Light from without – and from within
A bell casts a shadow on the wall in Vivian Poey's home in Cambridge, Massachusetts (left photo), while Elena Terife captures the detail of a flower in Santiago, Chile.
Vivian Poey (l.) and Elena Terife (r.)
Spending 24/7 at home has acquainted me not only with the everyday wonder of light, but also with myself and my thoughts. Pre-pandemic, my mind was crammed too full, too focused on the next activity, on who had said what to whom. But now I not only look forward to these empty, quiet moments, I actually crave them.
The gift of time, like the gift of light, is something worth contemplating and training myself to notice, as an artist hones her awareness of shapes, colors, and the light itself. Staying so close to home, I am attuned to the slightest shifts in my interior life. The long list of preoccupations I had 10 months ago has dwindled down to the essentials: family, health, gratitude. Everything else is merely shadow.
The effort to find beauty, structure, and meaning in everyday life often makes it necessary to dig deeply into one’s inner life. When artist Amedeo Modigliani unveiled a portrait of a painter friend, the friend asked why he had been depicted with one eye open and the other closed. Modigliani replied, “With one eye you are looking at the outside world, while with the other you are looking within yourself.” – April Austin
Why We Wrote This
Finding beauty, structure, and meaning in everyday life can mean digging deeply into one’s inner life. For some, the pace of pandemic life offers time and space for such contemplation.
The play of light
By Elena Terife, Instagram @eterife
SANTIAGO, CHILE – I am a graphic designer. I use an iPad mini to collect these instants. I love looking at the world in a playful way, mainly when the light produces new scenes especially for me. During the lockdown, I was completely alone with my cat, but with the companionship of the amazing winter light that turned our home into an almost infinite world. Somehow, capturing these images (and sharing them) helped me forget I was confined.
Quiet transformations
By Vivian Poey, Instagram @vivipoey
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS – I live in a small space. The extensive time at home during quarantine made me notice the space in new ways: the light, the imperfections, the kitchen table. I saw light shift through the day and land in new places as seasons change. The space constantly transforms over time in both quiet and spectacular ways that I had never noticed before. I photograph some part of it every day; I could do it endlessly.
This photo essay first appeared in the Jan. 25, 2021 issue of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly magazine.