Entreat me not to leave thee,
or to return from following after thee
for whither thou goest I will go
I feel like Ruth to Jessica’s Naomi. Since first sharing the amazing multiple exposure images of Valda Bailey, Jessica has led me down a path of artistic expression I never imagined I’d embrace, but it feels like home. For once, I feel like I can be eloquent without words.
I was driving home with my daughter this afternoon trying to brainstorm a word for the call.
“How about blue?” Catherine offered.
“Too easy.”
And so it went until I suddenly came upon “eloquent.”
Alright. So now to figure out what the heck I’m going to do with that call!
Yesterday, as I was looking through all those photographers in that list I tweeted out, I came across one who used photographic paper to capture images of sound waves. I can’t seem to find the name or the page again (maybe it was a dream? It was late at night and I was half-asleep.) But I thought it was very cool.
This afternoon, as I was cleaning up the kitchen and running the garbage disposal, I noticed that it was creating soundwave patterns in the running water. The rest, is the image above.
I find that I am more eloquent with visual expressions than written ones. ; )
I really like what you said, Cheryl, about the conversation between books. And it does lead to fascinating connections, although sometimes, I must admit, it makes my head spin!
When I picked up the book that my Dominican lay group will be reading for our next couple of meetings, I was dumbstruck at the connections that I could pull from the following passages:
…consider what the Church does see when she looks at the Universe. For one thing, she sees all things whatsoever held in existence from moment to moment by nothing but the continuing will of God that they should not cease to be. When she sees anything at all, in the same act she sees God holding it in existence. Do we?
Seeing God everywhere and all things upheld by Him is not a matter of sanctity, but of plain sanity, because God is everywhere and all things are upheld by Him. What we do about it may be sanctity; but merely seeing it is sanity. To overlook God’s presence is not simply to be irreligious; it is a kind of insanity, like overlooking anything else that is actually there.
Frank Sheed Theology and Sanity
A long time ago, in what seems like a different life, I wrote a post (or two) on my homeschooling blog about conversations among books and readers. I was able to find an excerpt that seems especially pertinent to the connections I’m experiencing now, as everything I read seems to relate to everything else I read and all of it feeds my creative fires. (The excerpt itself connects in ways I didn’t even realize at first.) I wrote:
Through one of the online homeschooling groups I belong to, I recently learned about the concept of having a conversation with books: in a couple of different ways. One is the Great Conversation, which, according to Wikipedia is “…a characterization of references and allusions made by authors in the Western canon to the works of their predecessors. As such it is a name used in the promotion of the Great Books of the Western World published by Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. in 1952.” The other is the notion of a conversation taking place among a reader and the books he or she is currently reading. A member of the group passed along the advice to “read voraciously, many books at a time” in order to “hear the conversation taking place among them.”
I think of having a conversation with books a little differently (and I know I’m not alone in this). I think of it in terms of the information exchanged between a reader and a book. Obviously, a book has a lot (or maybe not) to offer the reader: the ideas conveyed by an author’s words. A reader, though, also brings something to the conversation: his or her own experiences. Authors, like painters, are sometimes asked, “What is _____________ supposed to mean?” When the author or painter replies to the question with their own question, “What does it mean to you?” it may seem smarmy or like a cop-out, but it’s actually a good question. Two people can read the same book (or look at the same painting) and come away with completely different views, because each has contributed something different to the conversation between himself and the work.
When you add other readers who are being positively influenced by the same books, the connections get that much deeper and that much better.
I used to be very concerned about people understanding my intentions, but I finally realized that misunderstandings occur no matter what. We bring our own experiences to our interactions. There’s simply no getting around that. Perhaps I’ve swung too far in the opposite direction, but now I’m all about ambiguity.
The problem with photography as an art form is that it can be very hard to be ambiguous. Why would that be a problem? Remember our discussion about metaphor: here and here?
Basically, my thinking boils down to this: art is metaphor and metaphor (especially visual metaphor) relies on sometimes ambiguous connections — something vaguely looks or feels like something else. The camera wants to capture everything in full 100% real detail. Is metaphor impossible with realism? No, but it is harder. So, that’s where alternate techniques come in, like blur and ICM and multiple exposure. I like the suggestive nature of ME and, of course, the ambiguity.
Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work. ~ Aristotle
So, maybe holiness would be perfecting the jobs that don’t bring pleasure – like vacuuming or ironing.
Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything.
—Eugene Delacroix (1798–1863)
She [Georgia O’Keeffe] painted flowers as no one else painted them: in enormous close-up. You feel the flowers pressing against your face; you smell them; you sense the silky petals. The flowers are partly realistic … and partly abstract. … The approach is deeply sensuous, and critics at the time did not quite know what to make of it. Even those who admired her used the term “sexual.” O’Keeffe, a redoubtable woman, found this very annoying. Her answer was: “I made you take the time to look at what I saw. And when you took time to really notice my flower, you put all your own associations with flowers onto my flower.” She kept her vision focused, insisting on seeing a flower as a world. —Sister Wendy Beckett on O’Keeffe’s “White Rose with Larkspur No. 2” in Sister Wendy’s American Collection.
I love reading/listening to what Sister Wendy has to say about art. She knows the history, she understands the techniques and media, but most importantly, she shares what she feels and articulates what occurs in her own mind. I don’t have to agree with her assessments, but I usually understand why she makes them. Sister Wendy has taught me, perhaps more than anyone else, that conversation between me and a work of art (an image, a sculpture, a poem, a book) is—in the end—the only one that really matters, especially if it leads me to a deeper understanding of the world, the humanity around me, and the Creator who loves it all.
Everything about art (and that includes literature) is paradoxical, and that’s what makes it exciting and endlessly fascinating. Why are the stories that leave me with questions the best ones? Why do I share my work with others when I seldom feel it is good enough? Why does everyone else praise the images that leave me cold? Why do I turn to macros, multiple exposures, and blurry forms when I am looking for clarity?
Because I find it so poignant, I’m posting the quote I used to make the call.
“In the end, the mystery of mysteries may be that only in paradox and ambiguity can truth be glimpsed.” —Gregory Wolfe
I do believe that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I have been struggling to figure out and create an image like Valda Bailey’s since I first looked at them. But if I just stop at imitating, I haven’t really created anything worthwhile.
Now that I know the technique, the hard part begins.
(PS: I think that getting outside and doing landscape shots helped too. Oh, and none of the kids liked this one – they are so good at keeping one humble.)
Artistic growth is, more than it is anything else, a refining of the sense of truthfulness. –Willa Cather
My studio is now covered with glitter. Of course, that makes Stella and me happy.
Today, when I ventured out for some errands that included haircuts for the boys, I had a lovely chat with Laura, one of the stylists. We met the last time I was there. Today, she and I caught up, and she mentioned that when she was in college studying art, glitter was frowned upon. Laura and I frown upon many aspects of college.
Arranging the letters was more difficult than I thought it would be. They got disarranged every time I moved the twinkle lights.
I still can’t lay off the multiple exposure option in my camera.
I’ve discovered that I can find beauty in unexpected places and in qualities that are not pretty.
It’s OK for others to see beauty where I don’t.
I have a feeling that God appreciates differences of opinion.
Sometimes the truth smacks you in the head; sometimes it simmers in the back of your brain; most of the time, it fractures your carefully constructed world.
I’ve been pinning Cubist paintings lately, dreaming of a way to incorporate that fractured look into a mulitple exposure. That was the goal here. As a side note, I had a hard time deciding color or black and white. In fact, I’m still not decided but my eleven year old advised me to pick the color one because I already had too many in black and white. ; )