Faerie Lights in the Forest

Crystal Bridges & Moment Factory team up to bring us an LED extravaganza in the North Forest

Tonight we’re headed out into the nighttime forest for my FAVORITE art installation anywhere, anywhen, from the moment I was born until now. I’ve had too many months in a row of having to do too many brain tasks that I was medically removed from back in 2001, so my body is hacked off and my scrambled skull is flipping me both birds whenever I bat my eyes and breathe so much as a whiff of “new writing…new post?” Therefore, it’s time to pull out something old, something tried and true whenever I need calm, joy and wonder.

The North Forest Lights.

This glorious work of light, sound, and nature is one of my self-soothing woobies. It is a power-piece that inspires me creatively and rejuvenates me, body, mind, heart, and soul. It is like balm on my frazzled nervous system. When I feel lost, disconnected, isolated, lonely, it brings me back to the world.

That’s why I spent four years shooting photos, recording videos, editing them, and pounding out copious words to capture it so that I could still enjoy the exhibit during the summer when it went away, and for the rest of my life when it finally closed for good.

I also wanted to be able to share it with y’all who were unable to get out here to see it with me.

If you followed me here from Ye Olde Blog, you undoubtedly know about my obsession with this electronic and natural wonder. My goggle-eyed swoon-fest of words will be linked in the same post with its corresponding video now, instead of being separated by the years it took to compile all that footage and edit it. Vids are at the end for those who want to skip.

If you don’t, or if vids will do you no good—or limited good—to experience this art, let me take you there.

A glimpse of the first installation: The Crystal Grove

We’ll be visiting Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art a lot on this publication. It is my home away from home, a melding of art and nature in the Ozarks. This labor of love was founded by arts patron and philanthropist Alice Walton, who brought in world-renowned architect Moshe Safdie to construct the museum buildings as a bridge over the waters fed from the Crystal Spring. In all, Crystal Bridges spans 120 acres of forest with a network of sculpture-laden trails that connect to downtown Bentonville, Arkansas.¹

Although general admission is always free, my mom and I have been members since the museum opened, which allows us free or discounted entry into the special exhibits and events they bring in. We call these adventures to Crystal Bridges and all the other art and nature sites in our woodland refuge our “Shenanigans.”

Alas. Shenanigans on are on hiatus right now. Or rather, they have altered drastically, because Mom just had a stroke, so now our outings consist of physical therapy and Fam Jam at home, usually a combo of food and Disney. One of her dangling carrots for healing momentum is to get back to the trails and museums with me.

So in the meanwhile, I guess that gives me more time to actually edit and share all the years of photos and videos I’ve been collecting from our adventures, not only so I can remember them, but because y’all have just GOT to see these things!

In 2019, Crystal Bridges teamed up with Moment Factory, a revolutionary Canadian-based multimedia studio obsessed with creating immersive environments.²

And ohhhhh, did they immerse us. For three winters, they erected a spectacle of lights dancing to music out in the nighttime woods.

Mmmm…

Lights...dancing...music...

It’s like they called my middle names.

When Mom and I went to the grand opening, the soundtrack entranced me from the first moment, and all I wanted to do was dance to it myself.

NORTH FOREST LIGHTS - THE INTRO STROLL

It begins with the long walk from the entrance to the first installation. Here and there, shifting colored lights dot the nightime, transforming select trees into enchanted specters. Mist wafts through rocky features, hinting that you’ve wandered into the borderlands of an otherworldly realm.

This is NOT your usual Ozarks.

I admit, the first time we went, I started out kinda bummed. We kept walking and walking, treated to solitary random lights, but nothing that could explain the price tag of our admission. As members, we’re spoiled. We get into most temporary exhibits for free, with exception of a few major ones like this. Compared to any of the others, this show had a significant entry fee attached to it and I was baffled as to why.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a sucker for any pretty lights, and the music made me skip and twirl beneath the stars, but I was pretty let down. The longer the walk grew, the more I raised an eyebrow, wondering if we’d been swindled by some sort of Black Friday hype. ’Twas the Season, after all...

🤣🤣🤣

We had no clue.

YET.

In 2021, when both my parents took me again for my birthday, my dad had the same reaction. Although mom and I had gone multiple times, and I’d also gone with friends, he had never come with us. When we got back to their house afterwards, he ‘fessed up that he’d been wondering if Mom and I were off our rockers, spending that much money to return that many times for…

What? A couple light bulbs at the base of a few trees?

NO.

😈 No no no no no. 😈

Even Brian Tolle’s Tempest is not the glorious light circus mom and I waited for all summer and fall. This LED-lit, walk-through spiraling labyrinth is one of the permanent installations that pockmark the North Forest Trail, and you can still enjoy it to this day. It always reminds me of ice caves or crashing ocean waves in the Arctic.

But it was not North Forest Lights.

Neither was the ginormous LED-lit Buckyball that greets us upon entering and leaving the museum grounds. Leo Villareal’s 30-foot, multifaceted soccer ball-within-a-ball is a zooming, pulsing, shifting, flickering light-party in a whopping 16-million hues. This is another permanent installation that I spend a lot of time basking under.

You never know which mode the Buckster will be in. Sedate? Spastic? Super-duper zoom-zoom? It’s all awesome. Comfy wooden sprawl-benches form a circle underneath it for our drooling pleasure, and it’s a fabulous place to view the full moon.³

Speaking of drooling…

SNOW GLOBAL VILLAGE & CHIHULY

On the second year they brought back the North Forest Lights, a little village of colored domes popped up across from the Whispering Tree in the middle of the exhibit. To this day, one can dine in the Snow Globe Experience during fall and winter for a shiny penny.⁴

Nearby, a path curves toward another piece of the permanent collection, one of the Chihuly blown glass marvels that the museum bought some years back. We members voted for our favorites and we got three, as well as the balls that float between buildings and the turquoise reeds.

During the full Dale Chihuly exhibit back in 2017, more of these reed clumps painted groovy glass groves in red and purple, here and there throughout the trails. We also got to keep the twin Azure Icicle Chandeliers that hang inside the Modern gallery, the cornucopia Fiori Boat that bids you farewell as you leave the North Forest, and Sole d’Oro - the Golden Sun.⁵

Being the mythology nerd smartass that I am, I can’t help but see Medusa in that sculpture.

Ahem. You really can’t take me anywhere.

Although the sculptures are very nicely lit for nighttime viewing, this was still not North Forest Lights.

IT’S LIKE THEY MADE THEM JUST FOR MEEEEEE!

(I mean us, Precious.)

There are five installations in Moment Factory's luminary vision.

Yes. Five.

If you’re hanging out with us here in the Tinkerings lab, then you know how significant that number is. Oh, you’re not hanging out with us yet?

Each piece of the North Forest Lights calls me to dance in its own unique way, because they each so flawlessly evoke one of the five Elements in my dance system:

• Air - Crystal Grove

• Metal - Forest Frequencies

• Earth - Whispering Tree

• Fire - The Hearth

• Water - Memory of Water
  

Combined with the Buckyball, we’ve got the purrrrfect setup for my Dance of Elemental Alchemy. So on that last visit near my birthday, the fact that I had both my parents with me on the night of the full moon made it extra magical.

And yes, Dad was converted into a believer once we finally got to the first installation. We all had a good laugh over that, since mom and I had wondered the same thing before the show first enlightened us.

Gwa-har. Toldja. I can’t help myself. (You can smack me later.)

It was only 36 degrees out the night we went, so I was especially grateful for my long snow leopard coat—giftie from my mommy the year I taught in Chicago in the winter. We also layered up in our long johns, woobies, and winter-wear, something we hadn't done together in about thirty-five years, back when we all lived in Minnesota.

Having both my parents there and hearing my dad talk about art along with my mom and me…that was such a precious gift. It brought back memories of the cross-country trips and camping adventures we took together when I was a kid.

I figured that Dad wouldn’t be terribly hip to the flashing and whirling or the pounding soundtrack of Metal and Fire, and that neither of my parents would want to stand in line to sing with the tree at Earth. Heck, I didn’t want to stand in that line either. Not that night. But Dad especially loved Water, which closed the evening on a high note. (Mom and I loves them alllll...)

I did, however, want to sing with the tree one last time before they closed the exhibit forever, so for my 21st RebirthDay—the anniversary of my big car wreck the night of Midwinter 2000—I took myself back alone.

There were a few moments while driving where the headlights in my rear-view mirror were too reminiscent of the ones that had rammed me into the TBI and scoliosis that still plague me to this day. Sometimes the emptiness of a dark road is even worse. It’s like the spooky music in a horror movie that creeps in as the clueless kids traipse through the forest, laughing and gallivanting, having no clue that a chainsaw is about to roar up from the abandoned barn.

Every time this happens, I have to pet my animal-self and remind it how brave it is for venturing out in spite of the fact that it hates when I make it operate a motor vehicle around the Winter Solstice, especially at nighttime. Especially when I’m alone.

But I needed to be alone that night.

I had always intended to go to North Forest Lights by myself, because my hyperfixating, goggle-eyed color-devourer and music-gobbler craves many more iterations of each piece than anyone I’ve ever gone with. Honestly, I could have stayed out there dancing or at least vibing with that show from dusk until sunrise, and probably come home on fire. (Only to face-plant and drool for the next day-and-a-half, but it would have been worth it.)

It’s always amazed me that there are only two things in this whole light show that bothered my brain the way that police car lights, whirling stage effects while I’m dancing, or the fall sunlight flickering through foliage do: the full-on fast strobe in the second installation or catching one of the high beams at The Hearth straight in the eyeball. Both were pretty easy to avoid. Otherwise, the frequencies and angles they used felt nurturing to my whole nervous system, which was the point of this exhibit.

Connection. Nature. Nurture.

I had really wanted to do my solo trip on Solstice, the actual anniversary date of my car wreck. (And because it’s Solstice, duh.) But I couldn’t do that like we’d done the year before, because the museum is closed on Tuesdays.

So I went on the 22nd instead. I figured there would be enough magic on a date like 12/22/21 to satisfy my numerology and astrology cravings. And ohhhhh, there was.

After that lonnnnnnnnnnng walk in…I give you…

Drrrrrrrrrum rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrolllllll…

The North Forest Lights. We begin with the intro stroll, the walks between installations, and of course, the Buckster. This slow meander sets the mood and attunes the senses in preparation for all that is to come. I hope these remembrances bring you as much restoration, inspiration, and joy as they bring me.

UP NEXT: The Crystal Grove

© 2021 Hartebeast

1. Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

• About Crystal Bridges

• What is Crystal Bridges? My home away from home.

• Crystal Bridges & Momentary 2020 - embracing change. Pandemics, social eruptions, contemporary thought, contemporary art with ancient traditions. And of course, ageless nature.

• My 3:33 Minutes of Bliss at one of my favorite water nooks on the trails

*Some of the other art that flashed by too quickly in the video to name:

• LOVE by Robert Indiana

• Fly’s Eye Dome by R. Buckminster Fuller

• Deer by Tony Tassett

2. Moment Factory

Moment Factory's inspiration for this exhibit

3. The Buckyball

4. Snow Globe Dining Experience

5. Chihuly blown glass at Crystal Bridges