Creative Alchemy: Wildness, Beauty, and Imagination (WBI) as Theoretical and Methodological Framework

Abstract

The faintest wisps of light steeped the edge of the horizon in color to embroider its outline against a star-sprinkled black sky. It is always darkest before the dawn, I thought. My breath steamed out into the cold air. I ran in the high desert winter cold of Santa Fe, New Mexico. People assume that since we are in the southwestern United States, our climate is hot, but we are in the mountains at 7,000 feet above sea level, as reflected in our winter temperatures. I stopped to watch the panorama of color unfold upon the horizon. A slow ebb of pale light grew until a sharp, rounded pinpoint of brightness blossomed into a spherical bump resting on the skyline. The sun rose, pulling a drape of light and color in its wake. Chroma refers to the intensity or saturation of a color. The chroma colors remained soft in this emergent sunrise. Color soaked upward and caught in rafts of low-hanging clouds. Pale yellow ushered in faint orange, then muted pink, then violet, and then bloomed into deep purple. Coral etched the underbellies of scattered clouds. Seconds later, as if someone had played with the color filter, the sky burst into rich, vibrant shades. There is a moment in every sunrise and sunset where the colors reach their zenith, their full chroma peak. This moment lasts a brief time before the colors soften into pastels and slowly dissolve into daylight. The most beautiful sunrises and sunsets are those in which each color maintains its unique shade while simultaneously infusing the surrounding colors with its hue. Effervescent combinations glow with a unique radiance all their own. The alchemy of liminal spaces creates possibilities of new realities. Alchemy refers to a power or process that changes or transforms something in a mysterious or impressive way. Creative research reflects these spaces of distinct colors blooming into one another, creating a new shade.