Thoughts on Shadows

Shadows

I have just put together a compilation of photographs I have taken of shadows into a little book. I find holding these images physically really helps with my inspiration and understanding of what my imagination is asking of me. I have a few folders and categories in my iPhone photo app that I fill as when I find what I’m looking for. One folder is shadows- this album has reached a point where there are enough images to make a little book. I use an online photography place and find the result delightful and tactile.

When thinking of my May Writing Challenge, shadows was one of the first subjects I noted down that I could write something about, so just like the photo albumn these writings and musings are another way for me to engage with my creative practice.

I saw the exhibition ‘Anna Ancher: Painting Light’  at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in Feb this year. She is one of those artists who’s work always pleases me when I come across it so it was a real treat to see an exhibition compiled of her work. As much as her paintings are about the light, Anna Ancher also seems to be about painting shadows. Maybe this is implied by the interest in light as shadows allow us to understand the role light plays in our understanding of the world. But I would assert that this assumption that the interest is in the light and shade by association misses the importance of looking at the negative space first and what that can do for our imagination. At the same time as viewing the Ancher exhibition I was reading the book Enchantment by Katherine May, this book is about the importance of finding magic and wonder in everyday life. I think shadows are magic, a spell cast by light. Perhaps this is what Ancher was seeing, at least its what I see when I look at her paintings.

Hiding in the shadows. The idea of darkness, allows for the notion of hiding. Maybe in a playful way but of course this can have a sinister edge to it.

Playful shadows- shadow puppets and silhouettes allow me to think of shadows in this magical and creative way. No longer shadows are being about the absence of light, they are being created and thrown by the light. By using darkness the shadows are amplified and come and go as they please.

Long shadows- end of the day. Of course shadows mark the passage of time through the day, before accurate time keeping I wonder if our appreciation, understanding, and observations of shadows would have been greater. Now it is an intuition that can be listened to which speaks of where we are in the day, and perhaps in space, fixing us in a moment to the space we occupy by the long or short shadows around us.

Rest- as someone with very fair skin, shadows have played an important role in my life allowing me to rest and wait a while when outdoors in the summertime, a lack of shade makes me nervous as I am so vulnerable to the effects of the sun. I do wonder that this has given me an acute awareness and appreciation of shadows and shade and indeed of trees. I will most happily spend a summers afternoon chasing the shade of tree as it moves through the day.

Japanese word Komorebi describes the visual phenomenon of light filtering through trees and shadows dancing on the ground. This for me is a feeling of safety and calm.

Shadows cast by the lines of my glass engraving are intrinsic to the work. The materiality of the glass transparent surface allows light to pass through unhindered. My scratched lines cast the shadows, insisting the drawing is physical and holds a weight that can felt as well as seen. It moves the two dimensional drawing on the surface into a three dimensional space allowing the drawing to become sculptural.