Impact

SPECTACULAR CIRCLES OF BEAUTIFUL EARTH NOW

by Dave Price. The Jellyfish Crop Circle.

Circles stir spiritual currents as they illustrate emphatic patterns in the earth, sky, heart, and soul. Carving circles into fields, arranging pieces of the world in round frames, scaling up for more powerful influence, we look today at crop circles and other circular earthworks.

CROP CIRCLES

Are they magical or mystical? Alien perhaps? Or are they essentially land art or earthworks á la Robert Smithson?

Early depictions of crop circles date back to a 1678 woodcut. Legends and folklore abound.

They are formed either by cutting, plowing or flattening large swaths of grasses or other crops in circular shapes in contrast to surrounding vegetation.

They are best viewed from above.

In the 1970s, new crop circles began appearing in fields in rural English countryside. They became more elaborate in the 1980s and 1990s.

Roughly 100 circles appear in the UK every summer, according to circlemakers.

While many crop circle makers want to be completely anonymous, leaving us guessing about who or what and how these circles were created, some crop circle artists, like

Italian crop circle maker Francesco Grassi, have emerged to show off their talents.

GERRY BARRY

Land Artist Gerry Barry transforms the Irish countryside with his magical installations. One of our favorites is his Triplecircle with Rainbow.

Barry works a lot with curves and circles, arranging their shapes, formed out of organic materials, like stones, leaves, and feathers, against tranquil landscapes.

Check out more of Barry’s beautiful Land Art here.

DESERT BREATH

The vast sands of the Sahara Desert, near El Gouna, Egypt were scooped and sculpted in circles to form an enormous land art installation titled Desert Breath.

Created over the course of 2 years by D.A.ST. Arteam: Installation artist Danae Stratou, industrial designer Alexandra Stratou, and architect Stella Constantinides, in 1997, the work remains remarkably intact today.

Desert Breath covers about 1 million square feet (100,000 square meters). Check out these satellite images taken from Google Earth.

Enter your own images and ideas about Beautiful Circles in this week’s creative Photo Competition. Open for entries now until 11:59 p.m. PT on 03.15.15. If you are reading this after that date, check out the current BN Creative Competition, and enter!

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Do you have amazing photos of Beautiful Circles? Enter them in this week’s BN Photo Competition. We run new creative competitions every week!

IMAGE LIST:

Photo: by Dave Price. The Jellyfish Crop Circle.
Photo: by Le Petit Poulailler. Crop Circles 28.
Photo: by Le Petit Poulailler. Crop circles 15.
Image: Courtesy of Aliever-Love. Crop Circles in Wiltshire England.
Photo: by Henry Burrows. Crop Circle West of Winchester.
Photo: by Francesco Grassi. The “LENR” (Low Energy Nuclear Reaction) Crop Circle.
Photo: by Gerry Barry. Triplecircle with Rainbow.
Photo: by Gerry Barry. Skycircle.
Photo: by D.A.ST. Arteam. Desert Breath.
Photo: by D.A.ST. Arteam. Desert Breath.
Photo: by Lillian Cameron. Crop Circle.
Photo: by Sam Beebe. North of Umatilla.
Photo: by Jabberocky. Crop Circles.