Untitled, poolside

 I will answer the question.  I need to know what my work is about.

Sequestered in Florida I spent hours cutting and glue-sticking small, black and white copies of my images onto blank notebook pages.  I am creating a visual reflections notebook, an exercise I read about in “Art Without Compromise,” by Wendy Richmond.

The time seems right for me to formulate a cohesive statement.

Old and new photographs are now paired, tripled and quadrupled with one another.  When grouped this way they share similar points of view, composition, subject matter and/or feeling.  Some of the juxtapositions are random, telling unexpected stories.  I'm adding words as well as quotes, song lyrics, articles, and works by the artists I admire.  It’s daunting to view my work next to a photograph by Marc Cohen or a painting of window cakes by Wayne Thiebaud.  I included a favorite poem by ee cummings that knocks me out.  I wonder if I will ever have a photograph that can truly accompany it on a page.

I’m hopeful that as the notebook fills it will speak to me about my images with clarity and a sense of purpose.  Until that bolt of lightening strikes - even while in captivity - I see with my heart.

Risk Taking

The preceding weeks were filled with questions about my body that no one could answer.  I was not yet myself.  Somehow I made it through the evening unharmed.  The images found me while I was consumed with my precarious physical state.  I was restored in the moment, camera ready.

The party was spectacular.

Boy, Injected

He was unfazed.  My heart raced.  We wont know if he is receiving the drug or the placebo until the study ends.  He didn't want to regret not trying.  Now we spend time in Clinical Research.  This boy dreams of baseball and is driven by hope.  I wonder how he does not feel like a pincushion.

Happy Potatoes

Happy potatoes.
I'm chasing optimism
on a greasy pan.

A special shout out to editrix and poet extraordinaire, Bonnie Emanuel. http://www.bonniejillemanuel.blogspot.com/

Making Process

I have had some unplanned downtime to think about the meaning of my photographs.  I wonder if being process oriented keeps me from knowing what my work is about.  My images speak to me but often in disparate ways without a common thread.  The connection they share is they are mine and I make them happen.  They are fragments of my small world.  This much I know.

My process as an artist is intentionally haphazard.  I believe that randomness keeps my image-making fresh.  I do not take my camera everywhere I go but pick it up when compelled.  When I was worked as a newspaper photographer I sought stories to tell.  But now, working for myself and creating images for their own sake is more complicated - -  especially when asked what it is that I photograph.  My response is "anything and everything."  Ambiguous.  Yet I can't find a better answer.

I stumble upon inspiration, finding it tangled in a thick hedge.  A "Whoozit" catches my eye as I walk through my neighborhood.  How did it land there and had anyone noticed it astray?  My guess is that it was swiftly replaced with a new, cleaner version.  The child who lost it probably never knew it disappeared.

There is something about this process that grabs, holds and propels me forward.  The photographs become markers and I drift in between them.  While I continue to ponder the larger meaning of my work one thing is beyond question, uncertainty is key.