A Quality of Light

I am from big-sky, blinding-sun country where the earth is flat, and nothing obscures the intense blue of the horizon. Texas summers are hot, sticky, and full of wondrous smells and sounds. These are about the only thing that makes them tolerable: sweet mimosa and honeysuckle, the watermelony smell of freshly-cut St. Augustine grass, the whirr of a thousand cicadas as night falls. You might as well be a lizard and enjoy the bright heat. In Texas, in summer your life will be bare-rock sensations where you bake and squint and sweat, and scurry-- from house to pool to car (air conditioned) to keep the naked light sun at bay. Even lounging outside in this unfiltered heat can be exhausting.

I've tried to describe where I live to folks back home who have not visited me. The first thing I talk about is the light--the quality of light in the summer. This land glows when it brightens. The thousand streams and rivers and lakes and the ocean that's wrapped itself into every curve, swell, and inlet create an effect when the sun slips through cloud banks the sensation of living in a golden bowl in summer. It reminds me of that line from Dylan Thomas, when he wrote of his childhood that "the sabbath rang in holy streams." They stare at me uncomprehendingly, my kin who have never been here. Why is she talking about the light? of all things, they may wonder. It's because, I guess, the light is so different from back home where it feels merciless. This quality of immanence, a glow from the land itself has affected the work of artists and photographers, of which I am a naive and pedestrian member. People who have seen my pictures have remarked that they "are proto-typical Northwestern gloom with a hint of light." Well, at least that's what some woman at work who's partner owns an art gallery told me, although the photos I take are not meant to be gloomy. If I see a theme, I suppose I do think they reflect an alien's fascination of where she finds herself, however. I found this quote this morning, and think it's accurate. I love where I live.

Perhaps more than anything else that unites [Pacific Northwestern] artists is the role that the natural environment of the region plays in their work. Portland painter Louis Bunce said of the Pacific Northwest that "nature flows up the streets," and it is true that the lush verdancy of the coastal areas and mountains seems to permeate everything, including its art. The prevalence of earth tones and neutral colors, the quality of light and moist atmospheres one finds in Northwest art, both then and now, is characteristic and expressive of a distinct, regional sensibility. It is for all these reasons that French art critics proclaimed Northwestern artists and photographers an "Ecole du Pacifique."