June 1–Can you imagine that?

Long shadows stretch across a tiled floor from unseen figures and window light, creating a quiet, haunting image suggestive of memory, absence, and presence.
Photo: One of my shadow pieces from grad school. Still poignant — Pride, AIDS, the 80s, the 90s. We are but shadows that linger.

This is an older shadow photography piece that I submitted for GLBT Pride 2006. A little dark, but it is one of my favorites. This last week I’ve been updating my online material. Perhaps I should be creating more art… but it is important to at least document a bit along the way. The information contained here may not be particularly insightful; it is only a gay man journaling some of his feelings in a very open forum. I am appreciative of life and all that it brings, but gratitude slips away now and then. That is sad.

I cannot believe how fortunate we are. Our lifestyle is beyond most of the world’s inhabitants’ imagination. I know my remaining time is short. I spend most of my time documenting the small things — the things one passes by without noticing. That is why you see so many shadows photographed in my work. What is more ignored than they are? What one might think of as totally benign is not. That is the point. That is the point of my art.

Vision, smell, and the rest of our senses are a miracle. Ick! Miracle — I really hate that word because it implies a God. Whether or not they are God-given is moot. That is not the point of the work. My work is about the ordinary. The ability to experience… to reason… is beyond what might be expected in this universe, and we get to. We get to. Pretty amazing.


Frustration Builds …

A bit frustrated because I have been so busy. Doing least than expected but more of everything else that really is important but not doing as much art as I might.

My Web Tools class and my Intro Class, Thurs a.m are doing some very good work. The web Tools class in particularly interesting to me because so few had HTML. They experienced a huge learning curve at the beginning but many have a keen understanding of what they are doing.

As for myself, I am still captivated by shadows on houses and the lines produced by nature. The bare trees now are taking on more complex shapes as the leaves begin to bud. The few I took yesterday have very angle shapes… almost pained but then too it is a conversation about life and rebirth or even a comparison abut sleeping and death. This image almost rips the atmosphere as it slashes through the image.

A cracking in our foundation… a tear in society as we wrestle with global warming, immigration… the economy. Maybe that is what I am seeing as these shadows are fragmenting our institutions, homes and businesses.

My time I think will be taken up this week by getting my work over to Soo Visual Arts Center and getting it up and running. A little nervous about getting Grinder up and running again.Well, perhaps more this week. As my week progresses.