I wanted to dove-tail a bit on Tam’s post last week—the weight of the kinds of darkness she described have been tangibly with me these past days despite the extraordinarily lovely weather we have been savoring for most of January here in the Bay Area (many of us feel guilty about enjoying it so much when a great deal of the Northern Hemisphere is steeped in dreariness. Plus we need the rain. Still, it’s hard not to look out the window each morning and cheer; Hooray! Sunshine and blue skies again!)

I have been wondering, then, why I so often find myself drawn to darkness: the darker stories, dark humor, themes of darkness, images that suggest a dark undertone? Perhaps because I move in a landscape filled with light, I sometimes long for the darkness—the yang in the yin. But really, I believe it’s because where light holds possibility, curiosity and hope, darkness cradles mystery, suspense, the unknown. Darkness holds a treasure-trove of riches—secrets live in the shadows, spirits suggest themselves in cool unlit spaces; neither can survive in bright daylight. And transformation most often happens in darkness.
A few days ago, I found myself at SF MOMA, drawn by an image in the newspaper, a photograph by the late Francesca Woodman—a mysterious self-portrait of the artist disappearing between the fireplace mantle and the wall.
As I left the museum and walked back toward my car through the dappled light of the Yerba Buena gardens, I felt changed by the experience. I realized that not only had I been longing for this taste of darkness, but that it needed a stronger presence in the story I have been working on—my story lacked some of the necessary darker tones to balance out the light. Without proper shading, there is no definition, no contrast. Darkness is a rich source of tension, an essential element in all art forms. Without it, we risk a kind of overexposed blindness.

Sharry
What a lovely post about darkness. I think I seek both light and dark, and perhaps that's been my downfall. I think I need to focus on one or the other to truly get focus on my story. Hmmmm. Not that you can't have a little of each, but I think I struggle with figuring out which one dominates.
ReplyDeleteOn another note, today we finally get rain and while I love the sunshine, today the rain, gray day is perfect to keep me indoors and writing. :)