Post 6 - Soul Refractions - A Creative Process
September 5, 2024
Recently, I was drawn to a song that made me revisit my childhood love of lighthouses. The music video captured scenes of an isolated, towering lighthouse with the singer exploring her feelings of loss. Much of the history of lighthouses centre around these themes. Their light keepers being miles away and often isolated with their families or by themselves for long periods of time. They endured harsh weather patterns and disruptive sleeping hours to maintain a beacon of safety for passing sailors.
Lighthouses have always been a deep fascination since the beginning of my life, and maybe even a career of a past lifetime. As a child I was able to visit many of them on the West coast of America. I still appreciate them because they remind me of my deep love and gratitude for the coastal land where I grew up. And of course, they’re an interesting artefact of old-world architecture.
Garrett at Santa Cruz Light (early 2000’s)
A Musical Inspiration
The song that spoke to me is called ‘Sinä lähdet, minä jään’ by the Finnish singer Behm (translation: You go, I stay). It’s message of loss and feeling disconnected from a loved one hit me deeply and allowed me to revisit some reoccurring feelings of grief throughout my life. The singer’s vocal ability and the video’s cinematic quality are amazingly well done.
Research
Sticking with this theme of lighthouses, I gathered my childhood books and observed each image, allowing them to spark something within me. This visual journey lead me deeper into looking at fresnel lenses and how they work. There are several orders of lenses based on size and light power. Through the magic of refraction and angles, these lenses are able to convert one central light source into beams of coherent signals. Some lenses are designed to pulse, turn, or flash according to different timing intervals. Of course, the part that grabbed my curiosity was the geometric arrangement of such lenses.
Fresnel Lens Cross-Section
Process of Creativity
Starting with a rough sketch of a lens’s cross-section, I continued refining each element into elongated triangles, just like the individual lenses themselves. I repeated these triangles into a familiar radial form, keeping the idea of an assembled fresnel lens.
In this drawing I continued with my geometric style. Every geometric drawing I’ve been creating starts with a sketch in my grid ideas notebook. I then transfer the sketched image onto a larger paper via a hand drawn pencil grid. Once the grid and pattern have been transferred onto the new paper, I use an ink pen to trace the outlines. After this point, I erase the pencil and am left with an ink skeleton to fill in.
I find the simplicity of only using black ink on geometric drawings creates a focussed intensity. However, there is still a vast language of colour I long to explore in future pieces.
My drawing process of ‘Soul Refractions – Fresnel Lenses’
Critique
The complete image of this drawing is very neat with its straight, clean lines. Everything is ordered just as it would be on a fixed grid. At this point I am certain I could qualify for an OCD diagnosis, but I enjoy my drawing habits regardless.
Finished artwork: ‘Soul Refractions – Fresnel Lenses’
The circular forms created out of elongated triangles appear to create an ‘X’ shape with the playing of negative space. It reminds me of a focused point of light in some of the radial pieces of glass in fresnel lenses. It also reminds me of a similar radial pattern in a lot of metal lighthouse roofs.
Left: Fresnel Lens Design, Right: Geometric roof pattern
The small cross-like patterns between the radial forms create a unifying effect. Although not intended, they also make me think of the various light signalling patterns lighthouses have, such as four continual beams of light or a pattern of four flashes.
Left: Flash characteristics, Right: Mapped Characteristics
Final Thoughts
This was one of my more introspective, geometric pieces. A lot of my past ones were focused on spontaneous exploration of shapes and their interrelationships. This one in particular called me to go deeper within myself because of a strong resonance present in the music. Sound is powerful.
Thanks for reading! Until the next post,
-Garrett Porter
*Disclaimer: I do not claim ownership of the various internet images and videos or copyrights to such content on this page. I only claim copyright to the personal photograph and the three hand drawn images I produced. All content here is used for informational purposes only.*