My photography work has the strange quality of Isolation.
Driving back and forth from equipment swapping...
my car and me and empty silence.
I've spent a lot of time alone this past year.
In the midst of a shoot with kids screaming and my mind chattering lightmath...
Isolation.
In the fight to remain covenanted and be...
I read.
Stories
Fiction
Children's fiction mostly.
Simple stories with simple truths.
Bright colours
Vivid metephors
Laughter and tears
Because simplicity is a delightful foreign concept right now.
In the battle between Isolation and Being,
stories are sharp weapons.
Isolation is the vast Wasteland
When words, thoughts, actions, hopes and failures seem to pass unheeded.
Like wind on the desert.
A story takes the wind and gives it meaning.
A story is evidence of Being.
Moses' years as a shepard and Jesus' as a carpenter.
Not waste,
not barren,
but preparation
but pause
dramatic pause.
So i read.
In a small way;
reading is a way of loving the author,
the artist.
(Though my hands haven't gotten the message)
I think like an artist.
I know what they desire...
to be heard,
to be reacted to,
(possibly against)
to be 'true' enough to make welts on the brain.
Though I can't converse or touch Asher Lev,
(current character on the floor next to my bed)
I have the honour to listen
to care
to question
to acknowledge his Being.
Takes faith to believe the loving will be of good.
All those verbs are love.
Once Isolation hits,
my little heart goes numb,
and opening to be vulnerable...
(for all love will make way for pain)
...is the wildest sacrifice.
After hours of blinding photoshop,
the last thing I want to do is respond to my family.
But in doing so I accept my dependence of Being lies with them.
Here is the impossible miracle;
That I can give all to my work,
which involves invariably Isolation.
Turn, and give all to my dear ones,
which involves Being and Love.
Only because my Being was never mine.
