A SEA OF LIGHT

a sea of light

time islands

desert naked

we saw our reflections in the spirit water of the desert

beautiful spirits of light

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a sea of light, shown here only in part, is the first in a planned series of large landscapes
with small figures.

Black Rock Desert. Dramatic changing weather and light - sunny days, big cloud days, part
sun to overcast, cloud layers mixing, then brief episodes of misty drizzle/dry rain, warm wind.
The surrounding high mountain peaks still covered with snow.

Shifting light over a large expanse.

Beings of light - different tonalities as the light changed and changed again.

The wind blew dust on us, colored us like the ground.

Bodies and ground all the same elemental matter in different states, phases.

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The Black Rock Desert has personal and cultural mythological meaning for me: the vast reality
of ancient geology, the history of the West (wagon trains on the Emigrant Trail, the West of my childhood and imagination). And the movie The Misfits, from the screen play by Arthur Miller.
After I watched the movie as a kid, I wanted to go someday to see the dry desert lake bed where
the closing dramatic scenes were filmed, with Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable and the wild horses they came to capture, and then finding their way home across the desert lake bed under the night sky.

We looked for wild horses up in the canyons and went 40 miles off road in high desert and canyon country. The night before our last day we drove across the roadless, trailess desert playa,
finding our way home in the dark, with the light from a billion stars.