Visuals that stir me- I could watch this movie for a long time.
"Le problème, c’est que: même si tu me disais "j’adore", j’te croirais pas. Je sais plus quand tu joues, et quand tu joues pas. J’suis perdue. Attends deux secondes, j’ai pas fini. Dis-moi que tu m’aimes. Dis-moi juste que tu m’aimes, parce que moi j’oserais jamais te le dire la première, j’aurais trop peur que tu crois que c’est un jeu."
-XO
Scene from Jeux d'Enfants (Love Me If You Dare) (Quiéreme si te atreves)
Over the past few years, I've really worked on filtering a lot of the content I read and let into my world. That process, in return, has paved room for more fresh and lush creative output to come clearer into my line of sight.
I discovered the publication Nautilus almost two years ago and have been hooked on it ever since. Every two months I get this magazine in my mailbox. I do my best to set it aside and wait till that Sunday morning to crack it open over a cup of tea or coffee. It tackles really interesting and rich topics from space, illusions, genius, nothingness, time...etc. Articles that have kept me buzzing, challenged and have expanded my perspective. I wanted to share it with you, perhaps there is something in there that might strike you. You can find all the past issues on the website.
In the meantime, for your hump day, here is Martin Molin and his Wintergatan Marble Machine.
for flooding. for expanding their lungs with lexicon that drips like honey from your mouth. for choosing to take on the dust and sift through the wreckage. for giving them a haven in crevices they've never felt before. all while never asking for anything in return.
You started at the sky.
began at their limit. their impossible. their out of sight. from your excess they made their plenty.
over. and over. and over again...
that's how much you are enough.
be gentle with yourself. there is so much fresh air you haven't breathed yet. give it time. it's almost here.
"People are enthralled that I would do something that is destined to wash away. That strikes a cord with people because it's the story of our lives. Our lives are impermanent and the tide is unstoppable."
I learned about Andres Amador a number of years back when I was visiting California. I quickly realized not only how incredibly lucky I was to catch one of his 'scapes, but for in that moment I would be one of the few to witness and be immersed in something that would be gone the next.
With the beach as his canvas and rakes his brushes, Andres Amador creates large-scale artworks that explore nature's geometry -- and life's impermanence. For more info on this and other stories in this KQED series, visit http://bit.ly/1mF7fus Funding for KQED Arts is provided by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
I am not usually in front of the camera. These photos were taken by a friend in New Orleans. He caught me listening to one of my favourite songs of all time: Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne". I can't fully express how much that song means to me. My uncle used to sing it to me all the time whenever I felt 'off' and it always brings me an overwhelming sense of peace. I still can feel my heart expand with the chorus every time I hear it. And to my complete joy, I got to hear Meshell Ndegeocello's cover last night live. It felt like my world stood still for a beautiful minute.
I hope you, too, experience a few (or hopefully many) of those moments everyday...
never apologize for any light that pours from you. you were made to enter homes with windows big enough to dance with abandon in any room.
“In a Wonderland they lie, dreaming as the days go by, dreaming as the summers die: ever drifting down the stream-lingering in the golden gleam- life, what is it but a dream?”
― Lewis Carroll- Through the Looking Glass
February skies have me musing and I feel like I want to share a story with you. This is not just any one, it's one that carries with it all the other ones. Ours....
Photography came into my life when I was very young. My mom was an avid camera collector- she was really big on collecting vintage cameras and she was adamant, as I imagine many parents are, about documenting the crazy shenanigans my brother and I were up to at all stages of our lives. There was one camera that changed me forever and my mom stored it in this yellow KODAK duffel bag: a Hasselblad 500 CM. I remember it just as if it were sitting on the table in front of me now. The first time I saw my mother holding that camera, I remember thinking the two of them together, I'd never seen someone look more beautiful, sensual, strong and capable of holding the world in the palm of their hand. That was it. It might sound odd that something could be so mesmerizing to someone so young, but from the moment I laid eyes on that camera, I needed to know everything about it. By nature, I was incredibly shy and quiet but I was notorious for causing havoc in the dark. I loved knowing how things worked and part of that was taking things apart down to the very.last.screw. So needless to say my parents came home one fateful night to find their 6 year old kid standing at the top of the dining table and a hella expensive Hasselblad in parts and pieces. My mom was not too amused but knew, being a scientist for a living herself, that this was just the beginning. Not many people outside my family got it though. In fact, one of the things that used to really get to me is when people would jokingly say that I was “obsessed” with photography almost insinuating that this courtship I had with this medium of expression- the countless hours in the darkroom, the money I saved up and spent on equipment etc were "odd" or "weird" for a kid my age. I never understood why their judgement got under my skin and today I remembered a French saying my mom used to say when I got upset: “qui a froid souffle le feu” (let the one who is cold blow the coals). Somehow it’s a little clearer to me now.
We live in a world that is a cornucopia of billions upon billions of things that can occupy our field of attention at any given moment in time. With our conscience being a relatively limited space, the details of this world engage in a kind of competition for our attention- the kind that displaces one object of affection with another (it’s actually pretty sexy to think about it). The criteria for that – how attentive we become towards any one object- generally depends on the degree to which that object stirs in us "mania" or as Plato called it “theia mania” (divine mania). Mania being a state of focus that extends towards/on something beyond the limits of relative normality. Perhaps that’s why it’s often said that the greatest artists, creators, thinkers, scientists were/are, on some level, maniacs. In fact, come to think about it, one of my favorite stories about Newton is when he was asked how he was able to discover his mechanical understanding of the universe, and he responded saying “by thinking about it day and night”.
There are two very different concepts potentially at hand here: that of 'passion' versus that of 'obsession'. The two are often linked but they (at least in my mind) vary very much in kind. I will preface what I am about to say with this: I think that this idea of mania/obsession has a negative connotation and it’s not unintelligible to know that it likely comes with its association with some of the least favourable events or experiences in human history. There are countless cautionary tales of people who become so consumed with/by something that they lose their connection to their community(ies), meaningful relationships, and display what can be perceived or described by some as “subversive" or "rebellious" behavior, driving them to an edge.
Passion and obsession are engendered within us. They both manifest in outward action or pursuit, which can, in turn, provide us with direction and purpose. They can be incredibly powerful motivators to take risks, make sacrifices and step outside of (our) conventional norms to achieve what it is that we ultimately desire. But, where I think passion and obsession part ways is that edge, which is, mind you, never the same for any one person and where it takes each differs as well. One state of being leaves room for the free will of those 'taken' to fight their way to edges upon edges and come out deepened and enriched, while the other is characterized by a passive surrender to the pull by the very object consuming the person until they are exiled. One involves both the heart and mind and one is all in the mind. One opens you, rewards you in intangible ways and makes you feel limitless because it is grounded in infinite paths and the other becomes the only path, closing you off. One burns bright within, irrespective of any extrinsic encouragement or reward and the other is driven by the reward and that which the reward represents. You can probably guess which is which.
Many of those very same philosophers who talked about mania, likened the way that love manifests itself to the way obsession does. Jose Ortega y Gasset talked about how a lover falls under a “spell” and becomes “enchanted”- how that state of being, this anomalous focus of attention on another, doesn’t “constitute enrichment of our mental life” but just the opposite, "it grows rigid and fixed as a prisoner to a single being”. Plato said how the person who is enamored has this sense of being richer, but it actually reduced their world and made the lover’s world more concentrated. However, I don't think that this is the only way for love to come about and unravel us. At least, it’s not the kind of love I ever yearned to have or fought to keep in my life. I think it’s also where many story tellers may have missed the alternative interpretations and permutations. There isn’t just this single narrative of obsession and doom or obsession and happily ever after. Those were never the love stories I was moved by. At first sight where all you have to do is meet, the story writes itself from there on and all the pieces would fall into place. That's why the question is whether it's the something or the someone?
There are plenty of people who have that belief (and all the more power to them) in chasing mediums of expression. Whether it’s a camera, a paintbrush, a carpenter's chisel, a chef's kitchen knife, a fight ring… whatever it is that becomes the subject/object/idea that consumes someone, particularly in art, there are too many examples of people who gravitate towards a craft, when it’s actually the pull of all the things that they believe will come with it. Like a satellite that never makes it past a parking orbit. Obsession begins at the fixation on something with a false hope that the something will become everything. The obsessed make that which consumes them be represented by these superfluous byproducts that may or may not come- fame, money, sex etc. That’s the precise problem with obsession: the chase of a seemingly vast universe, is nothing but a dead end road. There is nothing there but this drain of self and energy. No internal fulfillment because nothing can be enough when something's value is defined externally or when all the value rides on one component of a much bigger whole. Because once you get a hold of it (or believe that you did), you get the satisfaction you need for a period of time, throw the rest out and then there you are, often left with this sense of gaping emptiness. The thrill is gone. Perhaps that’s why obsession petrifies me, and probably why when I have the slightest doubt that I am entering that zone (as we are all prone to it in varying degrees), I run away steadfast in the opposite direction, cutting myself off from any tether.
Photography was never an infatuation to me. It was never an escape from life. Never something to possess or that could possess me. It was always a choice above a lot of other things. Not because it was/could be a survival mechanism. Not because it filled a void. Not because one day it would help me escape or run away from whatever difficulties I may face or give me a path to an even better life than the one I had. It was and remains to be my way of navigating those things and facing them. It was my shuttle to possibilities, not the final destination. It was the buddy I often preferred to hangout with, not because I didn’t have anything or anyone else, on the weekends or after school. Photography never isolated me or took me away from the world, it thrust me into it.
Photography is not my obsession, it is my (deepest) passion. Never in a million years did I imagine I would be here with it 20 years later. And I can't say why or how, but even if we never make it to print in the best magazines or publications, or if we never made a single dime from our photos (which still is true but more on that later), I just know without a shadow of doubt that I will still wake up excited to look through the camera. I love who I am when we are together. I love what we create. I love the questions we ask and the ones we answer only to find that those answers are questions in disguise. I love that we haven't scratched the surface in what we've said together and yet found so much in between the lines. Even when we are physically apart, I am a better person for knowing the camera. I carry it in me. It's my kaleidoscope. And despite the times I have gone the distance with the camera, as it has with me, only to feel like we've come up short. Or the times where I scrapped the films because I told myself what we have together isn't real, rooted or good enough. Times where the camera did the same with me. Times where I thought I couldn't hold it and it me, or that we could give each other the weight deserved, as others might be better able to. Times where I wished we'd never met because then all these things would maybe be more simple. Yet somehow, I've learned to make allowances - how to not fill in the blanks- becoming more understanding and patient. I've grown to appreciate a lot of things more because of that relationship.
The camera and I: we aren't a "perfect match". We aren't "meant to be". We aren't each other's everything. We just helped shape for each other a lot of things. I am my best self when we are together. I am extended and elevated. I venture to places I never imagined possible. My world is expanded and made more fluid.
I am (and think I will always be) the girl looking at the pieces, one by one, apart and then together again. Me and the camera- we don't take the same photos we did when we first met. We've evolved with time and yet never left each other's side, no matter how near or far we were. You see, we were never led through the looking glass by a white rabbit into a world of make belief. We chose to experience the world by making up our own rules. In our own language. Without small talk. Without introductions. We turned it all into our playground. This whole life has been our dream because together we found wonder. The best treasure of all. The passion without any opposite or equal. There is just no turning your back on that kind of love, no matter how hard you try.
Photos for this post were taken by a Hasselblad 500 CM.
