Let There Be Light

Deepawali lamps. Source: commons.wikimedia.org/

Those of us who live in the Northern Hemisphere know December as the month when we experience more darkness than at any other time of the year. For millennia, the onset of winter has been a period in which different cultures celebrate light in a variety of ways.

There’s the lighting of a menorah during the eight days of Hanukkah. In Scandinavia, Saint Lucia, the Goddess of Light, is honored with a crown of candles. Others keep a Yule log burning as an emblem of divine light. In India, people decorate their homes with oil lamps during the five-day festival of Diwali. In Mexico and New Mexico, paper lanterns are set out during the Christmas Novena procession. It’s a tradition that originates from the parol (Spanish farol) of the Philippines, which uses lanterns made with bamboo and Japanese paper. These are all creations we humans come up with in imitation of Nature.

A typical luminaria display in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Source: en.wikipedia.org/

No matter how much I love art, many kinds of art, I find Nature to be the greatest artist of all. Dark skies allow us to see her awesome spectacle of northern lights (aurora borealis) and the Milky Way.

Northern lights at Lauklines Norway. Photo by Sebastian Kowalski. Source: commons.wikimedia.org/

Milky Way seen from Western Estonian coast. Photo by Kristian Pikner. Source: commons.wikimedia.org/

It is light that reveals the splendor of colors in water, birds, and everything that grows, providing inspiration for artists to create stained glass, paintings, photographs, sculptures, textile designs, and so much more.

Morning light illuminates leaves at Olbrich Botanical Gardens, Madison, WI.
Photo by Anne Marie Peterson.
Source: commons.wikimedia.org/

Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, Spain. Architect, Antoni Gaudí. Photo by Ank Kumar. Source: commons.wikimedia.org/

Azure Kingfisher Ceyx azureus azureus, Queensland, Australia.
Photo by J.J. Harrison. Source: commons.wikimedia.org/

Digital artwork study by David S. Soriano, directed at Pop Art 2022.
Source: commons.wikimedia.org/

Antelope Canyon, Arizona. Photo by Lucas Löffler. Source: commons.wikimedia.org/

Installation of Sequence, by Richard Serra, Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University; 2011. Photo by Linda Cicero; Stanford News Service. Collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. © 2018 Richard Serra/Artists Rights Society (ARS); New York. Source: museum.stanford.edu/exhibitions/richard-serra-sequence

Wavelets at Ned Roberts Lake in British Columbia, Canada. Photo by Murray Foubister. Source: commons.wikimedia.org/

Code Talking, (2002), weaving (wool)
by Deborah Corsini.
Source: www.deborahcorsini.com/

Sunset on the Sonoma coast, California. Photo by Mirka Knaster.

Sunrise (1916), by Georgia O’Keeffe.
Source: commons.wikimedia.org/

Yayoi Kusama’s whimsical Pumpkin sculpture on Naoshima Island, Japan. Photo by Mirka Knaster.

Of course, the number of photographs I could include is endless. All we have to do is look around and see inspiration everywhere to lighten our hearts and get our creative juices flowing. Lightning lines as mark-making; flowers and birds as palette suggestions; trees, rocks, and clouds as shapes for a new project, and so on. Take, for instance, the surprising clouds painted by an artist I had not previously heard of.

Clouds in Finland  (1908), by Konrad Krzyzanowski. National Museum, Kraków, Poland. Source: commons.wikimedia.org/

Or an installation at a park in the City of Westminster in London.

Art installation, park, City of Westminster, London. Photo by N. Chadwick. Source: commons.wikimedia.org/

Or the trees in a painting by Vincent van Gogh.

The Olives Trees (1889), by Vincent van Gogh. Museum of Modern Art, New York. Source: commons.wikimedia.org/

As we approach the Winter Solstice and the end of 2022, I wish all of you light and love. May whatever darkness you’re experiencing be dispelled by the solace that beautiful images from Nature and art offer us.

Light reflection through drops of water.
Photo by Vijayanrajapuram.
Source: commons.wikimedia.org/

Thank you for joining me in exploring the heART of it. I look forward to your thoughts in 2023.

Questions & Comments:
How does Nature inspire you, in general, and in artwork, in particular?
What do you do to bring light into your life and your art during the winter?
Are the darker days a time of incubating ideas or an opportunity to create more readily?