Reflections on photography, art, beauty and the natural landscape.
For many artists, and this photographer, the creative effort is an attempt to make some sense out of a reality that can often appear bewildering. This metaphor describing that process is an apt one:
The creative act is a letting down of the net of human imagination into the ocean of chaos on which we are suspended, and the attempt to bring out of it ideas.
– Terence McKenna
The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.
~ Henry Miller
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For most of us, knowledge of our world comes largely through sight, yet we look about with such unseeing eyes that we are partially blind.
One way to open your eyes to unnoticed beauty is to ask yourself, 'What if I had never seen this before? What if I knew I would never see it again?
–– Rachel Carson
Art is born and takes hold wherever there is a timeless and insatiable longing for the spiritual, for the ideal… Modern art has taken the wrong turn in abandoning the search for the meaning of existence in order to affirm the value of the individual for his own sake. What purports to be art begins to looks like an eccentric occupation for suspect characters who maintain that any personalised action is of intrinsic value simply as a display of self-will. But in an artistic creation the personality does not assert itself it serves another, higher and communal idea. The artist is always the servant…
–– Andrei Tarkovsky
Coming across this thoughtful observation by naturalist and author Rachel Carson, I realized it describes the motivation that propelled my decades-long exploration and visual chronicling of the diverse landscapes of the Shawangunk Ridge. Spend enough time traipsing through a landscape and one is liable to experience fleeting moments of beauty and wonder that provoke an urge to capture and share them, especially with those who seem oblivious to their existence:
For most of us, knowledge of our world comes largely through sight, yet we look about with such unseeing eyes that we are partially blind. One way to open your eyes to unnoticed beauty is to ask yourself, 'What if I had never seen this before? What if I knew I would never see it again?
For me, beauty is a physical sensation, something we feel with our whole body.
It is not the result of judgement. We do not arrive at it by way of rules.
We either feel beauty or we don’t.
– Jorge Luis Borges
I just watched the recently released biopic of Fred Rogers, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor” and was struck by what a unique and visionary performer he was. I never had the pleasure of viewing “Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood” in real time – I was a few years past the ideal age – and I didn’t quite realize what a seminal figure he was in the advent of children’s television.
There’s a wonderful scene where Fred Rogers is testifying before a taciturn Senator Joe Pastore in an effort to secure $20 million in funding to continue. All the previous testimony has been dry and dogmatic and Senator Pastore has clearly heard enough. When Rogers’ turn comes, he speaks plainly and simply and from the heart. When he is through, there is a moment of silence until Senator Pastore announces: “Well, I guess you just got your $20 million.”
Like many artists and performers referred to in this blog, Fred Rogers exemplified the courage to follow his creative muse, despite there being no previously created template for such a show. The movie includes a particularly telling quote of his that neatly sums up his philosophy:
What is essential in life, is invisible to the eye.
This cogent observation by Irish poet David Whyte seems especially true for the artist who takes inspiration from the natural world:
Gratitude is not a passive response to something we have been given, gratitude arises from paying attention, from being awake in the presence of everything that lives within and without and beside us. Gratitude is not necessarily something that is shown after the event, it is the deep, a-priori state of attention that shows we understand and are equal to the gifted nature of life.
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