Even though I've been happy and content with the pace of life these days, there's been an undercurrent of emotion vibrating around since the beginning of the year; shifty shit, and all of us feeling all of it in some way or another.
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That lecture a couple weeks back has had me thinking ever since. So much of how I've made work since that workshop in late 2013 was based on what I took away from that weekend.
Sitting in that room, hearing the somewhat familiar words and lecture with a different skin, I felt the basis of how I've operated since late 2013 change. It felt like a perceptible click of the light switch, illuminating everything with brilliant clarity.
What I understood and took away from that workshop 15 months ago is that the way I made work wasn't the way fine art photography is made, not really.
At the time I was embarrassed by my green enthusiasm, (even though I was never made to feel anything but encouraged), and I worked really hard over the course of the next year to make work the fine art way, or how I perceived that my work would be well received.
Fast forward to last Thursday when I realized that what was true then wasn't true now, both for myself, and especially the lecturer. The creator had become the finder, (raising littles will do that to you), and I listened as similar words were spoken:
I get in the car and drive, waiting for something to happen.
I heard those words, (or some similar variation), and all of my self doubts about me + the fine art photography world fell away.
The things we take notice of and capture with our cameras are more than a pile of pretty pictures, despite what the critics will say. The disparate images taken over a period of years will have a theme, whether it's apparent to the viewer or not.
When the work is new and there doesn't seem to be a theme, it's ok to say that the work is new and you're still working it out.
A narrative can be found and written after the work is made because you as the artist know what you were thinking/feeling/being while you were making it.
I get in the car and drive, waiting for something to happen.
I heard those words, (or some similar variation), and all of my self doubts about me + the fine art photography world fell away.
The things we take notice of and capture with our cameras are more than a pile of pretty pictures, despite what the critics will say. The disparate images taken over a period of years will have a theme, whether it's apparent to the viewer or not.
When the work is new and there doesn't seem to be a theme, it's ok to say that the work is new and you're still working it out.
A narrative can be found and written after the work is made because you as the artist know what you were thinking/feeling/being while you were making it.
Just do your work. And if the world needs your work it will come and get you. And if it doesn't, do your work anyway. You can have fantasies about having control over the world but I know I can barely control my kitchen sink. That is the grace I'm given. Because when one can control things, one is limited to one's own vision.
-Kiki Smith
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