Call – Environment, Theme of the Month

Response – Light and Space Observed Response – Is My Home An Illusion?

Mimi Peterson, Writer-In-Residence #17

Light and Space Observed

My Racine environment is simultaneously atmospheric and hermetic. It is historical and artistic, water and landscapes open vistas to sun rise and set – I experience it as light and space. The surrounds awaken day dreams from their shadowy nights. The more I concentrate on light and space, the more dreams proliferate, the more my ideas mutate.

Light, light, the many ways of designing words and images to imprison it, making it mine. Not just at home, but in the city too. Home lighting that flows out of windows to light up the streets. Light that winds into our own spaces from outside. Beaming through the sky roof to light a private setting, it’s emotional force in a public place, and, in any case, in terms of its output – enlightenment from books. Towers of light, chandeliers, an ironic interplay of sculptures woven into forms, contained in space, constant change redefines dematerialization of nature, objects, and books that project intense sensory awareness and heighten experiences. No matter, if natural or artificial, without light, our senses are deprived. We cannot feel the green life flow through leaves.

An interplay of luminous solids and reflective spaces, geometric in shape, can be superimposed , if so desired, to create a totem, leading to the Aurora Borealis to show that which is denied outside, unfolds inside. Bright words make a book of ideas, give a sense of immediacy, of witnessing pivotal moments. My deep windows, open onto the landscape, harboring its light, such that the views, like natural paintings, beautiful, light, space, saturated colors, invade the rime riche rigor that I call home, a place for all seasons.

*Is My Home An Illusion? underlines the paradoxical mix of an animate idea and an inanimate object. Home is an abstract concept, a mind place. The space gets its’ strength when static forms give way to fluid forces.

Like a shadowy structure drawn from memory, Like a shiny habitable sculpture put on a pedestal, Is my home an illusion? Or, reality?

Light falls on surface and within, Air flows beyond lacy walls, While beneath, distorted by time, Honeycomb metal holds tight to shards of pink mirror, Broken! A seven-year myth failed by default.

Altered materials, natural and artificial, Designed to look and listen, No matter if dream house or emergency shelter, Human rituals, once rejected, now embraced, Hard promises, softened by transparency, Turn to truth and welcome intimacy.

Some textures can be described, Others only feared, Things of value, feelings of love, Open routes for flashes of memory, Do not ignore nature’s cycles, Remember, cultures cultivate meanings, Nomads integrate marginal thinking.

Others have said what I feel, Found objects tell the story, Whether cosmic spiral or earthly ruin, Powered to reawaken notions of site, Redefine temporal perception, Meditate on the optics of reflection, “Our eyes are not equipped to see the true size of the moon, rather it depends on where the moon is in the sky.” (anonymous)

Go beyond spatial confines, Move with time, An imperceptible blend, Historic Evil Eye sees a fascinating Universe to protect, My home, shaped by visible and Invisible fragments of a mysterious, unjust environment, Found here and other elsewheres.

Mimi Peterson

*Is My Home An Illusion? , the poem, is written in collaboration with the physical sculpture. A visual illusion was achieved by weaving, twisting and shaping black strands of metal wire into the shape of a nest. It’s floor is made from perforated found metal and shards of pink mirror glass. The result is a cocoon-like “Home” without a roof. mp

More OBSERVATIONS coming on 8.24.24