Parades of Lights

Star on Christmas Card monoprints
Phillip Hoyle, 2015

Just over a week ago I watched the Denver Parade of Lights. So today I’m wondering about art and the Parade. My first experience of such a parade was in Tulsa, OK when I was singing on a float with a group of carolers. I’m not sure it was so much art as it was a friendship obligation. Still the event was festive. I don’t know what the overall artistic and affective result of the float was. I was along simply to sing loudly—the great out-of-doors required it!

This year was my first time to attend the Denver Parade. I was there with a group of friends and enjoyed the overall experience that included a brief tour of the Brown Palace atrium with a jazz trio entertaining, children singing along with Jingle Bells and the like, and the children dancing with one another and parents. Our parade evening was off to a cute and festive start. Outdoors we saw the parade’s approach announced by safety lights spinning from golf carts. I wondered if elves could be driving them. Whoever they were, they were clad with reflective jackets. The marching bands were lighted up in special adaptations to their regular outfits—some very cleverly. I realized the invention of portable battery packs and low-watt bulbs made their glittering, moving display magical. Then there was a group of low riders with blue undercarriage lights and the car bodies each covered with as many tiny lights as were added to the huge chandelier in the Brown’s main lobby. These cars came bouncing down the street. Their presence was the most visually stunning effect of the parade.

We heard several bands play beautifully and artistically accompanied by displays of pompoms and flags and huge snowflakes. My favorite band had the least glamorous uniforms but the most enthusiastic delivery of an enthusiastic musical arrangement. I turned to an old band member, a trumpeter, in our group and exclaimed, “They’re the best band with the best arrangement.” He concurred. The other best band was a group of children playing Kazoos. They were on a wonderfully inventive float with moving parts displaying a rising-up-and-down clock tower and followed by a huge balloon of a red-wrapped holiday package adorned with glittery gold ribbon and bow. The old band guy exclaimed, “I love the Kazoo band.” I concurred.

There were more delights and I slipped into critical mode to figure out how some of these displays were better than others, an artistic decision weighing many visual factors along with the affective result among their viewers, an audience that was much more affected than critical. And there I was among them being carried into the past of memories and a present wonderland of sights and sounds. I was moved by the moving displays that combined inventiveness, engineering, precision, stamina, and so many other factors beyond design considerations. There are many things to think about in a work of art!

Denver, 2015

Star monoprint, Phillip Hoyle 2015