Thursday, July 22, 2010

Light and time.

At Art in Action a gentleman stopped in front of my table. He spread his hands in an open gesture, smiled.
"I have to tell you," he said, " I am completely in awe of your work."
What can you say to so open a statement but "thank you."
"What is it that you do?" I asked.
" Oh, me? I'm only a physicist," he replied.

Earlier in the day I had been talking to Judy about rainbows and she told me that scientists had trapped part of a rainbow in a piece of glass. I had begun to worry, for if a butterfly could cause a storm across the world with a flap of its wings what might happen if light were alive in ways we didn't understand and a rainbow went to find and free the part of itself that was trapped. A rainbow dragon. Is it right to trap and enslave light?

I am in awe of physicists and wish that when I was at school I had understood the relationship between art and science better.
Later that day, a rainbow, wild and free, arced across the site at Art in Action.




The links above are to an article in New Scientist and other pages on rainbow trapping. There are almost images of the light, held in its prison if you google 'trapped rainbow'



At Judy's Wizz slept peaceful in places. On the wall the cover art from Talking with Strangers shone. And I have now put a page of images from Art in Action 2010 on my website.

4 comments:

  1. Oh! 10,000 miles is too far!

    Thankyou, Jackie, for posting such glorious photos. I am becoming more and more immersed in beautiful artwork and much of this due to cyber meetings and collaborations.

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  2. Wonderful pictures of Art in Action... I'm even more gutted I couldn't go...
    (I REALLY love the poetry tiles...)

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  3. I, too wish I had understood that art-science connection in school... I would have been able to get sooo much more out of it if someone had been able to show me the poetry of science back then, and the science of art... oh well, at least I know now!

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  4. Jackie!

    Never heard of rainbow trapping until now!

    It must be fate that you spotted that rainbow that day!

    -Dean

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