Here in the northern hemisphere the wheat is growing tall, my grass allergies are flaring up and that means only one thing...summer is here. And with summer comes crop circles. I ran across an amazing website the other day: Circlemakers.org. This site is maintained by a couple of artists who create crop circles. The site has everything including instructions so you can learn to create your own crop circles. Not that I'm condoning it. I mean, if I was a farmer I would disapprove deeply...well, on behalf of farmer's everywhere I DO disapprove. However, the fact that this is a phenomenon born of the arts community, NOT space aliens somehow makes it even more interesting to me. And some of the circles are just gorgeous.

Of course I've had a lifelong love of geometry and lately I've been obsessed with fields and crops, so crop circles are a natural extension of this...if I wasn't such a law abiding citizen I might try one.

What kind of artistic statement do crop circles make? Maybe the "art" is not in the circles themselves, but in the reaction of everyone who witnesses the crop circles; the farmers, scientists, UFO enthusiasts, believers, and non-believers. As the site points out, " discomfirmation can lead to strengthened belief." When the artists came forward and claimed credit some believers were even MORE convinced that it was the work of UFOs. The message is that conviction doesn't equate with truth...you can TRULY believe in something that is utterly false. I think it's a fascinating idea, creating a paranormal phenomenon and then trying to see if people buy into it or not.

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