There’s a remote intimacy in flying as we do, close to the earth yet free of it. Flying miles up in an airliner produces an almost ethereal feeling about our planet, and maybe that helps some people treat her as an object to be exploited. For me, flying evokes a dreamy engagement looking at shapes of life and patterns of change.
1682 Shape Farm
The shapes and textures of homes, farms, agriculture and industry are divided by angled roads and traces of life. The pervasive effects of people are everywhere, and most easily seen from the air where the human density is greatest. The touch of our hand brings rows of order in a random tapestry.
1686 Life Quilt
Ancient quilts stitched on the terrain stretch toward the distant mountain above Santa Paula, and the “glory” lighting effect around our shadow in a field at the lower left makes it all more contemplative. How did this spot look 300 years ago, and what about 300 years hence? All suburban houses and shopping malls, or maybe some areas returned to nature?
1688 Agro Geometry
In 300 years will we still grow things in machine-friendly rows, or might we have farms that look more wild from this perspective? Lately it seems as if divisions between people could turn our use of ever more powerful tools once again toward efforts to destroy the Other. Could it be that our population will dwindle to the point that our traces weather away and erosion divides up our flattened lands to begin carving new shapes?
1694 Erosion
John & Anne Wiley 
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