“We live our lives of human passions,
cruelties, dreams, concepts,
crimes and the exercise of virtue
in and beside a world devoid
of our preoccupations, free
from apprehension—though affected,
certainly, by our actions. A world
parallel to our own though overlapping.
We call it “Nature”; only reluctantly
admitting ourselves to be “Nature” too.
Whenever we lose track of our own obsessions,
our self-concerns, because we drift for a minute,
an hour even, of pure (almost pure)
response to that insouciant life:
cloud, bird, fox, the flow of light, the dancing
pilgrimage of water, vast stillness
of spellbound ephemerae on a lit windowpane,
animal voices, mineral hum, wind
conversing with rain, ocean with rock, stuttering
of fire to coal—then something tethered
in us, hobbled like a donkey on its patch
of gnawed grass and thistles, breaks free.
No one discovers
just where we’ve been, when we’re caught up again
into our own sphere (where we must
return, indeed, to evolve our destinies)
—but we have changed, a little.”
— Denise Levertov, “Sojourns in the Parallel World” (via litverve)
(via christinasanantonio)
After the photography
exhibition reception on Sunday September 29, 2013 , there was and still is a sense of unfinishedness. I am not sure why? When I think about the experience even while present there seems to have been a disconnect, the energy did not blend, if that makes sense?
A few days before I was feeling apprehensive or had a sense of expectation of this exhibition. How or why does make sense to me at this moment, yet the how or why I believe is causing the feeling for closure. How that comes about I am not sure either? That is why I am here now, to shine light on the “feeling” .
It all maybe the need for contact with other people, like-minded people. The ego may just be playing with me dancing in and out of the shadows so as not to have to really explain itself. I was an artist among artist, my photography is not the best in the exhibit nor the worst. They are not new prints but
prints that have been exhibited in several different places in the past year or so. Yet I feel they are some of my best, simple, elegant, creative. I think when you have a room full of artist all seeking some type of praise for their work it maybe difficult to see your own light. There, there it is! Ego dancing, taunting. “Over here, over here! See me, see my beautiful photos, see me!” Sharing an exhibition with 21 other photographers, each having at least 4 pieces exhibited scattered about two floors of gallery is an awesome experience. No one shines above another, there are no solo performances here. Some where exhibiting for the first time, some had exhibited for years.
I am grateful each and every time I have the opportunity to exhibit, to share these photos with the world me. That is the purpose of photography for me, it was and is the call I answers. So I have to move out of my own way. Allow the pictures to speak for themselves, allow the gift of photography to share natures beauty that I have been honored to witness on a regular basis.
It is those moments as the prose above speaks;
Whenever we lose track of our own obsessions,our self-concerns, because we drift for a minute,
an hour even, of pure (almost pure)
response to that insouciant life:
cloud, bird, fox, the flow of light, the dancing
pilgrimage of water, vast stillness
of spellbound ephemerae on a lit windowpane,
It is in that time of presence that natures speaks, the beauty is shared and expressed. It is the humanness that ask why, or how, that feels the disconnect. Let nature speak, let beauty be.
All photography can be found here: http://www.redbubble.com/people/jeffstroud
the reluctant bloger 