Thresholds

Thresholds

The trees are coming into leaf like something almost being said. Philip Larkin.

This Larkin quote speaks to me about the beauty of anticipation that you get at the beginnings of spring. It's the same feeling for any change of season, when you are on the cusp of the next wonderful thing and you are at the threshold of the change.

A collection of thoughts on the in-between, liminal, threshold spaces.

That moment when you catch your breath between inhale and exhale. There is a potency to the in-between. The threshold spaces in our everyday can flit by without being noticed. When you tune in to this special kind of tension your observation is often rewarded with a sparkling energy of the moment between and this is what I’ve been exploring in my art over the years. When a new thing catches my eye, inevitably it will relate in some form to liminal spaces and nothingness.

Light.

Before we understood how light travels, theoretical physicists conjectured that light waves had to travel along something. They had a theory about luminiferous ether. The stuff they thought must be between the light that allowed it to transmit. This was based on knowledge around sound waves. Various apparatus were set up to experiment and to try to record this ether and prove the science. These failed to find anything and the knowledge of light changed to our current understanding of how light moves. Light travels at a constant speed in a vacuum, it has the reputation of being the universes constant. It’s unchanging. Nothing is faster than the speed of light. It takes around 500 seconds for light to reach us from the sun, this is an incredible fact when on a sunny day light is just present and constant.

I had never really thought about how light passes through space. The idea of the ether taking up the space between the light sparks my imagination, even if this theory has since been debunked. The space between the spots of light is where we’ll find the magic. Light may be an unchanging constant but the way we experience it changes and is the creator of many threshold spaces. The way light changes between seasons, or morning light compared to dusk allows us to place ourselves within a set perimeter. Its on the edge of these experiences that true knowing lies, somehow we know that light takes 8 minutes or there about to cross the space between the sun and our face.

Doorways.

Have you ever stood in a doorway not knowing what you were entering the room for, that moment in between when you become so aware of your actions and movement that you disrupt the flow a stop. In the doorway, one can remain in the safe space of neither here nor there. A task left in the doing rather than undone.

Doorway thresholds and boundary markers are powerful spaces for the exchange of energy, welcoming in or sending out. Superstitions follow this feeling of the transitory, known as thin spaces its where the transition between our world and the other (spirit) world is heightened. Salt is often placed on the threshold to counter any negative energy.

The name hag used to describe a witch comes from the old English word for hedge. Describing a women dwelling at the edge of the village or society. Witches are believed to be able to travel along hedgerows in a transitory form, taking refuge in these liminal spaces whilst shapeshifting using the power of the in-between to take on new forms. Holly trees were often planted to try to stop witches from using the hedgerows for magic.

Ma

In Japanese the word Ma means gap, space or pause. Ma describes the way that a pause or indeed the negative space is as important as the form in giving meaning. More than emptiness the nothingness and in between space has presence which can be felt by the viewer and should be considered in all aesthetics from architecture and garden design to painting and music.

In my own work I am looking at these themes of liminal space. Seeking out the quiet moments in between all things. Trying to find the ether that exists between the light. The substance that connects and holds all things without being.