Spirit & Light & The Immensity Within
By Lynn M. Herbert 

Morley, S (ed) 2010, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Herbert opens the essay by describing what light may mean to us:

‘Science tells us that light initiated life on earth; plants and animals could not exist without it’.

‘In the beginning there was light …’

Light  - gives us the ability to see the world around us as well as enlightenment ‘makes known that is which inside us’.

‘Light is intrinsic to our spiritual and physical selves’.

Yet despite these qualities we often take it for granted Herbert suggests and quotes Rudolf Arnheim’s eloquent summation as follows:

‘Light is one of the revealing elements of life .. It is the most spectacular experience of the sense .. But as its powers over the practice of daily living become sufficiently familiar, it is threatened with falling into oblivion. It remains for the artist and the occasional poetical moods of man to preserve the access to the wisdom that can be gained from the contemplation of light’.

James Turrell according to Herbert is one such artist. – ‘His medium is light -  not paintings that depict light, not sculpture that incorporates light but simply light itself’. His gift is in ‘affording us the opportunity to have a unique and intimate experience with light and to feel its transcendent power’.

Herbert also quotes from William Blake :’If the doors of perception were cleaned, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite’. Herbert suggests that viewing Turrel’s works leads to thoughts about the spiritual aspect of life, which in her view has become an unwelcome word in contemporary art. Herbert quotes psychology and philosopher William James who suggest the spiritual is ‘the great world, the background in all of us, is the world of our beliefs’. Herbert explores some of James Turrel’s work and the impact and sense of encounter/ experience of feeling a connection with the universe –in his words ‘The sky would no longer be out there, away from us, but in close contact’.

Herbert also discusses the work of Robert Irwin and Mark Rothko in relation to art and the sublime.

This article helped me – with some artists to look at for ideas, inspiration and to learn and grow more in my ideas ... and to give me the words to express what I m hoping the light does in my movie – I m hoping that it is an encounter however this is intimate in the sense that it is my domestic space reflecting the rooms, perceptions, filters of my interior.