Channel Bloom

The Fort Point Channel is blooming with plastic flowers.  Sniffy creatures of discarded plastic detergent containers are appearing and disappearing with the rise and fall of the sea and lunar pull.  Bright colors remind of the spring fresh promise long forgotten and collide with the history of a harbor long soiled, but now back to life despite a much darker larger picture.  This display is courtesy of artist Tim Murdoch, whose previous work has explored the linkages/separations between belonging and not, inside and out, and our relationship to nature.

With tide high, this bloomy vanishes as if in night or winter, and reappears when the tide again lowers and as such it seems to be keeping time more than we ever notice with the quiet rising and dropping of the water.  It signifies, but does so on more than one level, as the reminder of waters rising and dropping is also a reminder that Tide agent of our clean undies has in the past left us with frothy waters and fish floating sideways.  That the harbor is now "clean" may be cause to bloom a flower, but the sign of Tide reminds that all is not well.

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Art seems to matter, and it doesn't matter.  It is, in general, scorned by many who don't do it as a trivial pursuit, one with no function other than to satisfy eyes, and a waste of money when it comes to government spending and priorities.  F-22 fighter jets are held in much higher regard. It does, though, bring pleasure even to those who aren't supporters of art, and there may be no households in the world that contain no art at all.  i've long believed that art was one of the first means of communication for this species, and continues to communicate ideas that fail words.  But it may be that art has a more fundamental role in our species, one necessary to our survival.  That is the premise behind the book "The Art Instinct" by Denis Dutton, which i highly recommend.