Bridget's Best: September 2013

When I was seventeen I boarded an airplane for the first time, and left South Africa to spend a year as an American Field Scholar in Chicago. It was 1968 -- an extremely eventful time in U.S. history.

A couple of weeks ago Graham and I flew to Chicago for a long weekend. A great deal has changed.

We were blessed with perfect weather and walked for miles, enjoying the buzz and vibrancy of the city, awed by the architecture, impressed by the intersection of city and water, the beauty of public spaces, the wonderful urban landscaping.

As I reflect on our weekend and review my photos, I realize how central the theme of Reflection is -- both the physical reflections in sculpture and buildings and water, as well as the more internal reflections about the passage of time and the way that revisiting a place from one's past stirs up memories and emotion.

The most amazing reflections are, of course, in Anish Kapoor's Cloud Gate sculpture

-- affectionately nick-named The Bean.

That funfair fascination of viewing an altered world,

an altered self -- captured and reflected.

Yup, it's just the two of us -- reflected in polished stainless steel!

Reflections floating as though in a ball of liquid mercury

Our reflections magnified, reduced, distorted, replicated.

Endlessly engaging.

Chicago seems to be a city that charts its history through architecture
varied, bold, magnificent, innovative buildings
that reflect changing times and often each other.

Reflections of buildings in other buildings.

I marvel at the soaring Trump Tower, and remember how, 45 years ago, I photographed
the Chicago Sun-Times building that used to occupy that location.

Alexander Calder's flamboyant Flamingo

Dizzy Heights

Reflections in water --- Lake Michigan, Chicago River, Millennium Park

Some enjoyments never change.

Reflections of bygone splendor

Tiffany ceiling in Marshall Fields (now Macy's)

Tiffany Dome in the old Library (now Cultural Center)

Our main reason to travel to Chicago was to see the Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity exhibition at the Chicago Art Institute. (no photographs allowed). This fascinating exhibition encouraged us to examine how the Impressionists used contemporary fashion to reflect the latest trends of the time and spirit of the age.

(Our daughter-in-law, Justine De Young, was involved with the exhibition and wrote two essays for the catalogue.)

Buckingham fountain

The play of light and water -- shining forth like memory refreshed

Perhaps it is a far horizon -- big skies, wide open spaces -- that I crave.

When I studied Feng Shui I learned that a distant view facilitates long term planning, creative thought. My teacher claimed the large offices and grand window views of CEOs were way more valuable than prestige alone. She contended that sitting at a desk in front of a wall was fine for the manipulation of numbers (for instance) but that the block of a wall in front of you stifled imaginative, creative thought. She gave an example of school children who were content to do math homework at their desks, but often headed, instinctively, to the dining room table or somewhere with a more expansive outlook when they needed to write an essay.

I know from my own experience that I think far more imaginatively and boldly when

I am in wide open places with a far horizon.

From Durham, with its trees and lack of mountains, the beach is a quick fix for me.

Three nights at the northern end of Wrightsville beach was a tonic beyond basic R&R.

The expansiveness of sky and sand and sea

Invites the mind and soul to stretch in mimicry.

(Bridget)