• Call – Color Feel, Theme of the Month
• Response – En Plein Air
• By – Mimi Peterson

EN PLEIN AIR

The humid wind, sandy beaches, blinding light, hidden niches,
Safeguards the children,
Suspended between parched earth, blue sky, clear water,                                               
As if etched in steel, not real, tell time.
 
Trace your way along the path, Through scrub, lost at the edge,
Reminiscent of ancient mounds, Dissonance turned melodic,
Just beyond, Long shadows of man and trees intersect,
Leafy branches shade cracked concrete, groomed lawns, seasonal flowers.

Preserve this profile of domestic life, Set in concavity,
Discover the elastic bond that connects built by man and nature,
Opens possibilities of rapport, Nothing is conceded to the surroundings,
But turns calm, to introverted inflorescence, EN PLEIN AIR.

Wander more, Beyond the terrain lies the convex city,
Merge the space and colors of lake and beach, brown and green of land and trees,
Opens possibilities of rapport, Nothing is conceded to the surroundings,
But turns calm, facing extroverted city grids EN PLEIN AIR.

One can experience a sense of emptiness walking the zip coded streets,
Effects caused by the free fall of Industrial Revolution, war and economy,                             tech and pandemic,
Most evident in darkened windows, the very buildings designed to give                    cultural identity.

Now empty stage sets of a story that changed unexpectedly,
Theses spaces are portraits with a literary pastiche, 
Citing Victorian, Craftsman, Modern, and Post,
Brought together, present a version of performance, a pilgrimage rest.

Multi-purpose human beings, reflect on integrated experiences,
Highlighting trash as landmarks, weeds as landfill sculpted fresh,
The notion of ruin, the activation of place through reflecting on its inhabitants,
Means to raise questions about the nature of culture as tourism.   

Some forms of public action, Flashing lights, ER sirens, racing to save
our postmodern lives,
Precisely through narrating spaces in a game-like way,
Whose checkered platform of perceived distinctions, 
Pushes the first quarter of 21st Century forward into the tense excitement of
what's ahead.



Mimi Peterson
December 31, 2024

Thank you for reading OBSERVATIONS #1 – 19. My final OBSERVATION #20 will follow today.