The Anthropology of Turquoise, Ellen Meloy
“Curved bodies absorb or contradict the light source or mimic the fluid patterns of water—here, above the reef, water that breaks into quivering hexagons of light. All of it is language, words spoken in pigment.”
An Anthropology of Turquoise is a mix of memoir, natural history and adventure by artist-naturalist Ellen Meloy. From the Sierra Nevada, the Mojave Desert, the Yucatán Peninsula and the Bahamas, Meloy celebrates the wonder to be found within our natural surroundings, all swimming with the “is-it-blue-or-is-it-green color”, turquoise.
This is another book which will certainly appear on the shelves when Stills Centre for Photography reopens, presenting The Nature Library alongside their Projects 20 exhibition.
Ellen Meloy (1946—2004) was an American nature writer, born Ellen Louise Ditzler in Pasadena, California. She graduated from Goucher College with a degree in art, and from the University of Montana with a master's degree in environmental studies. Meloy published four books and many essays, some of which can be heard on her website. She died suddenly at home age 58 and The Ellen Meloy Fund and its Desert Writers Award was created in her memory.
The Ellen Meloy Fund website also includes poems and tributes to Meloy, such as this by fellow writer of the American West, Terry Tempest Williams:
For Ellen: a poem by Terry Tempest Williams
Desert Dweller
Walking with the Wind --
Wild hair — Wise eyes
A piece of turquoise in hand
carrying peace and protection
Walking with the Wind — We are walking with the wind.
Your voice is eternal --
You leave us with Bighorn tracks to follow
on the page — in the world
shaped like love — always with love.
Shards of wisdom
Words like water
washing over the exposed red bones of the desert
"I sometimes don't know where my body stops and ends"
you write, "so fierce is my love of home."
Walking with the Wind --
We are walking with the wind --
You are everywhere we walk --
You are everything we see --
Time and space
Color and light
Your transcendent addiction to light --
How do we feel this emptiness
before us — inside us
now?
Terry Tempest Williams
7 November 04
