Rainbows in art, life, etc

You get sent a link to a website, and it takes you in many directions....

Interview: Artist Stretches Delicate Strands of Thread to Produce Awe-Inspiring Rainbows Indoors

Plexus no.24
 "when people encounter my work ... they just go to this childlike wonder space ... 
the other thing is ... how the insulation is going to activate a space"
(see more at mymodernmet.com/gabriel-dawe-thread-art/)

Scrolling through, I found the thoughts coming and going faster than I could catch them. For one thing, this use of thread is like stitching without using fabric: "they dazzle with reflected light". I like that this artist, Gabriel Dawe, is "challenging the constraints of masculinity and the patriarchy" by through "embroidery" and colour; he uses "hues to help subvert the world’s narrow view of gender and identity ".

Here are a few of the thoughts the photos of the work gave rise to, in no particular order. 

1. Thread installations of Chiharu Shiota, filling entire rooms (at Blain/Southern last year, and this one (from a Berlin show) with boats is gorgeous -  

Chiharu Shiota (via)

also Pae White, at South London Gallery 2013 - 

Pae White (via)

 ..........google "thread installation art" to see many images and other artists

2. Large airy outdoor sculptures, such as those by Janet Echelman - some years back there was one at the winter lights event, at Oxford Circus - 

Janet Echelman (via)

A different medium but the same "omg" effect on the viewer, the desire to see "more" of the work, in Dawe's case by walking around, for Echelman just waiting to see the changes

3. Interaction of colours in stitched work of ...?... about 20 years ago (not easy to find, it was the pre-digital era, but I'm sure it will simply appear, soon*)  and more recently Evelin Kasikov - 

Analogue-digital embroidery by Evelin Kasikov (via)

4. Barbara Hepworth's use of string in some sculptures like this one from the late 1930s -

Barbara Hepworth (via)

And Naum Gabo, this "translucent variation on a spheric theme" is from 1937, for instance -

(via)

5. Double rainbows and other atmospheric phenomena, which often occur because of factors unknown to the viewer, eg this one -

(via)

"Rainbows take many forms" - http://www.atoptics.co.uk/bows.htm 

6. Exhibition that included threads+dark room+lighting - Lygia Pape at Hauser & Wirth, 2016 -

(via)

7. The idea of the loom waiting to be woven upon, the warp stretched ... lots of metaphors there!

8. The single stretched thread - It can connect two points, and/or its length determines the frequency of the note sounded when it's plucked, and/or other physical phenomena (https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/stretched-string) - that makes my brain hurt, so let's move on to consider the metaphysical question "how long is a piece of string"...

9. A few more questions ... (a) where are the shadows (b) how is the work best displayed (c) how does the site affect the work - and, a very practical question: what happens when it's taken down, is it binned and remade afresh next time 

10. Moire, and perceptual processes [my psychology degree contained a lot of info about perception, especially visual perception - no doubt research has moved on since the 60s! - something to research on a rainy day....]

11. Songs with rainbows in them ... "somewhere / under the rainbow ..." etc

12. Superstitions and folktales about rainbows - pots of gold, wot? But there's so much more .... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbows_in_mythology

13. Can you see rainbows from space? Would it look like a circle? The conditions have to be just right, and full-circle rainbows are most often seen by pilots. Like this -

(via)

*when the name does eventually appear, or a photo of the work shows up, it will suddenly reappear, and probably several times - apparently this is called the Baader-Meinhoff phenomenon: 

"The illusion in which a word, a name, or other thing that has recently come to one's attention suddenly seems to appear with improbable frequency shortly afterwards  ... (not to be confused with the recency illusion or selection bias). This illusion is sometimes referred to as the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon." (from Wikipedia, cognitive biases article)

No glaciers were harmed in the harvesting

24 blocks of ice,  brought from Greenland by artist Olafur Eliasson, are situated outside Tate Modern, gently melting, their water trickling into the Thames.

A little ice-cubelet seems to have been left behind on the foreshore

 The ice looks lovely behind the birches, but "t'aint natural"...

... the ice is real, but its situation is unreal. It's meant to get people thinking. And looking - so many of us have never seen a glacier, let alone been able to touch an iceberg.

"Eliasson worked with geologist Minik Rosing to transport over 100 tonnes of free-floating, glacial ice from the waters of the Nuup Kangerlua fjord in Greenland. The ice had separated from its sheets and was discovered melting into the ocean." (via)

Elaisson recommends putting an ear to the ice, to hear the little crackles and pops of released air bubbles and splitting as the ice melts.

Another six blocks of ice are deposited about a 10-minute walk away in the City of London, reflected on the rainy pavement -

Les Hortillonnages, Amiens

In Amiens, I stumbled upon the Hortillonnages. In fact when I looked at the map to see where Amiens might be, it was the configuration of blue that caught my eye - it turned out to be the river Somme, and what a lot of lakes etc...

You can walk for 7km along a riverside path ... but on the day my feet took me towards the park, and an instinct sent the feet along a different path, the sun was low in the sky. 

Les Hortillonnages are the area at top left - here's the satellite view, closer up -

An area of drainage canals and small islands containing gardens and summer cottages, accessible only by small boats. It's been like this for about 800 years; originally the area covered 10,000 hectares, now only 300 hectares are left, of which 25 hectares or so are used by a dozen of the remaining market gardeners.

A short way along the road was a sign indicating an art display -

 Over the bridge (the passerelle) we go, to check it out -

 What a lovely peaceful place.

 Part of Sheena Seek's installation -

Hopefully the text will be legible if you click on the image -

 The next one didn't work so well for me -

 This was hard to photograph -

 One part of the larger whole - it had a really good feeling to it -

 Not art, just someone's hidey-hole....

 Back to the installations - a hop yard -

 These lovely white branches, a skeleton that might be walking around in the forest -

 Some things that were there became part of "the art" ...

 A distant view of something jolly -

 More glimpses over the canals -

 Back to the art - this one was large and you only "got it" after walking around for a while -

 A view into the city, and this strange monster crawling out of the swamp...

 Back to the riverside and the calm reflections of evening -

 But it was the anarchic area of old cottages and leaping spans (high enough to pole a boat underneath) that was so interesting -