None can escape the unyielding formation of a shadow. Stand in the light, a shadow undoubtedly forms and follows you until it lengthens, shortens, merges into another. Stand in the dark, you embody the shadow itself by hiding within one. Each night the shadow of the Earth creates an aura of mystic unknown. Yet every morning, light once again filters through to form individual shadows. Transient and permanent, shadows forever define reality.
There were shadows. It was a gorgeous sunny afternoon when I once again set foot on the cross-country path. From whatever vintage point I considered, the task of shading appeared daunting and intimidating. The omnipresence of the shadows, however, eventually aided me in my decision of the scene: shadow of the nearby line of trees casted over the few cotton spruces, lighted open fields in the near distance, and slightly darkened trees atop the mountains in the distance. Cliché and perhaps even banal, this type of scene evoked what one might label as “near-subliminal.” With a view both below and above, I possessed the feeling of truly being within this scene despite merely lingering along the trail. As I scribbled charcoal against the page, I began to realize the all-encompassing demand of shading in any drawing. No one can forget their first art lesson as their teacher drew simple lines on the chalkboard: an apple, a flower, a house…Each increase in level demanded more realism and the mastering of shadows. Just as in psychology, a child develops into an adult with the development of morals. From the black and white, right and wrong of childhood to the many gray areas of adulthood, different shades manipulate one’s place and understanding of the world. In a world without color, shading becomes that much important in depicting an idea, an image, an ideology. Everything represents a different marker along the grayscale, each determined as a comparison against another. Just as human actions and beliefs range along a scale, right and wrong emerge within contradictions. Yet, who really considers the differences in shading? This taking for granted of the different colors, variations, and even simple changes in the placement of the shadows attest to the ignorance with which many regard the nature around us, myself included.
I am a shadow. As my eyes traced along the segments of trails visible from my position, I eventually alighted upon the house in the distance. To me, those paths led to an expanse both intangible and foreign. How do you get there? Could anyone see me from that point which I could not reach? The insignificance of my being further reassured me of the prominence of the scene before me. People jogged by, biked by, flittered by without so much a glance at their environments. They hardly even acknowledge me as I hastened to somehow meet my own expectations for my drawing and the indirect expectations of the image of light and dark, sun and moon. To overcome and become the Sarah, plain and tall, as an individual in this world of hastened progress and eternal movement revolves around the ability to recognize and pinpoint one’s own sublime. To continue forth on the broken segmented paths of life requires relentless faith in the distance that perhaps you cannot even see. To dance with the shadows that filter across every spectrum (despite an artist’s inability to depict them) reminds us of the delicate balance between seeing and believing.
I made a shadow. The shadow before me - as casted by the trees that segregated my presence from the vast expanses next to me onto the sparse littering of cotton plants - muted yet simultaneously highlighted the lonely wisps of cotton swaying in the wind. Common perhaps are these plants, dimmed even further by the hazy shadow of one much taller and stronger. Nonetheless, they are closer and consequently easier to observe. Mini trees in disguise, they possess the potential to alter and change the course of lives of billions of creatures who do not ever stop to think of these plants. Stop. Look. There they are…
Shadows are reality.
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