We spent most of last week exploring conceptualizations of sacred space. Today, I want to return to what readers here will know is one of my most closely-held motifs by looking at another kind of space, sometimes sacred, sometimes not, but always significant: that created by lines, whether imposed from without or arising within, and what they reveal, intentionally and inadvertently alike, by their very existence. In other words, I want to look at the lines themselves, yes, but but more importantly, at the spaces between.
The interstices.
Yes, this is a recurring theme: partly because it is so integral to my own life, but also partly because it is something the dominant culture largely ignores, in nearly any and every context. And yet, it’s a concept, a context, a dynamic, in fact, that has so much to show, so much to teach. Lines, after all, are generally something imposed — indeed, superimposed; they are artificial constructs in one form or another, constructs that by intention and design cover and conceal, and therefore alter, what is already there. Lines are borders and boundaries, barriers, fences, even hurdles; they may sometimes be opened to allow entry, but they more often have the effect of keeping out.
They also circumscribe our view, blocking access to some things, allowing sight of others, thus framing the window of our understanding of the world that lies beyond, and limiting that understanding accordingly.
But the spaces between are instructive: not only for what the lines block from our view, but for what the interstices reveal. Sometimes revelation is unintended, wholly so — and yet, cosmic irony ensures that the view that is revealed ultimately erodes the solidity of the framing lines.
It creates its own special kind of beauty, too, this way of looking at discrete spaces outlined by oft-seemingly unrelated barrier The obvious metaphor, of course, is that of our peoples, the borders and barriers of colonization and reservations and the absolute necessity of walking in two worlds, but those are the easy ones.
There are deeper, less accessible ones, those that exist within.
Wings captures this phenomenon frequently in his work, both in silver and in photographic imagery. In a land filled with air of otherworldly clarity and light, the sun itself conspires with the works of humankind to paint such images across the landscape. But it’s more than a wholly natural occurrence, even as it arises organically out of his culture in the most mundane of ways.
His people hold claim to the title of the first builders, on this continent, of true multi-story architecture. It’s not so much that the tradition “continues” today as that the existential chain was never broken, never altered in any fundamental way, despite the passage of a millennium and more. When outsiders visit the old village, they’re taken with the appearance of the buildings, and of the church, but most especially with North House, a building that has become, for the dominant culture, the iconographic image (and icon itself) of Taos Pueblo and its environs. But, as Wings made abundantly clear last year in his one-man show, and as he continues to do throughout his work, what visitors see — or perhaps more to the point, what they think they see — is nowhere near the totality of this place.
It doesn’t even scratch the surface of the adobe walls.
And so today, I’ve chosen to highlight three of his photographs, each taken in a different season, at a different time of day, from a different vantage point . . . but all illustrative of the concept that what exists in the spaces between is at least as integral and important as the lines defining that “between” in the first place.
I mentioned adobe walls just above. They are part of that iconography of the Pueblo, and also fundamental elements of the culture and the place it inhabits. There is no North House, no South House, without the warm red earthen clay of this land, mixed with straw and mudded carefully into the interstices of the bricks themselves, then smoothed protectively across the surface to conjoin individual bricks into foundational walls. It’s a metaphor for indigenous cultures, as well as tangible shelter.
As you’ll see in any of the many photos of North House that appear on this site, from a distance, it looks like one solid block of earthen masonry, if one with wildly diverse rooflines at disparate heights. Even up close, it’s so compact that the interconnectedness of the homes is all that one really perceives.
Until presented with a view taken from a vantage point like that above.
The two buildings are connected below, out of range of the camera lens. But above, within its line of sight, they separate into two distinct homes, housing different families, the walls and latilla poles forming their own lines as markers and boundaries. They are, in a sense, lines of demarcation: That home is yours; this home is mine. It takes the identity of the larger building from the communal whole and breaks it down into its constituent parts, and it is those parts that perhaps constitute the majority of people’s everyday consciousness: After all, this is where they live.
And yet, what is that that is visible between the two homes?
Sky, yes, but more to the point, the mountain: The peak that stands sentry over the entire village, that holds, with its brothers in the chain, the people’s sacred lands and histories and memories and lives. It is an embodiment of the communal nature of life, of identity here, and it serves as a reminder of identity shared, of collective existence, of a cultural whole.
These are large lines, of course: entire walls, broad and strong.
Some lines are much narrower.
The latilla poles are a hallmark of the Pueblo’s architectural style: used to form arbors, like the one to the right, but also standing sentry at doorways and other openings, tall, strong, vertical lines that denote ingress and egress and ownership of a space.
Most often, what people see are the individual poles themselves — sometimes flanking an entryway, other times standing alone, but always with the perspective of distance of from the ground up. They’re interesting even then, but you don’t perceive them fully, functionally, that way.
Wings took this from a rooftop, camera pointing North and East, capturing the weakened light of Father Sun on a late winter morning.
He also captured a space between poles that gives the light, and the landscape on which it shines, a new perspective.
He took a close-up from the wall to the left, as well. That image appeared in his exhibit last year; you can see it here. But stepping back, looking at the broader view from his angle, it brings clarity to a view seen daily from the ground by visitors that nonetheless wholly escapes their vision.
Between the two lines marked off by the tall latilla poles, you get a feel for the connectedness of the homes to the left, yes, with the row of arbors appearing in opposition to the right. But what interests me is the space not only between the poles, but between the two rows on the ground: the path leading straight ahead. It’s well-worn, of course, since it’s traversed daily by those living there (and for several months out of the year, by tourists, as well). But although it’s fully visible to them from the ground, what they don’t notice is that the path continues, beyond the sawhorse set up to bar entry, turning into a winding road that travels well into the distance.
Back toward the mountains, and toward the light that rises with the sun in the valley between.
More interstices.
Sometimes, the lines are not man-made, although they depend upon the existence of that which is in order to birth themselves into being.
Father Sun sets down boundaries not only at dawn; as dusk approaches, he makes his presence known insistently, unmistakably, before retiring for the night. In doing so, he creates (and lights) another path: one leading the eye (and one’s thoughts) back, once again, to the mountain.
We, his children, need the reminder. After all, it’s easy to take the light for granted during the course of the day; it’s always there. We become aware of its importance anew late in the day. As the light lowers and the shadows lengthen, our footsteps quicken; we hurry to get our work accomplished so that we may be home before darkfall.
Sometimes the lines create the shadows; sometimes the lines are the shadows.
But we would not appreciate the brilliance of the light were it not for its visibility in the spaces between the shadows. After all, it is by contrast with the dark that the sun appears so bright.
Our challenge is to remember that we need both, and to appreciate both.
Because life is lived in the lines, and in the shadows; in the light, and in the spaces between.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2015; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owners.
