Photography, Raw Thoughts 
No Comments Connections
This is what I see when I look out my door at home. (Well, through the peep hole portal – the view is quite different from a full glass door instead of a tiny circle.) It reminds me of looking through a camera viewfinder.
While I was sitting in 3D Design yesterday, I was bombarded by thoughts as we were asked to introduce ourselves to our new classmates. Professor Varland had not simply stated where he went to school and listed his accomplishments. He wanted more from us as well. It occurred to me that while I do collect people and love to make artwork… the latter is a means of doing the former. My photographs – what I see in people – the undercurrents, the secrets, the tension, the passion – I can preserve that with my camera. And I do preserve my people with my lens. It is personal. And it is more. I am declaring value. And I am sharing. Publicly. In an aesthetically pleasing way. Subtle. Treasures – all treasures. The same is true of my writing. While it may not be one specific, clearly identified person I am writing about – I am incorporating the captured fragments I have found in every individual I have ever met. Weaving those scraps into new work – whether true to reality or mostly fictional. This is my art. It is inseparably connected to my head, my fingers, my pen, and my eyes.
And yet all of it is indebted to the world outside this spiderweb mind. Everyone who came before me, who held my hand, who bought me a crayon or a roll of film, who spoke to me at the flea market or under an overpass – everyone. From the painter of Still Life with Basket of Apples to the writer of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. From the homeless man by CVS to the presidents who lived before my time. Each has contributed and shaped the world which now exists outside of me, where I walk and breathe and take pictures. And the One who made all these people. This ground beneath my feet.
Everything is connected.