Through the Looking Lens

[ streets ]

[ wandering views ]

A few images from my day in Phildelphia. With very little money to spend and no one with me, I barely spoke all day, and wandered the city center for hours. The one thing I did splurge on (other than lunch) was a visit to the College of Physicians Mütter Museum, where photography was not allowed. The museum was fascinating, super crowded, and creeped me the fuck out. I have a pretty high tolerance for the macabre, but this was like a slow build of squick. After an hour and a half my head was spinning, my stomach felt densely queasy, and I sped through the last room (which was the most grotesque, natch).  

[ microscopic watercolors c. 1835 ]

Easily my favorite experience of the day was stumbling upon/into an exhibit at the American Philosophical Society called "Through the Looking Lens" - an installation in a single tiny room off the sidewalk of the works of Cornelius Varley, a naturalist, scientist, and painter. The collection of his watercolors at APS (above) ranged from dreamy landscapes to pastoral portraits to depictions of plant matter as seen through his microscope. Swoon.

Stepping into Varley's work was lovely. The reminder that we must make our own work, for ourselves, for our passions, to pursue a question or a fascination, regardless of recognition or immediate impact, was a necessary source of self-reflection. I think about what we leave behind when I think of N's journals; dozens of books filled with his thoughts, processes, drawings and charts, only ever seen by him (and occasionally me, over his shoulder). All of it is vital, for him - some of it is brilliant. Two hundred years from now, will his journals be on display to be studied and inspire? Or will they pass to our children, or to thrift, or be lost in a fire? Does it matter? His love of them and his studious commitment to this kind of private art makes an immediate impact on his own life, and on mine.

What's amazing to me then is to think that everyone has that potential for some private brilliance. Sometimes we're witness to it, but overwhelmingly not. Any person, every person - that bus driver or neighbor or dude yelling in the street - has their own collection of microscopic watercolors.

Summer

Hello!* This has been a summer of constant work and travel. I left my day job at the end of May, for various reasons, and have not yet replaced it. Despite my unemployment, however, I've been working and traveling practically nonstop since mid-May. Back to back (to back) projects this spring means that really, I've been ON since February. The few travels for pleasure have been welcome - last weekend four days in Denver (my first time to CO) with my two oldest friends, celebrating an engagement, a move, a new home - as I can anticipate the next few months being as full as the last few. 

The East Coast has got me this summer. Massachusetts > New York > Pennsylvania > NYC > Van > Vermont. Throw in Oregon and Colorado, and the days at home in Seattle have been like desperate grabs for comfort and lakes and friends and rose on the back porch. Evening walks through the neighborhood with N. My garden. Oh my goodness, the garden. Stillness, and solace . 

Friday night N and I arrived in Swarthmore, PA for the National Puppet Festival (r)evolution. He's in meetings Saturday through Monday, so I've been left to my own devices. Saturday I jumped on the train into Philadelphia** and today have wandered the campus. And this campus .. seriously - it is spectacular. Any snobbery I have about the beauty of my own alma mater has been shut the hell down - especially without a map or guide, my day was spent trying doors and sometimes discovering weird pockets of beauty and even more campus. I could do it again tomorrow, with a camera this time?

* It's been a cool minute since I visited this space. Recent reinvestment in certain artistic outlets nudged me to open it up and begin again. Hoping. 

** On that note, a day spent alone in Phillie re-enforced the need to find/make space for myself. Somehow, yesterday became all about watercolors, and suddenly the whole year has been about watercolors, sneakily. More on this later.