Improvisation 8: Kandinsky's Circle Game

When the temperatures warm up and everything melts, and then it all suddenly drops and refreezes, the frozen puddles are full of magic. I don't know if you've spent any quality time with frozen puddles lately but I'm here to tell you that I HAVE. And I have some nature art to show for it.

My husband wanted to take one of his cars for a spin before the latest big winter storm arrived. And so he did that, and dropped me off at Mahala Street, and I walked home. It is about an hour and 15 minutes to get home from where he left me. That is, if you AREN'T stopping every dozen feet to hunker down and photograph the bubbles and patterns in the ice!

I was reminded of my friend Louise, one of the first of many office-mates at PSU. She had a tender heart for creatures, and every time it rained, she was late to work because she walked to work, and every time she saw a worm on the sidewalk, she had to stop to remove it and save its life.

Well that was me. Except without worms and sidewalks. And without work waiting at the other end, finally. I saw many puddles on my walk and knelt down and took lots of pictures. The crystals and designs and patterns were amazing and diverse! So much fun!

I mentioned the name of Kandinsky the other day. He was one of the Bauhaus masters. Here is a simple version of who he was: "Wassily [or Vasily] Kandinsky (1866 - 1944) was a Russian-born artist who made his name working in Germany in an art style called Expressionism. Expressionists wanted to use art  to express their feelings and emotions, usually through bold use of line and color."

Kandinsky believed that certain shapes drew certain emotions out of people: that triangles brought out aggressive feelings; squares, peace and calm; and circles, spirituality. He believed that certain colors were naturally associated with certain shapes: red = square, yellow = triangle, blue = circle. He had synesthesia, and associated colors with certain sounds: red, a violin; yellow, a trumpet; blue, the sound of a heavenly organ.

As I was kneeling by one of my favorite ponds (the same one that provided the rainbow ice the other day), I photographed a section of ice that provided me with these neat shapes and colors, and I thought of Kandinsky. The golden circles are bubbles trapped under the ice.

No, I didn't hear any heavenly organs or anything like that. But I have made a simple tribute to Kandinsky, using circles and lines and bold colors. Let's consider this my attempt at playing Kandinsky's Circle Game. Bonus: snow buds atop my "painting." Oh, and the rim of gold around the circles? That's a tribute to Klimt! Of course! :-)

My soundtrack song is this one: Joni Mitchell, with The Circle Game.