Shadows and Bridge
By: Elias Rafael Decena
April 11th
I’m here under the Manhattan Bridge at a park surrounded by different people from different walks of life. It’s sunny today, the news announced that it’ll be 75 degrees F, a good day for the Americans but quite an ordinary day back home in the Philippines; Filipinos usually don’t like warm days like this.
As I walked towards the park and the bridge, I noticed that my shadow is leaning towards the streets of DUMBO my motion towards Manhattan. I felt indifferent. As I sit on a bench here on the park, I noticed that all of the people here are all facing the city with their backs on DUMBO.
I can still remember the first time I attended art gallery openings here at DUMBO; it was truly an eye-opener for me. It was my very first time being on a place that catered so much ingenious artists with their different styles of art, art which is a little publicized. I felt again the feeling of amazement of gazing upon fresh art blossoming within the city amidst modernization. Now that it’s my second time here, felt something different, when I approached this area.
Half-way from DUMBO and to Manhattan, within this park, I felt a feeling of detachment. I felt that something was taken from me, something that I had just found and then lost it immediately. Is it the people here, the people from different walks of life? There are people walking their dogs, some are strolling the park, others sun-bathing and some just hanging out. Am I different from these people? Do they feel a different heat of the sun than I do? Is just me, or anyone else can notice that all of these people are facing towards Manhattan and their backs toward DUMBO?
As I sit here on the bench, with a lady eating a bowl of salad, like a goat that hasn’t eaten for weeks, beside me, I remembered my talk with Ms. Sam Vernon, one of the artists I interviewed during my first visit at DUMBO art galleries. I remembered her form of art. Ms. Vernon’s art features Xerox-copied figures. These figures are enlarged during the copying process. As one wonder on the art of Ms. Vernon, one can notice how creatively designed these abstractions are. I distinctly remember seeing a figure of a lady’s hands hanging a sewed blanket, but as I looked carefully, I also saw a figure of a ghostly creature smiling at me. There is a figure of a group of people hugging together to form a mass of shadows. Another, a figure of a lady lying with her body facing towards the skies; with the imaginary lights hitting her body, I saw a black-colored figure of a man under. It’s amazing how Ms. Vernon was able to exude such tedious art, note the fact that it included Xerox-copying and enlargement of the figures, and was able to just use the hues black and white to create such amazing display of abstraction. Ms. Vernon’s art was one truly worthy of one’s wonder. But the kind of art that I really brought me was the use of shadows.
I still sit here on the bench within the park under the Manhattan Bridge and I still gaze upon the people with me here. I think of the fact that these people here are facing the city and their backs on DUMBO. I don’t know why it bothers me so much. Maybe because when I think of it, I also get the thinking that DUMBO art gets so little notice from the people of this place. Is this scenario also an abstraction of people neglecting art?
Sitting here on the bench, with the lady-goat finished with her meal, I found a connection of Ms. Vernon’s shadowy art with the world. Just like her art, people sometimes tend to face towards something bright, creating shadows behind them, overpowering some things so precious. As we move towards a place of fast-phased life and modernized living, we sometimes tend to forget things that we, on some way, used to get there. Art here in DUMBO, is so fresh and little publicized that on the eyes of a wandering writer like me, gets somewhat overshadowed by the glimmering lights of concrete living.
I still sit here with the people, including me, facing the city with our backs toward DUMBO. I say to myself “Are we really moving forward, leaving something behind?”, but I look up and say to myself “Maybe not”, seeing the bridge connect Manhattan with DUMBO. And I see the people still facing the city again I talked with my mind “it’s just a matter of perspective and choice”; because when I stood up and faced DUMBO, with its ingenious artists and untouched freshness of the arts, my shadow is still on its streets the only difference is I’m walking towards them.
