“Once you cross the threshold, you will never be the same. That is a fact.” ― Kamal Ravikant, Live Your Truth
Would you step through these portals?
LightRails by Bill FitzGibbons, Computerized LED Light system, 2013 Photo credit: REV Birmingham
This unique art-light installation under the 18th Street viaduct near Railroad Park, in downtown Birmingham [is] intended to enhance walkways under downtown viaducts with a placemaking splash of color in the city center, as well as encourage pedestrian traffic to link First Avenue North and the East Gate of the park.
See
Creativity means to push open the heavy, groaning doorway to life.
-- Daisaku Ikeda
Thresholds, doorways, and portals are all opportunities to pass from one reality to another and transform yourself…work to home, activity to rest, malaise to elation. Artists create all kinds of thresholds inviting people to enter. The felt impressions can be impacted by what is offered, but ultimately are the sole experience of the participant passing through. Look at the artist portals below. Could YOU resist entering?
Noodle Delirium, Gabrielle Blais-Dufour, Robin Dupuis, and Alexandre Hamlyn from Les Astronautes, Quebec City 2014
“The installation transforms a discreet anonymous crack into an intriguing, colourful, textured passage. The stroller who ventures through it finds himself caught in a canal where pool noodles are used to modulate tactile, nearly organic paths that feel sensuous to some yet troubling to others.” Les Astronautes
Pulse Portal, 2016 Davis McCarty
Pulse Portal is a functional, 20 foot archway that welcomes viewers to pass through a gate of iridescent light on a journey into tomorrow. The dichroic glass changes color based on the viewers’ position in space. The mere act of walking around the art creates a unique experience. The design is based off imagined alien architecture and the tessellated geometry of crystals on earth. (Designers.org)
Moon-Gate – Alec Finlay, 2008. Photograph, Alexander Maris
A moon gate is a circular opening, usually in a garden wall, which acts as a passageway. A moon gate is thought to offer an auspicious welcome or fortune to those who pass through. English gardeners borrowed the idea from China in the late 19th century. American gardeners immediately followed suit.
(Old House)
Say
Which of the Thresholds above would you most like to walk through, why?
What does your home threshold offer you? Is your threshold intentionally signaling a transition?
Do
Make a small intentional change to your threshold. Think about how color, an object, or a scent can change how you feel as you enter your home.
Read about the Feng Shui of thresholds.
Create a threshold in a wooded area using fallen branches. Take pictures during different seasons.
Design a garden entry that conveys something about you, consider building it.
About the Artist: Bill FitzGibbons
Biography
Artist Bill FitzGibbons has fabricated sculptures for over thirty years; during his career, he has completed over 30 public art projects and performances in five countries including Reykjavik (Iceland), Helsinki (Finland), Braunschweig (Germany), Stockholm (Sweden), and Yorkshire (UK). The Texas State Legislature announced FitzGibbons as the Official State Artist, during the 82nd Legislative Session in 2012. With an environmentally conscious approach to public art, FitzGibbons has embraced the use of computerized LED lighting systems. FitzGibbons won the COD Award for LightRails in Birmingham Alabama in 2014. FitzGibbons has been on the Board of Trustees for the International Sculpture Center and in 2011 FitzGibbons founded the Texas Sculpture Group as a chapter of the ISC. The University of Tennessee, Knoxville acknowledged FitzGibbons with the distinguished Outstanding Alumni Award in 2010. Additionally, in 1993 FitzGibbons taught at the Hungarian Academy of Art in Budapest, Hungary as a Fulbright Scholar.
https://www.billfitzgibbons.com/
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LOVE that you included Feng Shui in this issue. Do you think Bill FitzGibbons was thinking or using these principles? Don't know if I could walk through the Pulse Portal, it looks a bit menacing! Thank you Shannon!