The Common Creative Assignment: Documenting the Colorful Beauty of Lowell

The selection of art I chose from The Common, Issue No. 9, was Teju Cole’s “The Sense in Turning Away.” A series of photos dictated with a narrative prior, it details the art of photography; from the purpose and reason of color to the relation it has with religion and music. The photos that followed were what struck me: eight photos highlighted specifically to embrace the color and nature of both the city and the natural landscapes of Switzerland. As one who partakes in artistic photography to a slight extent, this reached out to me on an artistic level, a feeling only heightened by the narrative written about the photos. As a result, I embarked to find some of the most striking landscapes in Lowell, whether natural or not, to emphasize the color and beauty of Lowell. After all, color is the relationship between the world and us: our perceptive reality allows us to see color, just like how an untouched instrument remains quiet, a point the essay points out. And after all, you never know what you’ll notice as a result of observing something you took for granted. The photos that follow document numerous trips through Lowell, all at different times, all following different circumstances, all in different places. However, they all share Lowell as the common factor, a shared history of immigration and industry shaping the formation of the city from farm land to what we know it as today.

The pictures were taken at Allen House during the late afternoon, overlooking the beautiful Merrimack River and the far-away Rourke Bridge on a sunny day with a sky almost as blue as the river, a view from the Merrimack Street Bridge of the hydro-plant floodgates opening, pouring the excess water from the past few rainy days into the rest of the river, creating a clash of colors that only emphasize the green and yellow trees shattering the monotony of the gray hydro-plant, the breathtaking blue, cloudless sky as seen from the ground on North Campus between Olney and Olsen halls, interrupted only by power lines and wind turbines, and then a series of photos taken from the top of the garage near Tsongas at sunrise and sunset. These photos highlight specific aspects of the sunrise, one of which capturing the sun directly as it peers between the cloudy sky and the smoke stacks that emphasize the industrialism of Lowell, another taken directly after sunrise, creating an especially notable horizon captured between the backlit clouds creating an almost blue hue and the cityscape of Lowell’s buildings taken from the top of one of the tallest garages in the area. The last one is almost a cynical interpretation of the clash between the stunning natural color of the sunset and the gray outline of the clouds and Lowell suppressing aforementioned nature. However, all these pictures emphasize the beauty inherent within Lowell and the interaction we can all have with Lowell to draw us closer to the spirit of nature and Lowell itself, an interaction emphasized by taking in the colors of the situation you’re in and appreciating the beauty in some form, whether through taking a picture, painting art, or writing a poem.