Knowing Winter Shadows
St. Olaf College Senior Studio Art Show - May 2019 - Watercolor on Paper
Shadows are fleeting, only a breath away from gone, present on a liminal boundary. Being and not being. And yet, shadow implies presence. Light becomes shadow, becomes pattern, becomes texture, becomes surface. Then surface is texture, is pattern, which is light and shadow once again.
And so, light reveals the world. Our worlds. We follow the slow coming and going of the light with our waking and our sleeping. As the Earth swings ponderously ‘round the sun,
winter melts into
spring bursts into
summer sighs into
fall and settles into
winter once again.
Then, more than any other time, the shadows are long, and the light tenuous. On rare blue-sky days, bright snow blinds, but more often it reveals the subtle
blue
gold
rose
grey
of shadows,
colors chasing the sun from noon to gloaming to night and back again. If winter is the right time for shadow-watching, then watercolor seems a fitting tribute, nothing but a splash on a page. Shadows of paper and paint balance on that edge between object and light, between careless chaos and tight control. Recognizing this balance steadies me, a reminder to make peace with my place between what was and what will be.
Shadows whisper to me,
trust,
all will be well.
