I wrote my last post, slept, and felt better. So…
For whatever reason I have latched on to language as a media for abstraction. But this is challenging because even though language is the ultimate in abstraction, it’s so often taken literally. Words are looked upon as being real things, meaning real things—even though every single last word in the world is made up, and I like to play with what’s real until it isn’t anymore.
Sometimes I think I would be happier as a painter because I could throw paint all over something the way I do with words on my notebook paper and everyone would stand back in amazement at the movement and colour in my work instead of scratching their heads wondering what it is I just wrote. But as I review this sentance, I know there are also those who would also just wonder what it was I just painted. See? Abstraction—despite being the cornerstone of our reality—is a lot harder to land than a bowl of fruit.
Years ago I wrote a short, short essay on poetry being the art form of language, a place where utilitarian words could be formed without conformity to make something beautiful in the same way metal could be used for a sculpture instead of a bridge—although I find bridges beautiful in their own right as well.
I went through a time where I didn’t want to take pictures because I’d thought I’d lost my eye—I’d forgotten the most important part of photography was to take the picture. If I were to talk to myself now I know I’d say something along the same lines for my writing; i.e. write the words. And I know I would say this to myself because I already have.
The piles of scribbled notes sitting on my desk I lament the sight of each morning are all being transferred into a single file on my computer—a spatter of prepainted letters on an infinite canvas.
I’ve always thought of photography as painting with light.
Now—to paint with words.