Petra—Stairway Illumination
20" x 15"
Archival pigment print
Statement for Petra—Stairway Illumination
Water channels descend, handholds and footholds of the workman’s paths rise up. An ancient divine symbol at a multi-cultural crossroad speaks to divine realms touching the plane of earth, an essential meaning beyond any anthropomorphic or humanistic depiction – a simplicity, a weight, a presence that is. This abstraction carved in stone these thousands of years emanates timelessness, patience… still.
The steep walls of Petra beckoned me in further, deeper, to find punctuated here and there the most amazing relics of a time gone by. Petra is unique, a natural fortress at the crossroads of the ancient Silk and Spice Roads, integrating people from far off lands in peace and safety for hundreds of years during its prime. It was here that the ancients chose to dwell, and here that they made their mark, transforming the slot canyons themselves to meet human needs. Elaborately carved facades draw one’s imagination to envision how richly adorned within these dwellings must have been — a longing rises.
This luminous canyon of sinuous sandstone, streaked with color, cut a winding path of cool shade while holding aloft a ribbon of sky by day, a river of stars by night. And at the rim of my mind it was easy to sense the descent of the divine into a place such as this, to imagine the luminarias lighting my path at night would lead me up into the jeweled heights and realms above, where Orion dwells.
K. M. Ehrenfeldt 1/13/2013