappointed, it just wasn’t going to work. The colour in the works just faded out to grey.
Back to the drawing board.
I chatted with my artist friend Hilary, in Canada (we co-work over Zoom most weeks). I told her about the greenhouse idea my son, Oscar, had voiced a while back. At the time, I couldn’t see the greenhouse concept making sense. Then, with Hilary’s input, the idea of the greenhouse being a symbol and a message about the environment (its care, and destruction), took hold. I got excited. I shared the idea with Jake, my husband, who had been patiently experimenting with me through the weeks. We found inexpensive greenhouses at the hardware store with the idea of lighting two of them from the inside, connecting them with lights through the bush area.
That evening, I pulled up to the house in my car. I was listening to a Brian Eno song, a calm, soothing track. Through the front garden trees, I saw a glowing green. I stepped through my front gate to see a green house lit up on the front lawn decorated with shadows from the plant sitting inside. Jake had been experimenting. It was magical!
Dear reader, the lantern festival has been twice postponed due to bad weather, so, when it happens, I will be sure to take some pics to share the final installation with you.
Till next week,
Rachel
