Inky Orchard

This photo is one that did not make the cut for my final project in Color Technique. I still adore it, though.

I’m at home for the winter now. Sipping my first hot chocolate in over a year. (Took over a year-long break from the world of chocolatey goodness – abstained from it in all forms. Had my first chocolate chip cookie last week – yum!)

This evening I finally presented all my photo work from the quarter to my parents. It is always such a reward to see their reactions and hear their feedback. Their commentary is just as valuable to me as the critique I get in class from fellow students. Only with my people outside of the photo department (and outside of SCAD!) I get a more warmly human, gut-level reaction. Minus all the buzzwords we toss around inside Bergen – all the technical stuff. The technical is valid – but it is so refreshing to remember that I live and breathe inside a raging storm of creating at SCAD – as I continually change and grow. As I edit my worldview. Who I am. The objects, the ideas, the inexpressible beauties, the artifacts left over from the web of creation inside my head and heart – that which is seen after the wrestling. The art is not in the object. It is what remains afterward. It is so refreshing to step outside the halls of intelligent, educated artists to remember that I am an individual joined temporarily with an institution. I selected SCAD to shape what I am doing. And I am changing.

My final project for Color Tech. has that ring of satisfaction to it – similar to how it felt to “finish” editing Stranger in the Family and see it performed live – how it felt to turn in my final portfolio for Black & White Technique last quarter after hours and hours of slaving in the darkroom. In my head, my artwork is only the small sliver of a giant bubble that rests upon the ground. That is the part that connects with the earth. The remainder is internal. Pulled from origins in the world, observations, reflections, truths… processed inside and then reformed and set carefully on the ground once more. It is so deeply satisfying to see the external product match the intent fairly well.

This summer marked a huge turning point in my life. God showed up in real ways once I realized how desperately I needed Him. I called out to Him and He came. God is so good! And on this side of that struggle to find Him (really, to just lay myself down completely), my art has taken on greater purpose. I am no longer a floating individual, unconnected in time and space. I have a Maker and a Savior – one who imagined me and created me. (The Bible says that He knew me before He knit me together in my mother’s womb. Knew me!) He loved me so much that when we became separated because of my sin and selfishness, He gave everything to make it possible for me to be a part of His grand family again. My urge to create in response to the things I find in this world around me – they are in essence a response to Him! The very act of making is not my own. I exist because of Him and for Him. And the things I see are from God as well.

I am changing. I can no longer tear myself down for being drawn to the humble, cracked acorn or the passing gesture – thinking that they are inadequate subjects for photographs. He has made me. I am His dwelling place. I will continually hope in God’s goodness instead of my own and tell of His mighty works. His glory and not mine.

Lord, you are my favorite part of me. I am most thankful for You. Your love is precious.