Searching After Wildness - journals of a photographic artist

It’s been awhile since the last post. I don’t have an editor watching over my blog so that frees me to subject you to a rambling update.

The outdoor art festival season has finished for the year. There were a crazy few weeks, including a two week stretch where I participated in three art fairs and two gallery shows. Whew. Along the way, I was selected for a few awards, a nice surprise:

Best in Show – Penrod Arts Fair
Best of Show – Carmel International Arts Festival
Second Place – St. James Court Art Show 3rd St Section

With the art fairs waning, I got reacquainted with having free weekends. Let me tell you, it is so nice to have free weekends. Off to the woods we went. We had some nice overnights in the Hoosier National Forest and around Lake Michigan.

During one of the days at Lake Michigan, I took some casual shots that I didn’t think would amount to much. But after I got home, something unexpected about them stood out. Ideas come like that sometimes. When I’m not even serious, something different is revealed that could lead to a significant direction.

Up next: I’m participating in two holiday shows, one tomorrow and another next Friday. I wanted to offer something geared towards gift giving, so I’ve been making small prints framed to 8×10″. Until now, I haven’t ever shown my work so small. But, now seeing the completed work – they’re really fun. After years of making bigger and bigger prints, it’s nice to have something little and intimate. You can hold it in the palm of your hands.

Also, I’m teaching a Digital Fine Art Printing Workshop next weekend. There are still openings available. You can find the details about the holiday shows and the printing workshop at my events page.

And last, but not least: My project, Where the Fairies Are will be exhibited next month at Wug Laku’s Studio and Garage. Whoohoo! More details to come.

A Chance Meeting – from Where The Fairies Are

My project Where The Fairies Are is now on the gallery section of the website. View it here.

I’ve been exploring themes of enchantment for a few years now, so you may guess that I’m really quite excited to present a collection of this work.

These photographs portray natural settings as more than what we expect them to be. They are a hope of things mystical and mysterious. If fairies existed, where would they be? They would be on the edge of a world that is breaking into ours. They would be among the miraculous that we take as mundane.

There will be opportunities to see pieces from this collection in the next couple of months. I’ll keep you posted.

Gestures and Dreams – from Where the Fairies Are

I am a lazy photographer. People will view a dramatically lit image of mine and say, “Wow, how long did you have to wait for the light in that one?” I’d respond, “I don’t know. Maybe two minutes.” Even that may be an exaggeration. I pretty much don’t wait for the light. Sorry, all you patient nature photographers. My apologies especially to the wildlife guys. They wait all…day…long.

I didn’t use to be this way. The first year I took up photography as a hobby, I saw more sunrises than the rest of of my life combined. I would scout out a location before and then return in the dark just before dawn. I’d stand there eyes still bleary with sleep. I’d setup my camera and tripod, rub my hands to warm them and wait for the light to be just right.

Waiting for light goes something like: find and frame a subject, anticipate lighting and then wait until that light arrives. But not anymore. Why not? Let’s consider the act of looking and a story of a street musician.

During morning rush hour, an anonymous violinist set up in a Washington DC subway station. He played for 43 minutes as 1097 people passed by. Of those 1097, 7 people stopped for about a minute to listen. The musician was world renowned violinist Joshua Bell, playing on a 3.5 million dollar violin. He played music that only three days earlier was played to a packed theater of $100 seats. You can read the full story here.

Most everyone, 99.4% of the people, walked by without pausing. Joshua Bell is one of the best classical musicians in the world. He was playing some of the finest pieces ever composed. What happened? The people in the subway station were on their way to somewhere else. They were distracted by a predetermined destination. They were waiting for the light and they missed Joshua Bell.

Guess what, there is always something interesting happening. Have you heard of the movie, Microcosmos? It’s a gorgeous documentary showing insect life. Who knew there was so much wonder in grassy bits around me? I rarely think of it. In fact I miss out all the time.

With my typical subject matter, there is so much interesting around me that something nearby already has the “perfect” light, waiting for me to notice. If I’m in a state of mind to appreciate what’s around me, then I just need to look. There’s so much unplanned goodness that I have too much to photograph before I’m in a situation where I feel the need to plan for lighting.

Moss – from the series Where the Fairies Are

A photograph captures a moment in time. It would seem to follow that a photographer would want to create images that depict a special moment, where the viewer can savor the nuances of that slice of time. Photojournalists are inspired by the “decisive moments” captured by Henri Cariter-Bresson. Landscape photographers retell the story of Ansel Adams capturing quickly passing light for his most popular image, Moonrise, Hernandes. Think of the artist waiting for just the right expression in a face, or seeking that magic sunrise hour on the side of a mountain.

There’s a problem with this approach. The camera may be capturing a fleeting arrangement of light, but I don’t want to draw your attention to a specific moment. I want the story. I want your mind to fill in what happened the days, months or years that could have led up to the image. And, when your eyes turn away I want you to know that the story continues.

We know this already, don’t we? For the climax to be effective, we need the context of what happened before and how events may resolve after. Well, what if I don’t want my photograph to even show the climax? What if I just want to give you a sense of the journey?

Step into the journey. The moments will come. I don’t need to show a special moment to you, because they’re there all along.

I’ve been putting together a body of work exploring the notion of fairies. Not so much what they are, but why we may need them and what would it be like if we had it in mind to actually look. A couple of years ago, I wrote about the process of re-enchantment. I’ll be posting some more entries on the topic and new images from this series. For now, let us let the story begin…

Where the Fairies Are

There is a wonder in the world around us, a wonder that has been neglected and obscured. In the bustle of our lives, we have let that sense of wonder decay. We have become strangers with the notion of enchantment. To discover something enchanting is to take in, in a way that changes the very representation of the thing.

These photographs portray natural settings as more than what we expect them to be. They are a hope of things mystical and mysterious. If fairies existed, where would they be? They would be on the edge of a world that is breaking into ours. They would be among the miraculous that we take as mundane.

Perhaps by imagining, we can bring into existence what is already there, waiting for us to become re-enchanted.

“Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God,
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries”
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

There are three excellent photography shows opening in central Indiana galleries this weekend, with receptions on Friday, July 3rd. Go out and celebrate the goodness!

Pictura Gallery
Pictura Gallery in Bloomington is opening their Landscape Invitational show, featuring some of my new favorite photographers. I’m there as well, but well, I’m not a new favorite of mine, er.. I suppose.

Jul 3 – Aug 4
Landscape Invitational, Pictura Gallery, Bloomington, IN
Opening Reception: Friday, July 3, 2009 5 – 8pm

Dean Johnson Gallery
I also have a piece in the Black and White show, opening at the Dean Johnson Gallery:

Jul 3 – 30
Black and White Show, Dean Johnson Gallery, Indianapolis, IN
Opening Reception: Friday, July 3, 2009 5 – 9pm

“Not everything is seen in black and white, but it is in this show. Check out some of the best photographers in Indianapolis as they focus on the purest form of their art, in our Black & White exhibit.”

AV Framing Gallery
It would also be well worth your time to visit the AV Framing Gallery, with the debut of a new photography space by my good friends John and Joslyn Crowe.

Jul 3 – Aug 22
Life Has Moments: intimate and client work by John Crowe and Joslyn Virgin Crowe — Crowe’s Eye Photography.
AV Framing Gallery, Indianapolis, IN
Opening Reception: Friday July 3, 2009 5 – 9pm

I was overwhelmed, stressed out and losing motivation. But, there were things to get done. If I could just stay on task the world might not fall apart. I needed to prepare for an art show the coming weekend, there was still bookkeeping to do from the previous show and an approaching deadline for a freelance job. Not enough hours. The house was getting messier too. The lawn, overgrown. Piles of paper around my desk. I was running out of clean clothes. And, it was getting harder to like people, because all people do is generate more stuff to do.

Over breakfast, I mentioned my mood to a friend. Exasperated, I sighed, “Maybe I should take a walk in the woods.” “Yes”, David replied. He looked me deep in the eyes, the way you look at someone when you’re giving serious advice. “You should do that.”

Back at home, I recounted the breakfast conversation to my wife, Hannah. “Yeah, you should take that walk in the woods.” I nodded in agreement and promptly went to my office. I answered a few emails and fired up the accounting software. Sure, it would be nice to take a walk, but I was already behind on my work. It would be irresponsible to fall behind any further.

A few hours later,  Hannah came by. “What are you still doing here?” I blathered some excuses. Feeling defeated, I hopped into the car and drove towards my favorite park. It was painful to leave.

I parked the car, all along feeling sorry for myself. I walked into the woods, down a ravine and found a log by the river. And there I sat, on the log. I became still and watched the water flow by. About an hour passed.

It was just what I needed. Was it the meditation, the change of environment, or the peaceful quality of the woods? I don’t know. But I did know that things were going to be okay. Not only that, but I was grateful.

And then I picked up my camera and took a few pictures. I hadn’t taken a picture in weeks. I came home, lightened. On my camera was Root Swirl, the picture above.

“A lot of what I’ve done in my business life, I don’t think it really means anything. There’s this whole — you’re seeing a lot of it now with all the politics and bailouts — way to make money in the world but not really do anything to contribute. I feel like what we do is important. But it’s not financially rewarding. Who cares? As long as you can make it on your own.”

Quote from tech entrepreneur turned organic farmer Tim Young. Via New York Times Magazine.

I live in the city and I love it. However, something about living this way is not quite right.

I grew up in the suburbs. The backyard of my family’s house came up to a woods where we neighborhood kids spent a lot of time getting lost. We made hideouts, buried treasure and went on long explorations. If we explored really, really far we would get to the other side of the woods and arrive at a street corner with an ice cream shop. To my 9 year old eyes, those woods were practically endless.

That was my initial taste of wildness. Those years were followed by TV, Nintendo, classrooms without windows, cars, shopping malls, air conditioning and cubicles. The wildness went from the expected to the other. You may be familiar with “the other”. It is that which is different from your daily experience. We tend to fear the other and make up excuses. Dangerous, unknown. You could get kidnapped, or eaten by a bear. The other is uncomfortable. Humidity and bugs. Excuses or not, I want it. For my sanity, I probably need it.

Henry David Thoreau wrote:

We need the tonic of wildness…At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things by mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.

“In Wildness Is the Preservation of the World”, is a photography book by Eliot Porter published in 1962.  The title was taken from a passage by Thoreau. The book is a masterpiece of color nature photography. It is a statement about the lure of wild places and a celebration of the beautiful in what we mistake as common. And here we are, decades after Thoreau and Porter. 

And here am I, living a life after wildness – after Porter’s book and after a time when the wild was a regular part of society. At the same time, I am after wildness – after, as in “in pursuit or quest of”. There is a struggle between my contemporary, city life and my need of the wild. This has been gnawing at me for the past few years and I suppose will be for some time. Looking at my recent photographic projects, the pursuit of the wild was there waiting for me to realize that I have been searching all along. 

This need for wildness in my life is now strong enough that it requires a name. At the same time, this blog needs more focus (photography pun, hah). Blog, I christen thee, “Searching After Wildness”. May we all learn something worth living for.

Business cards used to be convenient because they are sized to fit in a wallet. The problem is, everyone packs too many things into their wallets. When someone gives me a business card, it has to compete with stacks of receipts, grocery membership cards, lint and whatever else gets lost with all the little things in my pocket. When I get home, I empty my pockets and all that stuff ends up in a pile on top of my dresser. Eventually, I may go through them by stuffing them into an even bigger pile within a dresser drawer. The card is never seen again.

I haven’t had a traditional business card for a few years now. In its place, I have a postcard sized hand out. The 4″x6″ card has my contact information and a prominent image of my work. It’s large enough to not get lost in a handbag and can be noticed if filed in a folder. The image is large enough to be a mini version of my artwork, but small enough that people would be curious about buying a larger piece. People stick them on their refrigerators and tack them to bulletin boards.

I keep the cards fresh by creating a new design each year. Here are the last few.

2007

2008

I sent the newest version to the printer this morning. I changed the design to encourage action and interaction. People that like what I do feed into what I do which flows back out again. I like that.

2009