What Color is Light?

Snow Shadows



Stats: 12x12x1.5" oil on canvas
Beverage: Coastal Estates Cabernet Sauvignon
Playlist: Olympic Men's Figure Skating Free Skate

Yesterday my friend took me to see the Georgia O'Keeffe exhibit entitled "Abstractions" at the Phillips. I had seen an exhibit of hers before at the Calatrava in Milwaukee, but that one was more comprehensive and PC. While it did show her landscapes from Lake George, NY and Santa Fe, NM, it rather glossed over her relationship with famous photographer Alfred Stieglitz.

The Phillips did not disappoint. While this exhibit focused nearly entirely on her prolific abstract art, it also displayed some of the art photos Stieglitz took of her. These mostly naked photos contributed to her reputation as expressing abject sexuality in her abstract paintings, when in fact they are meant to represent the emotional interpretations of what O'Keeffe saw in the natural world around her. Much like the eye gathers and refracts light, sends it upside down into our brain, and somehow our brain re-interprets the information right side up, O'Keeffe's abstract art takes what she sees refracted on her soul, and re-displays it as what she feels when she sees things.

I like this interpretation of abstract art because I often see things, or imagine I would like to see things, in a more colorful, vibrant way than they exist to most people. That is why I will always tell you that the Schultz's house is blue. It really is.

That is also why when I explored around in the snow after our blizzards last week I did not expect the photographs I took of the play of vibrant light and deep blue snow shadows to do justice to what I saw. Did you know that all white light that we see is white because it is a combination of every single color that exists? Did you know that all black is the opposite - the utter lack of light and color?

My friend and I both left the O'Keeffe exhibit with our hands over our eyes, as though viewing any other art would tarnish the feeling we had, as though we had just drank a refreshing glass of water on a hot day. I went home, turned on the Olympics, and interpreted my own colors of the snow, per the composition of a photo I had taken, onto canvas. Voila!