Pellucid

It’s a study in light I’m enchanted to discover as I switchback through the handful of desert trails.  The same pieces are changing as the sun sinks in the western sky from late afternoon into the gloaming.  When I sign up for the 4 – 8 PM time slot to tour the Chihuly in the Garden exhibit at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, I can’t imagine how I will spend four hours here, yet I learn it’s possible to spend four times four hours here:  What’s illustrated so exquisitely across these 240 minutes in the desert sky is how everything changes in a magically compressed time lapse; I’m really never looking at the same thing twice.

 

What I find remarkable is how these massive, yet intricately shaped blown glass pieces of art nestled among the blooming cacti wax into prominence as daylight wanes, relegating the garden’s signature flora to uniquely, and equally beautiful, shaped silhouettes against glorious colored light emanating from their refulgent crystalline structure.

When I finally get my fill with 117 new photos, I belly up to the bar to dine.  It takes all of thirty seconds for the bartender to ask me about my shots, whipping out his own tablet to share the pictures he’s captured over the life of the exhibit.  Turns out this guy is an artist, mixing drinks at the garden’s surprisingly upscale restaurant to fund his true passions:   Photography and bringing art to kids.

He experiments with light and motion, his images selling for $100 each, printed on Costco photo paper, housed in Walmart frames to maximize his margin. He reminds me of the artist portrayed in this short video, "Silver & Light", which both ignites and breaks my heart as this man nearly breaks himself in his quest to create massive original photographs with the world’s largest camera, which he’s made himself.

 

These strangers are lodestones beholden to a calling, drawing me in to absorb their stories of relentless persistence and grit in the name of creative passion; the pursuit so acutely personal; the stakes so gut-wrenchingly high; voices undulating with effervescence in times of success and utter despair and self-loathing when confronted with failure.  They make unfathomable sacrifices, seemingly reckless choices.  They prioritize their dreams above all else. I’m steeping in a jealousy and awe I can’t quite resolve. I want this for myself.

We’re driven by the force that creates us, an eternal flame at our very core, impossible to extinguish, smoldering until we’re prepared to stoke our true selves into being.  Like Chihuly’s artwork makes itself brilliantly known, exploding when the lights go down in the desert, we too can set the world on fire when we decide we’re enough, worthy of becoming who we’re meant to be. 

Are you ready to turn your lights on?