Winter is approaching.
I can sense it even before I see any signs of it.
The air is growing crisper, and the days are getting shorter.
The light fades a little earlier.
One season fades whilst another
takes hold.
My body slowly adjusts to this
change.
I walk.
The wind blows through my clothes, the cold
bites my skin.
As the days grow shorter, my
gaze changes. I seek what, just a few
weeks ago, did not need to be
sought.
I seek the light.
Winter does not erase it.
It makes it more subtle.
A glint on damp bark, a gap between two clouds, a blade of grass that still holds on to a little daylight.
When it becomes scarce, every shade takes on greater value.
I pause before the tiniest amounts of light. A single glimmer is enough to catch my
eye.
In summer, light was everywhere. I had no reason to seek out that glimmer.
It is not the light that has become more intense.
It is my attention that has shifted towards that which is
fading away.
I find this movement again as I look at the drawing.
A repeated colour eventually becomes part of the
background of what I see. My eye recognises it. It
stops returning to it.
So I withdraw.
I allow a colour to appear only once.
I interrupt a line. I leave a light area
where I could still fill in.
I watch what happens when I resist the urge to add.
The page does not become empty.
On the contrary, certain presences
begin to emerge.
In the winter landscape, I seek out the light
because it is receding.
On the page, I can bring about this retreat.
I can hold back a colour, interrupt its
repetition, give it less space.
Then my gaze returns to it.
Winter does not teach me to see more
light.
It teaches me to see more of the light that remains.
