Slides of Translucence

It IS hard word to be a creative--at least for many of us. One of the reasons is that "the market" is flooded with performers, creators, lyrical, musical, theatrical geniuses--gifted people, living in prosperity, with more time than normal on their hands. Not to mention millennia of compounded skill and talent just landing and gorgeously metastasizing on itself, right on our collective, inventive doorsteps.

The above image was created first out of a crashing airplane. There was a city scene behind it. And then I just added a bunch of texture and light, color and then characters. I ended up with a man and a woman, in love, but grieving against, complaining against each other.

It takes a long time to let go of things you can see in the picture, to bring to pass the things you can not yet. And that is sort of like life as well. You are forced to sacrifice, to let go, to risk the manifestation of something for the life of something better. and finally we land with the first man with an airplane wing at his jugular. And he is not the only one troubled.

Adam upset that Eve is no longer his rib. Eve (with her Medusa-like hair) upset that Adam can't keep his eyes in his own head (his lusts are never satisfied). The man angry that the woman won't support him through his mission, drives and ambitions. The woman chaffing because she can't believe he expects this of her. A bit of a post-Eden conflict.

Again, not being a first-fruit gifted artist myself, I am blending the fruits of others (with permission) into my own tales and dramas. It all helps me blossom the artist I might not otherwise be.

I thought for a while about not sharing how my images came to be. For in truth, when they're done, as I mentioned in my last submission, most people would never know that I hadn't just painted these from scratch myself, even the source artists often wouldn't know. But it felt dishonest. Maybe I'm the fool for letting it all hang out that way. But I've always been driven by and to authenticness, transparency, openness. I've always been an opponent of hiddenness and of course deceptiveness of any kind.

But again, what are we as photographers even doing, but snatching God's glory and recanvassing it, from our own place of "liking", of "telling", of "perspective". I don't think that makes us not artists. It just reminds that we're always, to one degree or another borrowing from the work and minds of others, or at least of that one great "Other".

The piece above transformed itself pretty close to what I was going for, but even went further. This one was a Western lady, cloaked and embedded in all kinds of bronze liquids and textures. She was originally holding roses. But eventually these, against my own original intentions turned her almost into a sort of "nude". Something I would not choose to play with except by accident, or in the abstract. Long story there.

I love this one. I just finished it. But with "abstracts" the question, as with almost anything we create, is who will "get it" who will "see it?.

Not sure what your artistic journeys are like. But mine are as described.

One of the things that hurts me, and problem numbers of us, is chasing the dollar and all of the likes or followers possible. This again is sort of out of our control, or if we could control it, what we would become as artists? Just a question.

Thanks for taking a peek at some of my stuff and listening to one artist explain his clumsy and mysterious processes.

I can create these sometimes daily. And you have to (or at least you feel you do) keep cooking while there's gas in the stove. For the pregnancy of the play of creativity is not always with and upon us. So hopefully there's loads more to share where these come from.