civilized ku # 1189 ~ let me hip you to reality .. all ya gotta do is open your mind along with your eyes
Thursday, November 17, 2011 at 09:03AM 
dried leaves / cobweb ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenIn the continuing conversation with Paul Maxim, Paul wrote:
... we may not agree on the value of "Twig Photography" ... personally, I don't get it. Aside from the old messages of natural cycles and life and death and decay, what am I supposed to see here? What insight into "naturalness" or humanity's interaction with it is supposed to jump out at me?
Before Paul penned / typed this comment, I had planned to use this quote in this entry. It seems even more relevant to the conversation than it did early this AM ...
Although I am a typical loner in daily life, my consciousness of belonging to the invisible community of those who strive for truth, beauty, and justice has preserved me from feeling isolated. The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as all serious endeavors in art and science. He who never had this experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious. To me it suffices to wonder at these secrets and to attempt humbly to grasp with my mind a mere image of the lofty structure of all that there is. ~ Albert Einstein
That posted, and in direct answer to Paul's question, re: "Aside from the old messages of natural cycles and life and death and decay, what am I supposed to see here?", let me state unequivocally that I can not tell Paul "what to see". I can express, artist statement wise, what I see in or what causes me to make twig pictures (and I will do so), however, in doing so that may or may not have any effect whatsoever upon Paul's ability (or desire) to see and/or appreciate anything at all in twig pictures.
IMO, seeing beyond the obvious - both pictured and implied - to be found on the 2D surface of a picture is not necessarily a teachable ability. Simply stated, if one is not preternaturally inclined to wonder and marvel at "all that there is" and to have a "sense of the mysterious" as an inexorable and all-pervasive personal trait, then there is probably little chance of adding such traits to one's personal characteristics. And, in lacking such characteristics, one is most apt, when it comes to the arts, to get stuck on the most obvious surface of things.
Now I know, on the surface of things - re: the above stated premise, it may sound like what I am saying is, "I'm smarter / better than you", but that's not at all what I mean. It's more of a statement rooted in right brain / left brain matters (get it, Jimmi?). More like, to each his/her own, not only according to one's sensibilities, but also to one's innate abilities. Like how Mary Dennis gets "heightened delight" and goes "all synapses firing away" when it comes to "tangled nature messes" and like how Paul Maxim simply "doesn't get it", and I, for one, doubt he ever will - old horse / new tricks and all that.
But seriously, why do I doubt it? I put great stock in Paul's admission to not be "real fond of Jackson Pollock" as a twig-picture-I-get-it barometer. That's because there are similarities to be found in Pollock's paintings and my twig pictures and, to my eye and sensibilities, most prominent among them is the idea of high intensity visual energy.
comparison submitted by The Cinemascapist, who wrote: "even some of the lines follow each other across the images..."
I see, literally and figuratively, this idea of visual energy as being totally independent of the pictured referent as seen in any of my twig pictures. I see it as a dance on the 2D surface of the print, a life force, and a representation of the connectedness of "all that there is".
That is why I reject the old tired cycle-of-life death / rebirth cliché that some may see in my twig pictures (hey, if you think in clichés, chances are good you'll see in clichés as well). Rather, I take great delight in the pictures' representation of the natural and vigorous creativity made manifest in the bursting-out-all-over chaos, randomness, and sometimes seemingly mysterious ways of the natural world.
I also see in twig pictures a liberation from the presumed expectations and assumptions of what is considered to be beautiful in the natural world. I am preternaturally inclined to see beauty in "all that there is" in the natural world (with emphasis on the word "all"), not just in the iconic soaring cathedrals of the natural world - the things everybody already knows about. In a sense, I really believe that the genius is in the details, so to speak.
Now, all of that said, IMO, it still comes down to different strokes for different folks. Some will "get it" without having to be told, others will never "get it" no matter how much they're told...
... C'est la vie and vive la différence.
For another (entertaining) take on the subject, listen to what the Rock Man has to say.
Reader Comments (7)
I seriously doubt that I have ever taken pictures of twigs (except perhap by accident when the camera was pointed at the ground) and I doubt that I will start doing so. But as with any art, each artist has those things that they see that others will not until the photo brings it into view. And, dammit, I see art in these twig photos. If there is any failure here, it is the inability or unwillingness to let yourself see what the artist saw.
You know, for me it isn't just about twigs. It's about nature's tendency toward unruliness and disorder if left to her own devices. Like the corset has been busted out of, the make-up washed off, shoes kicked off and the pedestal that she has been put on has been toppled over. Those grand, polished, ordered iconic photographs feel pinched and somehow painted to me and I just don't relate all that well to them. I don't know--maybe it has something to do with menopause.
This is, in my view, an argument that no one can "win". As you say at the end, "vive la difference". What you see as mysterious beauty, I see as little more than everyday banality. It's not that I don't see this stuff, or that my mind isn't "open", I just don't find it at all compelling. Where you see energy, I see a distinct lack of it. Nothing "mysterious" to see.
You see the world differently. While I marvel at the forces of nature that created what you call "iconic soaring cathedrals", you're probably more interested in the scrub vegetation that surrounds them. And while Mary's right about the general unruliness and messiness of nature, it doesn't mean that there aren't any instances of extreme symmetry out there. Walk through Bryce Canyon and tell me that you don't find some of the order and symmetry that you see in there remarkable. Then tell me that you're not curious about the forces that created them.
Are they "mysterious"? Scientifically, no. It can all be explained. But for me, it's still a wonder (and a mystery) to look at. Just like your "twigs" are for you.
As to the old left brain / right brain thing, you might want to look at some of the more recent research. The old left brain equals science and math and right brain equals creativity and art notion has seen some revision. At best, that idea is overly simplistic and at worst, it's not much more than horse-pucky. No one knows for sure, but the most reasonable theory I've seen suggests that while the 2 sides of the brain work together in a fairly complex manner, the left side tends to have a "local bias" and the right side a "global bias".
So maybe that applies to photography as well. You're the local guy and I'm more global. Or something like that. Maybe it's not a question of "getting it". The speech that Rock Man gave to Oblio about opening your mind sounds good, but maybe it's not possible. We are who we are. Hardwired, as they say.
Old horse? New tricks? Now that's just insulting. As I recollect, you and I both, if we were horses, would both be long gone by now........
Recent brain research has determined that we are not hard wired. New neurons and neural connections are made throughout are lives. Which means that you can literal change your mind/brain. I am interested in hearing what you two, Paul and Mark, think about "fractals". Or, to be more specific, Mandelbrot sets and/or Self-similarity. Paul's suggestion that he might be more "global" and Mark more "local", sparked the fractal thought. You might be seeing the same things from different distances. I dunno…
Abstract Expressionism in defense of cohort of the real, interesting.
I'm not sure about the "hardwiring", Jimmi. Certainly it's true that we all change over time - sometimes consciously, sometimes not. But I believe that basic behavioral traits don't change very much. While much of my evidence is anecdotal, it seems clear to me that siblings - even twins - often grow up with very different views and tastes, even though they've gone through nearly the same environmental upbringing.
Fractals. Wow. It's been a while. I remember going through some of this stuff during some graduate math courses (about 35 years ago?). And I remember some stuff about "self similarity". I remember that because it was easy to relate to. We all see patterns like that in nature. Heck, southern Utah is full of them.
Do Mark and I see the same thing, but from "different distances"? I don't know. My gut says probably not, but I have no evidence, obviously. Interesting theory, though.
My impression of this on-going conversation, Paul, is that it isn't that you don't see the twigs. Its that you don't "see" them in the context of what is, and is not, a valuable subject matter for the purpose of making photography as art. That is a self-imposed filter. This seems to be one of those things that all photographers have to work to avoid in their work to avoid having it become stale. If you have no interest in that, to each his own. But why take on Mark for refusing to do the same? Art doesn't need subject-matter police.