Hey folks.... This one was tough. I had problems getting the people I needed to execute my idea's and have made some compromises to make it all happen and keep moving. The passage itself is tough. I find my interpretations really take two very different approaches to "Love". Despite the struggles to achieve these two visuals, I am very happy with the results. Since the images are completely different in defining "love", I put them into two separate posts below. Please comment, I value them all. As I like to say Love it or hate it, let's debate it. Thanks for continuing to be my companion on these visual journey's.
Justine by Lawrence Durrell
"And all this brings me back to myself, for I too have been changing in some curious way. The old self sufficient life has transformed itself into something a little hollow, a little empty. It no longer answers my deepest needs. Somewhere deep inside a tide seems to have turned in my nature. I do not know why but it is towards you my dear friend, that my thoughts have turned more and more of late. Can one be frank? Is there friendship this side of love which could be sought and found? I speak no more of love-the word and its conventions have become odious to me. But is there a friendship possible to attain which is deeper even, limitlessly deep, and yet wordless, idealess? It seems somehow necessary to find a human being to whom one can be faithful, not in the body (I leave that to the priests) but in the culprit mind? But perhaps this is not the sort of problem which will interest you much these days. Once or twice I have felt the absurd desire to come to you and offer my services in looking after the child perhaps. But it seems clear that you do not really need anybody any more, and that you value your solitude above all things.."
Friday, March 27, 2009
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Book Passage Series Ch. 5 coming soon...
I am so thankful for the people who regularly offer their opinions and insight as this visual journey progresses. Hopefully it will continue to build momentum and result in some terrific future discussions and debates. Again, depending on the availability of models I have requested an interest in participating on this next passage, I should have results posted on this next passage later in the week or by the end of next weekend. You have all provided me with challenging assignments and I put a lot of thought and effort into each one which can at times slow down the process. This next passage has again provided me with some incredible creative challenges. My creative solutions will hopefully be unique and unexpected but still provide a satisfying visual solution to the interpretation.
For those new to this blog please refer to past postings such as "What have you read lately" to learn more about this Book Passage series and visual journey. I continue to invite people to submit passages. I have many to keep me busy well into the year but it has become such an exciting and challenging journey for me that I hope it continues for a long while.
Anyone who submits a book passage will receive a print of my visual interpretation of the excerpt. The current submission from the novel Justine by Lawrence Durrell was sent in anonymously. Mr. or Ms. Anonymous, if you would like to receive a print of my interpretation please email me. Until I post the image, here is the passage I am working from:
"And all this brings me back to myself, for I too have been changing in some curious way. The old self sufficient life has transformed itself into something a little hollow, a little empty. It no longer answers my deepest needs. Somewhere deep inside a tide seems to have turned in my nature. I do not know why but it is towards you my dear friend, that my thoughts have turned more and more of late. Can one be frank? Is there friendship this side of love which could be sought and found? I speak no more of love-the word and its conventions have become odious to me. But is there a friendship possible to attain which is deeper even, limitlessly deep, and yet wordless, idealess? It seems somehow necessary to find a human being to whom one can be faithful, not in the body (I leave that to the priests) but in the culprit mind? But perhaps this is not the sort of problem which will interest you much these days. Once or twice I have felt the absurd desire to come to you and offer my services in looking after the child perhaps. But it seems clear that you do not really need anybody any more, and that you value your solitude above all things.."
For those new to this blog please refer to past postings such as "What have you read lately" to learn more about this Book Passage series and visual journey. I continue to invite people to submit passages. I have many to keep me busy well into the year but it has become such an exciting and challenging journey for me that I hope it continues for a long while.
Anyone who submits a book passage will receive a print of my visual interpretation of the excerpt. The current submission from the novel Justine by Lawrence Durrell was sent in anonymously. Mr. or Ms. Anonymous, if you would like to receive a print of my interpretation please email me. Until I post the image, here is the passage I am working from:
"And all this brings me back to myself, for I too have been changing in some curious way. The old self sufficient life has transformed itself into something a little hollow, a little empty. It no longer answers my deepest needs. Somewhere deep inside a tide seems to have turned in my nature. I do not know why but it is towards you my dear friend, that my thoughts have turned more and more of late. Can one be frank? Is there friendship this side of love which could be sought and found? I speak no more of love-the word and its conventions have become odious to me. But is there a friendship possible to attain which is deeper even, limitlessly deep, and yet wordless, idealess? It seems somehow necessary to find a human being to whom one can be faithful, not in the body (I leave that to the priests) but in the culprit mind? But perhaps this is not the sort of problem which will interest you much these days. Once or twice I have felt the absurd desire to come to you and offer my services in looking after the child perhaps. But it seems clear that you do not really need anybody any more, and that you value your solitude above all things.."
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Hello.......Farewell
Here is the fourth installment of my Book Passages Series. This book excerpt was sent to me by my father in-law, Bill Schulman. Bill is a prolific artist himself who has spent his life creating art and teaching art. So with a bit of hesitation here are the results of my visual interpretation of the passage from Speak Memory by Vladamir Nabokov.
The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our experience is but a brief crack of light between two enormities of darkness. Although the two are identical twins, man, as a rule, views the prenatal abyss with more calm than the one he is heading for (at some forty-five hundred heartbeats an hour). I know, however, of a young chronophobiac who experienced something like panic when looking for the first time at homemade movies that had been taken a few weeks before his birth. He saw a world that was practically unchanged-the same house, the same people and then realized that he did not exist there at all and that nobody mourned his absence. He caught a glimpse of his mother waving from an upstairs window, and that unfamiliar gesture disturbed him, as if it were some mysterious farewell. But what particularly frightened him was the sight of a brand-new baby carriage standing there on the porch, with the smug, encroaching air of a coffin; even that was empty, as if, in the reverse course of events, his very bones had disintegrated.
As always, I enjoy hearing your critiques and observations. Please feel free to comment.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Food for Thought
Taken from an interview with Artist Vik Muniz:
Art is somehow like brain-science; you only get to know how something works by looking at things that have stopped working. I have failed so much that I now stand on failure itself. It has become my work place and where I harvest my best ideas.
from The Education of a Photographer
Art is somehow like brain-science; you only get to know how something works by looking at things that have stopped working. I have failed so much that I now stand on failure itself. It has become my work place and where I harvest my best ideas.
from The Education of a Photographer
Friday, March 6, 2009
And Now, a brief intermission
Book Passage visual interpretation will be back soon. This next one required a bit of organizing and planning. An old woman, a pregnant woman and an eight year old girl meet in a cemetery...! No, it isn't the beginning of a joke but it is the list of characters I had to find for my next Book Passage visual. Child, easy. Pregnant woman, not too difficult. Old lady, near impossible. Hint: Wonderful, beautiful, mature women do not want to be photographed? If the weather cooperates (this is WI) I will create this image next Sunday the 15th and hopefully have it posted that evening or the next day.
So far, if I was ready to exhibit this series the images that would accompany the book passages would be:
1) Man in slippers with miniature furniture at his feet
2) The Weather Channel image of man watching TV weather guy
3) Landscape with toilet on the horizon
If you have already contributed a passage, I will provide you with a print of my visual interpretation of your book passage. If you haven't yet contributed this would be a great week to add yours to the comments section of this post. All participants will get a print when I get to your passage. So far I have approximately 15 contributions. I am trying to do them in the order that I received them. So if you are down the list please be patient and I hope that you find it entertaining to come back often to follow the complete visual journey. Below is the current passage that I have been planning and will photograph next Sunday.
Speak Memory by Vladamir Nabokov
The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our experience is but a brief crack of light between two enormities of darkness. Although the two are identical twins, man, as a rule, views the prenatal abyss with more calm than the one he is heading for (at some forty-five hundred heartbeats an hour). I know, however, of a young chronophobiac who experienced something like panic when looking for the first time at homemade movies that had been taken a few weeks before his birth. He saw a world that was practically unchanged-the same house, the same people- and then realized that he did not exist there at all and that nobody mourned his absence. He caught a glimpse of his mother waving from an upstairs window, and that unfamiliar gesture disturbed him, as if it were some mysterious farewell. But what particularly frightened him was the sight of a brand-new baby carriage standing there on the porch, with the smug, encroaching air of a coffin; even that was empty, as if, in the reverse course of events, his very bones had disintegrated.
So far, if I was ready to exhibit this series the images that would accompany the book passages would be:
1) Man in slippers with miniature furniture at his feet
2) The Weather Channel image of man watching TV weather guy
3) Landscape with toilet on the horizon
If you have already contributed a passage, I will provide you with a print of my visual interpretation of your book passage. If you haven't yet contributed this would be a great week to add yours to the comments section of this post. All participants will get a print when I get to your passage. So far I have approximately 15 contributions. I am trying to do them in the order that I received them. So if you are down the list please be patient and I hope that you find it entertaining to come back often to follow the complete visual journey. Below is the current passage that I have been planning and will photograph next Sunday.
Speak Memory by Vladamir Nabokov
The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our experience is but a brief crack of light between two enormities of darkness. Although the two are identical twins, man, as a rule, views the prenatal abyss with more calm than the one he is heading for (at some forty-five hundred heartbeats an hour). I know, however, of a young chronophobiac who experienced something like panic when looking for the first time at homemade movies that had been taken a few weeks before his birth. He saw a world that was practically unchanged-the same house, the same people- and then realized that he did not exist there at all and that nobody mourned his absence. He caught a glimpse of his mother waving from an upstairs window, and that unfamiliar gesture disturbed him, as if it were some mysterious farewell. But what particularly frightened him was the sight of a brand-new baby carriage standing there on the porch, with the smug, encroaching air of a coffin; even that was empty, as if, in the reverse course of events, his very bones had disintegrated.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
