Perspective in Retrospect

I have no head for heights, and just watching this video has made me jump a number of times!  Despite that, I have always loved this picture because of the simple fact I could never even think of something as working up so high.  There is something so awesome about these men . . . and the photographers as well.

Home Improvement

somebodys-home

Home improvement . . . for me, a clean and tidy home is wonderful.  I like to see clear surfaces, free of dust.  Floors free of dog fur are also nice.  I don’t like lots of clutter.  My small shelf of framed photos makes me nuts – much as I love those people – I hate dusting them.  Nature abhors a vacuum, and I abhor a vacuum cleaner.  Housework is great, when it’s finished.  Not when doing it, but when it is done.  I really hate cleaning, but I hate a cluttered mind more.  And a messy house means a messy mind.

Okay, that said, I would say that 80% of the studio has been cleaned up.  Lots and lots has been thrown away.  My paints are accessible, as are my books.  Paper has been reorganized, from watercolor tablets to sketch books to lined and grid paper tablets.  Brushes are sorted out and been acquainted with again.  Like meeting an old friend, one you really, really like, and one you appreciate, too.  I spent about 8 hours doing it all, and finally ran out of space in the trash bins.  (Luckily our neighbors let us use theirs when we need to!)

This afternoon, I shall do some reading and some color studies or sketching.  I just hope that I will be able to continue this once I return to work as that will be the real challenge.

Looking Ahead to 2017

memories-of-last-spring

As I write, I am sitting down to lunch, looking at the total destruction and reconstruction of my studio.  Unlike those more fortunate, my studio is really a bedroom in the house that doesn’t even have a closet.  As a result, all storage is on shelves with plastic bins, all in the hope of keeping the dust to a minimum.  In addition to having shelves of cameras and lenses and other photography equipment in the studio, I also have my sewing supplies, a desk, a drafting table, two filing cabinets, two chairs, a computer, a printer, a scanner, and a couple of monitors.  The destruction of the studio is the cleaning out and throwing out of things, as well as reorganizing it to accommodate painting more readily.  Things are being moved around to make access to certain items more comfortable.

When I think about my focus on photography over the past several years, I am so glad I feel that I have mastered it to a degree that makes it comfortable, and gives a certain level of satisfaction.  Both digital and analog are areas where I feel a level of proficiency – I can take good pictures.  I know my cameras, I know my film, and can determine an exposure for a manual technique by looking at the light.  This is something that once learned is never lost – the knowledge may get a bit rusty without doing it, but it always comes back once being used again.

Photography, though, is not my first love in the visual arts.  Painting is always where I want to come home to roost.  The feel of a brush or pencil, the colors of paint or gradations of ink, the physical experience of painting and drawing:  all these combine for an experience that photography has never had.  I am not interested in painting realistic images – that’s what photography is for – but in the emotional expression or abstraction of whatever that painting provides.  Besides painting, I love woodblock printing, and sumi-e.  There is a sensual quality to working in these areas that, if I had a darkroom, I might find as satisfying.

With this focus on painting – mostly in watercolor, possibly in acrylic – I will need to revisit the skills I’ve lost over the past several years.  Because I tend to be rather fixated on painting in certain ways, I also hope that my sense of exploration and adventure will get piqued.  It’s easy to become formulaic in art, I think, but that doesn’t necessarily indicate a lack of focus.  Rather, being formulaic means a level of success in given techniques, but it may not open the door to that magical realm of creativity that leads to new insights and processes.  This is where I want to go.  I want to study botanical illustration because I am too splashy and undisciplined, but I also want to explore different ways of using colors, papers, paints, and pencils.  The process, ultimately, is the most important experience to me.  Whether or not I become an artistic celebrity is immaterial; it is the doing and being the art itself.