Зарисовки: May 2009

Monday, May 25, 2009

I was successfully avoiding writing an artist's statement as well as any commentary to my projects for at least 9 years. I saw it simply as being redundant: if I felt like I needed words to express myself, I would have been writing. Images (from my perspective) were meant to be seen; they either worked (by resonating with the viewer) or they didn't. I believed that if an image didn't work no amount of writing on the subject of that particular image would fill in what was amiss in the first place.

However, for a while now I've been contemplating the idea presented by John Paul Caponigro in one of his articles on creativity. He wrote:

"Like making images, writing is a process, a process of making thoughts and feelings clearer. Often, you don't know what shape the final product will take, until you finish. At first I resisted about writing about my images. Now, I find the process so valuable that I've made it a part of my artistic process. Every time a new body of work arises, I write. As a result of writhing, I gain a better understanding of the work I did, the work I'm doing, and the work I am going to do. So do the people who see my images, surprisingly, even if they don't read what I write."

A couple days ago I felt like a mere contemplating wasn't enough anymore, and that it was time for me to step up and write: after all "a better understanding" of what is it that I do is definitely worth of gaining.

Below is my first attempt.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

My Artist's Statement - First Draft

As I get to think about it, I have been interested in capturing what is by most perceived as an ordinary moment and capture it in such a way that would reveal its extraordinary essence since I took on photography 12 years ago.

I still have a couple of prints, which don’t look any different from most of the prints done by Photo I students. What significant to me though is that mute yet underlying intent I had when I took the pictures.

I remember making an argument during a lecture about the importance of being able to take an object (in that particular instant, I used a cigarette butt as an example) and transform it into a piece of art by revealing its essence… Mind you, not by simply picking it up, proclaiming it to be a piece of Art and then displaying it across the world with a price tag of one and a half million dollars… I drove myself insane trying – unsuccessfully – to prove my case and create a beautiful still life with a cigarette butt. Now I know that back then I went to the extreme by choosing to work with something that didn’t really resonate with me at all.

Since then I have relinquished the need to challenge myself with creating chef-d’oevres out of garbage. However, I still collect twigs and dead leaves, and once in a while make attempts to find the way to photograph them in a way that would reveal their transcending beauty to the rest of the world…

***

I feel that there is so much we are taking for granted, passing without noticing on our way to something flashier, more striking, more remarkable. We dwell in between the past and the future without paying much attention to the moment. Often we experience ourselves as being lonely and unhappy; we race towards something (we think or we are told ) we want, something (we believe or we are told ) would make us happy and complete; yet when we reach our destination, we seldom realize that we have arrived: there is another goal, another big thing ahead . It is my understanding that it all happens because we are not conditioned to ground ourselves in each and every moment enough to take notice of it, to appreciate it to the fullest.

Years I have spent studying martial arts and meditation have taught me the ways of how to ground myself in the moment by the simple practice of paying attention. Taisen Deshimaru in “The Zen Way To The Martial Arts” has written:

“…That is why Socrates, like the Buddha, like every wise man ever, began his teaching with “Know thyself, and thou shalt know the universe.” That is the spirit of traditional Zen and Bushido; and in studying that spirit, it is very important to observe one’s behavior. Behavior influences consciousness. Right behavior means right consciousness. Our attitude here and now influences the entire environment: our words, actions, ways of holding and moving ourselves, they all influence what happens around us and inside us. The actions of every instant, every day, must be right. Our behavior in the dojo will help to condition our everyday life.
Every gesture is important. How we eat, how we put on our clothes, how we wash ourselves, how we go to the toilet, how we put our things away, how we act with other people, family, wife, how we work – how we are: totally in every single gesture.
You must not dream your life. You must be, completely, in whatever you do. That is training in kata.
The underlying spirit of Budo and Zen tend to that end; they are true science of behavior. They have nothing to do with the imagination that transforms the world, as is the case of so many religions. One should live the world with one’s body, here and now. And concentrate, completely, on every action.”

Photography for me has been a way of quieting that part of me that operates mostly from the premise that whatever IS “is not good enough” and that there must be something bigger, better, brighter just around the corner. I take a deep breath and slow myself down looking around and taking notice… As I make myself to pay more and more attention I start seeing beauty in the tiniest raindrop, in a crevice under my feet and in the most common weed growing through it… I take my camera out and press the shutter – I think the world we live in is beautiful.