All Lit Up

Location, location, location.

Tonight's InLight had what might have been the best location for this yearly evening of light-based art installations yet - the canal walk.

Yes, it was all-of-a-sudden cold and yes, crossing 14th Street was a bear, but the beauty of artists working off of water and bridges and the flood wall more than made up for it.

Hands down favorite: Ross Fish's "A Breath of Fresh Air," which required people to touch others (you know, strangers) and touch the metal cone in the center and one of the six pools of water to make music.

As someone noted, "That music is the soundtrack of the evening."

I stopped to meet Ross and introduce myself and he said he was thrilled beyond words with the outcome of his installation.

Translation: his master plan was working with strangers touching strangers and music the result, truly a wondrous experience.

There was so much to see: Amie Oliver's "Ladders" strung across the flood wall, the old school projections of Sonne, Ashley and Cohn telling stories of blue herons and Shockoe Bottom, the bridge's roof covered in ever-shifting light.

Call me a discophile, but I loved the lighted dance pavilion where people danced from behind and their images transmitted to the sparkly screen in front.

Best use of the site went to the Water Nymphs' Circus where images of dancers appeared on the canal, but only if you were on the south side.

The watery images of dancers were a thing of beauty (although a girl walked by and screamed, "I thought it was a dead body in the water!"), positively mesmerizing as they morphed in the water.

Despite the late hour, there were scads of people out and about and I'm willing to bet many of them were on the canal walk for the first time.

Thanks, 1708 Gallery. Your annual gift to the city was, as usual, the most illuminating night in November.

View from the Water

My photographer friend messaged me this morning, saying that the beautiful day called for a picnic. I one-upped him and suggested we picnic on one of the canal boat cruises (food + fun). It worked out that we ended up picnicking on the canal walk and then taking the cruise, so we did get to enjoy lunch outside.

We stopped by Tarrant's for a couple of picnic salads, one Cobb and one Tuna Nicoise. Our picnic basket was a plastic bag, if that tells you something about us (if it doesn't, try reading my tongue-in-cheek picnic piece at my former employer's website, here.) Anticipating a lot of sun on the water, we'd both brought hats and, for a change, he'd remembered his camera.

When I took my first canal cruise a few years ago, I remember being struck by the views from the water, so unlike any other of Tobacco Row and the hills to the west. I'd come back for a second cruise just to take pictures of it all.

So if my untrained eye was impressed with it, surely someone who makes money taking pictures would be. And he was, snapping furiously the whole time. Hell, he was even taking pictures of us while we sat there waiting for the boat (shall I look pensive?).

We enjoyed our shady lunch chatting with the boat captain ("I'm not normal, so I'm going to make this fun!" he promised. Probably just as well that we were only going to be in three feet of water...) and a woman visiting from upstate New York with her speed-skating champion grandson (sunglasses, iPod, sullen).

In fact, it turned out that we were the only local residents on the cruise, accompanied as we were by visitors from England, NC, NY, and and a boisterous group from Philly.

Our captain regaled the guests with stories of Tropical Storm Gaston's fury, the perils of the Mighty James and an encyclopedic listing of long-forgotten cigarette brands. The visitors got the critter sitings they wanted with snapping turtles and great blue herons putting in appearances.

His tangents meandered, but he showed a lot of enthusiasm for the city and its offerings. He warned us that 5:00 is the bewitching hour for Richmond museums to close up, suggesting an early start for museum visiting. "Don't think you can go in at 2:30 and see everything," he warned ominously.

Since the captain knew it wasn't my first cruise, he made a point of asking me when we disembarked if I'd heard anything new this time around. Honestly, I'd been sort of lost inside of my own head enjoying the views for most of his spiel and what I did hear I had heard before, but that wasn't what he wanted to hear.

"I had a great time," I enthused. Which was entirely true, if not exactly the answer to his question.