• Home
  • About Jim
  • Blog
  • Books
  • Reviews
  • Order
  • Contact
  • Excerpts
JIM WARREN

The Road

9/16/2021

0 Comments

 

!I bought a print awhile back, of the Camino,  a road  from France to the Spanish town of Santiago de Compostela.  The print was in a series of images in our library exploring the nature of roads. In my print , standing on the road, a trail really, was a  solitary lengthened shadow of a pilgrim supported by a stick. and the low sun, the sense of impending twilight, and the antiqued paper gave the road the quality of roughness and endless distance.
      A road always suggests a journey ;  leaving somewhere,  or something, or someone  and going to somewhere or something.  But the gist of the journey is the process,  not the beginning nor the end.  Not the future and not the past. The shadow on the road is fully on contact with it and its shape changes with the position of the sun on the traveler.  Our shadow portrays the nature of our journey much more than we credit.  The shadow looks forward and backward throughout the journey, leading and following, and foreshortened, watches the traveler from one side or the other as well, through much of the day. , the traveler footsore, and his progress is confined by the direction of the roadway.
          If it was the Road to Zanzibar  Dorothy Lamour makes with her friends, or the Yellow Brick Road , or the Camino Road, that  place. is where we are. This is where we are a step at a time and and moving  that distance at a step.  In my print  the solitary figure with a stick expressed by the shadow gives a feeling to the viewer of the loneliness of the roadway.  There is no Bing Crosby or Bob Hope to accompany Dorothy !  There is no Toto to accompany the other Dorothy ! There is no bicycle or automobile , just a narrow road in my print for which a  step is the only present and the only reality. My print could have been anywhere because  a road is a metaphor for life.
      I have never taken the Camino, the roadway to Santiago de Compostela and the Cathedral of St. James and I am now too old to do it, but a road,  is a road , is a road  and we all are on a roadway to somewhere and leaving somewhere with a goal of sorts.  We may find during the journey the shape of our shadow changed and sometimes learned from the roadway the real purpose was something else !
           
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.


    For Jim's past posts, check out his old blog here:
    Elderly Eclectic Gentleman Blog

    Archives

    September 2022
    August 2022
    May 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    November 2019
    September 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    June 2014
    April 2014

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly