December 12 2006

Text By Greg Fallis

Cold is our element, says Wallace Stevens, and winter's air brings voices as of lions coming down.

There is a dispassionate neutrality to the cold. It adheres quietly to all that it touches. It infiltrates itself into that which it touches, becoming part of what it touches. Whatever it touches becomes Cold. When it passes, it passes slowly, reluctantly, grudgingly. The slightest breeze can turn it into something sharp, slicing through the thickest protection like shards of splintered glass. It isn't cruel, the cold; it is indifferent.

But there is clarity in the cold. Simplicity. A perfect absence of ambiguity, precise as a scalpel. We see that clarity here. We feel the cold infiltrating our skin. We feel it cleave to our bones. We hear the voices of winter's air...and we cannot resist the shiver.