Exhibition at Blackfish Gallery
In the poetry of science, the transition from day to night is measured in degrees—degrees of dusk. These include “civil dusk” (when the geometric center of the Sun’s disk is 6° below the horizon), “nautical dusk” (when the geometric center of the Sun’s disk is 12° below the horizon), and “astronomical dusk” (when the geometric center of the Sun’s disk is 18° below the horizon).
Each dusk is defined by the slow loss of light, the circadian return of darkness. And in the gloaming is a world apart. The creatures of the twilight occupy a separate ecology in the rising dim: ocelots, foxes, and fireflies awaken to the sweet air of vespertine jasmine. Fruit bats finding cactus flowers, barn owls gleaning lost mice: they only know dusk.
Dusk is also home to rare species of beauty: sunset, a manifesting moon, the slow arrival of stars, the assertion of silhouettes, how street lights flicker awake. That breeze.
And that feeling. Dusk is a mood, a state of consciousness, a measure of one’s passage. Our personal dusks are also transitions between days. And in the recurring dusks of our lives, we inhabit this place of special beauty. How many times are you cousin to the barn owl and cactus flower? How many dusks have you wandered? When our dusks return, we shrink from the sun, we face the shadows; the only light is inward.
And what light!
