Industrial Beauty

Industrial Beauty

Juxtaposition between the raw minimalism of industrial spaces and the quaint, mysterious glow of a chandelier figured prominently at the YLAB space, a small ballet studio where I was hired to guest choreograph over the weekend.   The vast studio space was washed in gray tones as aluminum slats lined the ceiling, and wooden frames and metal pipes provided a cool overtone in the studio.  Yet, from the center of the ceiling, thirteen bulbs of light were aglow amiss an ornate fixture.  While some might think find contrast erie, I found it inspiring: a place where creativity is summoned and some otherwise unpredicted idea is welcome to present itself.  I would compare it to being alone in a theater: house lights off, stage lights on, and the vast floor of a performance space open and inviting experimentation, visions for the future, shameless dreaming in the word of possibilities.  I am also reminded here of spaces similar in nature, where Thomas Edison may have been thinking up the formula for the lightbulb, or Newton may have been contemplating gravity; a relatively dark space that provides privacy and sanctity, and yet, lit with enough candlelight to accomplish work, assess, dream and contemplate.  YLAB'Ss studio space lighting carries an aura similar to other places I've envisioned, either while reading historical accounts of master scientists and artisans, or when thinking of the ideal space to create a composition.  I have a sense in this daintily illuminated room, washed with gray but sprinkled thematically with the glow of "candlelight", that THIS is the kind of environment where mystery is confronted, where the mind feels most welcome to exercise, and where materialization is manifested, moving a created thing from the mind to the world of empiricism.