One of my favorite poets in all the wide world is Mary Oliver. If you don't know her, this is a PSA; head to your public library, grab your Kindle or jet out to your favorite bookstore NOW (well, clearly after you read the blog post )! Buy a copy of literally anything she has written, and prepare yourself for a new addiction. One of her pieces, Something, has come to have a deep personal meaning for me with regard to my own work as a photographer. The collections found on my website, and those yet to be posted seem always to center around the ineffable beauty of our world. The first line of the poem begins "Sometimes I dream that everything in the world is here, in my room, named and orderly, and I am here too, in front of it, hardly able to see for the flash and the brightness". I feel this each and every time I try to take a photograph.
Because this is my blognaugural post (yeah, I just made up that word), I feel that a disclaimer is in order. Perfectionists aren't great at limb hanging. We tend to send someone out to test the branch, read ten to twenty books on the best ways to dangle, then have about five dry runs before anyone gets to watch. As an artist and a writer, it feels both exhilarating and also like squaring off with a wasp without an Epipen. Dangling takes courage. My friend of over thirty years recently reminded me (and yes were were practically babies when we met) that I'm already doing the work, and what I don't know I can learn (or read some more books on the subject), so I should just get on with it.
I'm currently reading a book entitled Culture Care by Makoto Fujimura. The book is for artists of all kinds, creatives really, who feel the obligation to be a "creative catalyst" within the arts. People with a deep love and reverence for the sacred place that creating holds for this generation and for future generations. People who are moved by unlimited beauty, who understand that creativity isn't just and esoteric notion, but rather one that is closely tied to the care of ones soul. That kind of work isn't for timid branch danglers. Seeking to create work that matters is the meat and bones of generative thinking, and as Fujimura so aptly says, "artists have a deep capacity to develop generosity and empathy, to point toward abundance and connections". I feel and know this in my creative marrow, and in all aspects of my life; making music, taking photographs, layering encaustic works, and even searching for creative ways to engage my community as a whole. I'm sometimes overwhelmed by its magnitude, and blinded by its light.
So, I've officially climbed the tree and I've inched my way out onto the branch. I'm hoping to be swinging from my knees in the days to come.