Fireworks are the opposite of monuments

I love fireworks. The noise, the light, the pageantry, the crowds, the pretty colors - all this appeals to me. I try to attend fireworks only once a year, in the context of Fourth of July celebrations, because that's when the best show tend to happen, and also because I don't want to dilute my love of fireworks by turning them into an everyday thing. For three out of the last four years, Charlie and I have made it a point to attend Milwaukee's fireworks, always held on July 3 on the shores of Lake Michigan, where Milwaukee's citizens camp out for two days beforehand to assure a good spot to watch. Charlie and I always show up about a half hour before the show starts, and we always walk straight to the front, because there's always room for one more blanket for two. It's our tradition, and we like it.

For the last few years, I've been musing about fireworks as a kind of public art form, and indeed the most ephemeral kind. They have a mass appeal that is visual, aural, and kinetic, and yet momentary.


Sometimes fireworks seem to go off at random, but at really well-planned shows, like the one we attend every year in Milwaukee, the fireworks are arranged in specific compositions of color and light. They bloom, grow, and fade in moments, changing in the blink of an eye.


This is a show, yes, a broad form of popular entertainment, but it is also a visual experience, and spending too much time in the art world keeps me thinking about it that way. I can't help thinking of the fireworks show as the flip side of the monuments I study. Both have martial overtones, the "bombs bursting in air" and the citizen soldier. Both are sites of national celebration: the soldier monument still serves as a meeting place on Memorial Day and Veterans' Day, and the fireworks display brings people together on the Fourth.


And yet, composed of bronze and granite, the soldier monument gives the impression of permanence, while the fireworks display is all fire and powder. Do they both get the point across? And what point?

I'm not sure yet how to interpret my desire to preserve something as ephemeral as fireworks through photographs. Maybe that's my own art form.


And here we are before the fireworks began last night. I'm big on recording moments, and attending this particular fireworks show has been an enjoyable time for us over the last few years. Last night was our last time, though - next year, we'll be seeing how DC handles the big light show! And I'm sure I will have more overwrought musings to share.