Resurgent Light

Resurgent Light, o/p, 24" x 24", Steven Rhude

In this fast paced virtual world of ours, it’s quite plausible that there are people who have never seen a lighthouse in the flesh. Never sojourned to experience the prospect of one of our most enduring symbols face to face, and considered what it could mean personally or collectively. Never driven, or hiked, or boated to a lighthouse. Never crept along a desolate point of land, with precarious cliffs, or a tidal surge to contend with. Never approached a lighthouse door where just a rope secured it, instead of a handle. Never entered and searched through the rooms of a dwelling abandoned, or marginalized, or declared surplus. Never looked out of salt encrusted windows, and pondered the struggles of a long line of families and keepers. Never imagined their tragedies and victories, their loves and hates, or the cycle of their purpose and responsibility. Never climbed the steps of a lighthouse to the lantern and stood where others before them stood, and questioned why a facility like this seems to so easily demarcate our relationship with land and water, with security and the unknown. Never wondered why in Virginia Woolf’s novel, “To the Lighthouse”, the lighthouse has no place name.


Steven Rhude, Wolfville, NS