i just re-encountered joseph albers this morning, on, of all things, a political blog. his theory is that color is not fixed, and not a wavelength, but a visual perception, full of relativity. in other words, an apple is not red. an apple just happens to be perceived as red, in the light spectrum in which we normally look at apples. but an apple, in different lighting, could be seen as almost any other color. similarly, the snowflake you see above is not a snowflake, but is in fact a balsam tree. or, in other words, the fixed cultural law of  conical-shaped christmas trees is entirely dependent on looking at christmas trees from the perspective of a sitting or standing human being. but to a human being on a ladder, christmas trees, especially after a fresh snowfall, look almost exactly like snowflakes.

balsam fir with snow (top down perspective)

saint paul, minnesota