Light Painting IV: Night Walk

Street Where I Was Born

Maple Street in Overbrook, Kansas

Twenty Years

There was a Child

 

There was a child went forth every day;
And the first object he look’d upon, that object he became;
And that object became part of him for the day, or a certain part of the day, or for many years, or stretching cycles of years.

–Walt Whitman, born today in 1819

Let It Snow

Light Painting II

Fire Poi performance by Shawn Ballantine at
the Abbey Sutton Courtenay – photo gallery by DTH

Signal

can you see from your far city
my pillar of smoke
as white as chaste
as paper my pillar that sways
in the breeze like your dress
your white white dress

for I have swept a clearing
of numbers weights and days
and kindled from your name
a smudge of soot-black silk
a tuft of flame

now winter waits
a dragonfly dips wearily in the waste
where seagulls scream
and I have been so dull and dumb

I should have long since learned the words of you
and tried your tongue to whisper
each old syllable make new

so silently I lit this fire for you
no word will bring us nearer than this smoke

who are forever two

–DTH

Light Painting

Open shutter on a darkling drive, and see what happens. Inspired by the similar experiments of László Moholy-Nagy, of which more later.

Collage Workshop

A few days ago I helped lead a collage workshop for a group of teenagers and a couple of adults. As well as giving a ten-minute capsule history of collage as an art form, complete with visual projection show, I got stuck in with scissors and glue and produced the following, using only newspaper and magazine images that were close to hand.

Anatomy of the Flying Turtle

collage by DTH, 2007