Tuesday, March 15, 2022

Groundscape & Skyscape

Of all the vacation landscapes and skyscapes
that we admired in Arizona,
my favorite might be this groundscape:
two abandoned wine glasses a few doors
down from us at the hotel.

Knight Rise ~ 2001
at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art
by Installation Artist James Turrell (b 1943)

For more about Turrell's Skyspaces
plus poetry by Alberto Rios
& prose by Truman Capote

See my recent post
Rios and Capote in Scottsdale

@The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker
A literary blog of connection & coincidence;
custom & ceremony

Poolscape

1 comment:

  1. Thanks to Antoinette Whittingham for these related reflections:

    'To see the world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower.' These lines to me represent the quintessence of creativity, and they were what came to my mind on reading your excellent blog, 'Rios and Capote in Scottsdale,' Kitti. What amazes me is how in your recent trip to Arizona, you have whilst visiting museums there, seamlessly connected, poetry, the novel, art installations and photography using sky as the recurrent image, or symbol.

    You present us with the different ways in which the artists mentioned in your blog sense, define and interpret the sky. The art installation, 'Knight Rise,' by the artist James Turrell is both a physical and symbolic representation of the sky. As readers we feel compelled to look up in wonder and attempt to interpret it. You then introduce us to 'Museum Heart,' a poem by Albert Rios, about a museum itself, viewed through the eyes of the poet. In it the contents of the building itself is part of the human heart, it's an amphora of the senses, in the lines 'What day-moon mornings, what June beetled evenings. Thus the sky symbol persists. Both the poem and the art installation pave the way to the observations of Truman Capote, in 'Breakfast at Tiffany's,' about what the sky means to him. 'It's better to look at the sky than live there, such an empty place, so vague. Just a country where the thunder goes.'

    Now here we find the poetic and literary genius of Truman Capote. Finally to his and to your vision of the attributes of a good travelling companion. For him it's the Mrs Williams, in his essay, 'Yachts and Things.' Leads me to the conclusion, there are a lot of great William's out there, Mr's and Mrs, Blake, Yeats, Whittingham, ,mc Cartney. If Gerry is Capote, downing chilled gins at the bar, you are Holly Golightly, Travelling.

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