Chasing light

During grey, wet summer days here on Dartmoor, I find myself chasing light: those precious moments when sunlight breaks through the clouds, and inspiration breaks through the mind fog.

"From within or from behind," wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson, "a light shines through us upon things, and makes us aware that we are nothing, but the light is all."

 Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider have noted: "Ever since we crawled out of that primordial slime, that's been our unifying cry, 'More light.' Sunlight. Torchlight. Candlelight. Neon, incandescent lights that banish the darkness from our caves to illuminate our roads, the insides of our refrigerators. Big floods for the night games at Soldier's Field. Tiny flashlights for those books we read under the covers when we're supposed to be asleep. Light is more than watts and footcandles. Light is metaphor. Light is knowledge, light is life, light is light."

The French painter Yoann Lossel said a lovely thing in a recent discussion on the John Barleycorn blog.  "Oil painting," he said,  "nourishes itself on light,  and on time -- both the time that passes, and the time you put into it. In this way, it nourishes the artist in turn."

I haven't been painting recently. Both light and time have been in short supply. But I'm laying out the brushes, sorting through colors, and waiting for a break in the clouds.