Bruce Munro

I'm late to the show, but I saw Bruce Munro's exhibit at the Franklin Park Conservatory over the weekend. There's something endearing about his simple appreciation of light and color. From his Giant Snowballs to his Light Shower, the spaces just pulse with an energy. The Field of Light reminds me of John Singer Sargent's painting of the Victorian children in the garden with Chinese lanterns.
His artist's statement is the least pretentious one I have ever read. "It's a privilege to exhibit at Franklin Park Conservatory and Botanical Gardens. I hope that work I create, which is but a fleeting intervention in the gardens calendar, leaves those who experience it with a smile and a positive spirit." is his final explanation of why he creates what he creates. "You need a medium to find yourself and to explain things to other people. Mine happens to be light."

The show is open from dusk to 11:00pm until March 30. Do go see it.

Looking

I recently took a walk in the neighborhood, and my eye was drawn to a number of things, how even neglected buildings have some beauty to offer in the advanced stages of decay, how frail a dry leaf is on a frozen pond, and how reflections offer a milky veil for an old typewriter.

I'm about to read a book called On Looking (Alexandra Horowitz), a record of walks around her own neighborhood. She admits, before her first walk, that her dog experiences the world in a vastly different way, with his quick eyes and superior nostrils. We have five senses, but if we were to use them each at every waking moment, we'd probably go insane from sensory overload. Our brains protect us by prioritizing our experiences as we make our way through each day, but that doesn't mean we should be numb to the array of colors, textures and sounds around us. If we unplug our devices for a moment, we might find that we still have uses for those senses. Stuff you can't look up on the internet.