The Iconic Nature of Dawns and Sunsets

Blued Trees, Black Skies, Praying Hands installation with painting on paper and blued branch, a mnemonic image created 2020 in the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Building on Governors Island, New York City, Southern California Bight, Cal Arts, High Performance Magazine. Maine

After days of fog, dawn faithfully returned to the island. I will have about six weeks more to hoard as many as possible.

Recording dawns is an iconic exercise for me. When in doubt, no matter what, I am reminded that dawn comes daily for every living being, like birth, hope and renewal of all kinds just as sunset comes as regularly as death and closure for all that lives.

After I completed my MFA at Cal Arts in 1974, I began a three-year project to record every dawn and sunset daily for three years. Most were recorded from my ex-husband’s back yard. There was talk of erecting oil rigs in the fragile Southern California Bight. I wanted to record the dawns and sunsets as a gift of remembrance, an exercise in mnemonics. Recording them from my ex-‘s home was an exercise in hope and closure. When I later wrote about what the project meant to me for High Performance Magazine, despite the spectacular beauty of much of what I recorded, I used a B&W shot. It was a small comment on how light determines life more than color.

When I was performing Sunsets (1976-79), my research revealed that at the moment of twilight, the rods and cones in our eyes change shape. What a perfect metaphor for how light, sunsets, closure can transform our very being. At the end of that project, I was thrown from a  horse and had a bad head fracture. That too changed my life. It’s all in my book, “Divining Chaos,” forthcoming next summer from New Village Press.

In Maine, I can gorge myself on both light and color. In New York, the tiny apartment where I live faces North. I see neither dawn nor sunset from my windows but I do have ideal painting light. That too is a small parable. During the pandemic, I was shut out of my studio on Governors Island, but when I could return I obsessed on the image of praying hands, a mnemonic device to remember hope, no matter what comes.