City Roofscape at Dusk

Your are always such a softy :) I certainly didn't set out to make anyone cry with this one. You can bet the suits in those bank towers aren't looking out the window with any tears in their eyes for the junkies and crack whores on Queen Street West where that old building is situated.

 

Nice bouquet BTW I hope it makes Rachel feel better.

Hi and good to hear from you. I have to admit that my primary reason for taking this shot was pretty uncomplicated. I liked the look of those squirrel cage blowers and ventilation equipment and that chimney against the downtown skyline. It all looked so make-shift and quirky that it reminded me of something I would construct :) I like your notion of all these contraptions as a city unto itself up on that roof. I had set up the camera and tripod to catch the setting sun reflecting off the office towers and it was only after I had taken the shot that all the other possible ramifications of what this could mean started to settle in.

I agree that this can be seen on several levels. In a way it reminds me of a shot you took of some primates in a cage at the zoo. I could read so much into that shot but I could also see it just as a very strong composition.

Gordon, you and Roger always make me feel wonderful.

 

I've a theory that art is adaptive, that it helps us in our struggle for survival. We humans have a tendency to push away feelings we don't want to feel; they don't go away, though, they just lurk beneath the surface and cause disquiet. Until we deal with them, they're problematic.

 

Art - something that elicits emotion - urges us to confront those feelings, helps us process them, enables a moving toward resolution. In that way, art is adaptive. And sometimes its a lot cheaper than psychotherapy!

 

So...Gordon, what do you think of that? Dr. Bowbrick?

Sometimes a simple hodgepodge of elements just works, and this does. Urban life, both high and low, can be hard. This captures the visual tangle that is part and parcel of city life, but offers hints of a hopeful solution. The same yellow light beaming in from the sunset, beams out from the window. There are ways to connect and maintain, inside and out. The vast blue sky says, "Look up! Look up!" And I often do. Nicely done, Gordon.

 

 

By the way, your work in progress is fantastic. It'll be a real showpiece when you're finished.

I think my take on this is close to yours. I see both the inequality of man in man's eyes and the equality of both in natures eyes. Life is complicated and almost never straightforward much as this roof top and photo are. As always Jeff, thanks for taking the time to pass along your thoughts.

Well, we do have a Doctor in the house but that would not be me. So here is my completely unqualified opinion. All forms of art have the potential to be cathartic and I believe depending on the individual certain artforms will elicit more or less of a response. For you Rachel this image appears to bring to the surface old issues from your childhood which your conscious mind would prefer not to wrestle with. I have mixed feelings about repressed memories. Some of my skeletons I am quite content to leave in the closet, at least for the foreseeable future. Yet others that I have wrestled with have left me a stronger person for having taken on the battle. For me it is a matter of slaying them at the appropriate time when the right support is available and as well the correct balance of personal strength and wisdom are at hand within.

 

 

I do find it fascinating how art can push certain buttons within our psyche. For me this happens more with music than any other art. There are certain passages of music that will make me cry, as if on cue, every time I hear them. They are often weird and disparate pieces, some as obvious as Henrik Goreki's Symphony # 3 and others as unlikely as Neil Young's For the Turnstiles. I have even noticed this holding true for my dogs. I used to have three dogs and every time I would play this Lounge Lizard song " Scary Children " at a certain point in the track, one and only one, of my dogs would bolt up and begin howling in the most mournful way. The other two would look at him like he was nuts, much as people do if they are around when I listen to ' For the Turnstiles '

 

Long winded I know :) The short answer would have been; yes I concur 100% with your thoughts about arts power to both evoke and heal.

Yep, I think we're right.