I wrote a poem many years ago for my
son titled, “Magic is the Child”. I often reflect on life through
the eyes of a child because it truly is the most pure and honest
expression that exists. Children express themselves without a filter
of what others think or how they will be judged. They create with a
purity of freedom adults have a hard time opening their hearts and
minds to. This time doesn't last long though. By the time my son was
ready to start kindergarten he had to take a variety of tests. One of
these was to draw “in the circle”. He drew in the circle but not
in mass, meaning he scribbled inside the circle but didn't fill it
with a solid color. This apparently was “wrong” and showed a lack
of skill development, so they said. I was appalled by this judgment
as well as other things they said. What happened to originality of
expression?
Fast forward twenty five years and we
are at my daughters college graduation. A family celebration dinner
included my mother-in-law suffering from dementia. It was sad to
witness that since our last visit she only now recognized her
husband, no longer knowing her daughter, son-in-law, or grand kids.
What was amazingly positive though was her child like view of our
grandson, her great grandson. She fell in love with him even though
she didn't know who he was. She kept saying, I want one of those and
her expression was so pure and honest. It truly was a beautiful
moment.
I've had moments with my personal
artwork where I could have taken a path more popular, more relevant
to what is reflected in contemporary photography today. Although
difficult at times, I persevered and remain child like in the
creation of my personal photography. Nothing is calculated and
thought out beyond the experience of creation that is relevant to me
and my way of expressing my thoughts and feelings in the form of a
photograph. My wife who is always supportive reminds me when I get
down, “What do you expect, you photograph people nude and creepy
dolls. How many people want to hang that in their homes?” She is
right but for me to do anything else would make me an imposter. I
would loose that purity of freedom I enjoy in the creation of my
work.
I've been reading The Art Spirit
by Robert Henri and it is filled with so much great advice for the
artist. Most pages are filled with wonderful quotes to share with
fellow artists. I'll end this blog post with a small excerpt from the
book which resonates with me and was the impetus for sharing my
thoughts in this post.
The Art Spirit by
Robert Henri
If
one is a painter this purest freedom must exist
at
the time of painting. This is as much as to say
that
a painter may give up his hope of making his
living
as a painter but must make it some other
way.
This is generally true, although some do, by a
freak
of appreciation, make enough while going
their
way to live sufficiently well. Perhaps this hap-
pens,
but I am not sure but that there is some cur-
tailing
of the purity of the freedom.
I
was once asked by a young artist whether he
could
hope to make any money out of his work. If
he
continued in his particular style of painting. He
happened
to be a man of considerable talent and
had
great enthusiasm in his work. But I knew there
was
no public enthusiasm for such work. I remem-
bered
he had told me that before he got really into
art
he had made a living by designing labels for
cans,
tomato cans and the like. I advised him to
make
tomato-can labels and live well that he might
be
free to paint as he liked. It happened also that
eventually
people did buy his early pictures al-
though
he was as far from pleasing by what he was
doing
at this time as ever before. He now lived on
the
sale of his old pictures and was as free to paint
his
new ones as he had been in the days of tomato
cans.
Magic
is the child, born with open arms!
