on windows and doors

This weekend, I finished re-reading The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard, re-visited my manuscript, and saw Light: Works from Tate's Collection at ACMI.

I've been working on an essay on windows for over a year. I thought it was about longing for a specific person (or the idea of him). Then, I thought it was about restlessness.

Now, I think it's about art.

Andrew Wyeth, Wind from the Sea, 1947

You can read an excerpt of my essay-in-progress published by Sine Theta, a wonderful international print-based creative arts magazine made by and for the Sino diaspora. I recommend signing up to their Patreon to pay contributors and access other goodies.

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After returning from Light, I spent hours researching Vilhelm Hammershøi and looking at his paintings. I stayed up past midnight, then woke up at 5am to scribble in my diary.

I see myself in the empty rooms, in the backs of faceless women. All these years later, I'm still a lone figure pausing in front of a painting. I'm still crying because I miss someone.

Vilhelm Hammershøi, Støvkornenes dans i solstrålerne (Dust Motes Dancing in Sunbeams), 1900

If one were to give an account of all the doors one has closed and opened, of all the doors one would like to re-open, one would have to tell the story of one’s entire life.

—Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space (trans. Maria Jolas)