Observations of Light

Compiled entries from the first 3 weeks of class:

9/5
light 7:30a, bedroom waking
soft and very …white.  colorless.  perhaps grey.
no shadows.
in bed. just waking up.  love this time of day.  this kind of light.

light 10:30a, kitchen
bright streaks across the deck.
looking out the window, sitting at the kitchen table.
there is a bright yellow triangle on the house next door.

12p, kitchen west
no more triangle.  all yellow.

light 10:30p, deck looking south west
it is dark and bright.
air is moving fast- big almost foggy clouds
so fast!
the clouds are grey-white
bounce the light
make it bright
even at this dim hour

the expression on the face to my left
stares out- tall, open-
caught in the bright game spots
sneaking through the happy crack left
between this piece of residential audience to my right

9/6
7a, bedroom just waking
loud!  grey.

9:20a, kitchen looking south
wet and spring-like light.  yellowy-green. but flat.
soft shadows.  rain!
subtle streaks of fast reflections

9:45a, kitchen looking south
bright strips of woody floor!

6:30p, car 1-90 E
fuzzy?  dirty?  grey.  streaked?
out of focus? distorted?
ambient? dense lines.  pane/rain.
it is raining hard.  hard to see.

9/7
10:28a, deck looking south
mottled clouds of dark and light.  filter a ubiquitous light
not extreme
but nice
soft shadows come and go
every once in a while there is a sharp one
pierce the time with a moment

9p deck
hunk of bright in a crack beyond
seems to drift…
(the moon moves on)
leaving an afterglow
in its wake
no clouds tonight.

9/8
7:50a kitchen
the light is whiter today.
not crisper…. but whiter

9/10
8:59a kitchen table
again, it seems bright, beyond
though, it is much cooler
and here, inside, everything is filtered and
a pretty grey.
not a sad grey, but grey nonetheless!

12:16p deck
trying to qualify the cooler quality- in the light…. it is still a warm color tone, but i think that maybe the air thinning out, brisker, cooler, cools the light too.  hints of change.  anticipation of fall’s arrival.
shadows spill across the deck.  high sun now.

8:00a in bed still
i think the light is particularly white in my bedroom because of the house next door.  big white umbrella reflecting the ambient light in through the blinds…. the slots in the blinds act as another defractor; the light hits on many surfaces, each section glows but also sends the light in a kind of atmosphere into the space.  dim morning light, clean white.

9/11

9/12
10:30p on the deck
there is a glow coming from the south, low in the sky behind those houses…. what is it?!
the light is grainy and dark, not as grainy as in the morning hours, or inside with the lights out, but grainy still.
artificial lighting on the neighbors houses, in my basement, make little islands of spot-lit glowy-ness in the darkness.

9/13
9:41a kitchen, looking out at deck
there are long lines stretching across the floor- the railings screening from the east
the light has changed so much this week, it is no longer a warmish greenish blue… it’s cooling off, it seems. i wonder if we will get a few more ‘warm’ light days of indian summer?

9/15
7:50a
front room/ work room of my house
wow the light in this room is so beautiful!
this is my first time sitting in here this early- it’s been so full of unpacked boxes.
the sunlight enters from the far back corner bay and grazes along the curved top of the sofa before landing on two bits of wall.
the pattern across the sofa is like many boomarangs all lined up.  they are in reverse of the motion you would think, though, which makes the light look like it’s coming from the opposite direction!  strange.
it really is tricky- the reflection off the whiteness of the wall bounces the light back onto the sofa as it touches that surface.  i think.
the ambient light is a really pretty yellowy color- the hard woodfloors are a polished orangey oak.  very reflective.

9/15
11:30a
middlesex doorway, mass ave
bright sun!  clear blue sky with fluffy clouds, feathery edges.  moving slowly but moving
light passes through outer 1/2 of clouds (see drawing)
bright white light
doorway in shadow.

6pm
roche library facing Mass Ave
light is getting lower and lower through the 2nd floor windows.
i dropped the blinds a bit so i could still sit here, and see.
this low light is a warmer color yellow than earlier today.
so marks the end of a beautiful day.
western, low, end of the day light is hotter than earlier light.  richer.  as if everything becomes more saturated over the course of the day.

9/16

2 am entries in history notes- need to find and transcribe!!

5:30p
MIT medical courtyard
bright. crisp and clear.  pale yellow light
purple color low in sky
still blue up above.
dappled light in the trees/on the ground (by kendall t, inbound.)
bright pin point of sun low in the trees.  bright streams of light finding their way through the filter of leaves.

9/17
9:42a
kitchen table
ambient glow from windows reflects white light -with a blue cast- off the clean, bright walls.  the all covered in blue tape must contribute to the blue cast?  not sure.  could also be the computer screen.
but, this light meets artificial light mid way through the room: yellow incandescent + fluorescent light cast from opposite side of the room.  there is a gradient from blue-yellow.  there are more defined shadows deeper in the room, by the artificial point sources.  outside looks inviting.

11:06a
MIT medical corridor
the light passing through the glass brick above:
bluish, soft, muted.  glows more than shines.

light reflects off very polished floors.  (fluorescents on other side of columns)
all indirect light.  quiet.
floor to ceiling windows shaded by trees growing on other side of transparent threshold.  west facing, but in shadow.

12:53p
studio 5, my desk
there is a rectangle of light in the bottom half of
my desk. almost centered.  nearer the left.
it is fuzzy near the edges.
it is moving slowly, almost imperceptibly, towards me.
there is a triangle, too.  [note drawing]
the light from the triangle reflects up onto an ILLY coffee can- brightening the silver material color.

Funny thing- i am eating peas out of tupper ware (ziploc brand)
while i write this and, as the light comes down
from the skylight + passes through the gaps
between the peas, it makes a really interesting light-texture on the page.  I
actually think it’s the plastic- it’s not clear like glass but almost porous looking.

1:06p
studio 5, my desk
it (the rectangle) has almost dropped off my desk!

9/23
reflection on how (reading: process, material, form, and performance space) manifest on my site

One of the most interesting processes on my site is rain.
my boyfriend daniel is very attuned to the effects of the weather, and in particular rain, on his potted tree.  the tree sits in the far corner of the porch where it can get the most sun, and as it turns out the most wind and rain.  sometimes the wind knocks it off it’s small pot-base – not completely over- but tipping its 4 trunks against the porch beam and rails.  we just bought and installed bamboo blinds to provide a bit of privacy from our neighbors to the southwest and a bit of relief from the messiness of the trash barrels and putzing landlords to the northeast.  daniel has already taken to adjusting the blind closest to his plant based on the weather- to allow un-mediated rain to penetrate our now more defined outdoor room at just this one corner- the blinds folding up vertically to create a rectangular opening in the bamboo wall.

the rain wets the front of the porch, where there are no blinds, but the back remains more protected, save for a few renegade drops that make it through the slats of top two floors’ porches above us.  we are certainly the most protected.

i have taken to lighting two little candles at night on the small table we have set up for: working, eating, reading, setting a bottle of beer or an ashtray.  it’s amazing how much smaller the ‘room’ becomes: the candle-light accentuates the space just within its reach, making all that vastness outside of its cast seem separate- part of the ‘night’ rather than my site.  without the candles, the light comes from outside the little porch, making the whole night feel more like part of the site.  the candles create a threshold for deciding whether the site includes (the space of) the night or not.

hello!

hello!

welcome to my blog.  i will be posting work and thoughts related to a couple of MIT courses i am taking this semester… check back soon!