annie leibovitz

For a kid who moves from house to house and city to city, the car is their stable unit. For Annie Leibovitz, the car became the way she experienced the world. Her backseat window was her picture frame, and it is this frame that would later inspire her passion for photography. Annie said she preferred to do her interviews in the car, because when she drove, her mind was free.

There is a connectivity between driving and meditation, between letting the body steer and the mind relax. The body, when put in a routine, recognized position, will move into a kind of autopilot. It is as if the body knows the mind needs to drift when the mind itself is too jumbled to come to such a supposition. There are some instants where the mind, constantly perceiving and concluding, needs to be, needs to merely exist outside itself for a few moments… And that is where the body comes in. Driving is like meditating. The body takes over while the mind is able to embrace a rare clarity. Similarly, as Annie Leibovitz suggests, driving is one of the few places my mind can experience this kind of freedom. For someone as established, experienced, traveled, and matured as Annie Leibovitz, I can imagine having a free mind is exceptionally infrequent. To have a free mind is to experience stillness, to feel the grace of serenity, the silk of peace. Sometimes when I feel so upset, angry, or overwhelmed, there seems to be no “out” to the hold my emotions have over me. Consequently I feel stuck, caught in the mess of my own mind. When this confusion, this mental cluster forces its way into my mentality, I often get the urge to drive. Sometimes I drive, sometimes I stay put and crawl into bed. However, when I do wander the roads, I come back to my apartment with a different frame of mind. I think driving allows me to see beyond myself. Rather than force myself to interact with my own thoughts, driving forces me to interact with people, with society, with the world. I see other people, and I am able to see my life within the context of others. While of course my thoughts and emotions are significant, sometimes a drive helps me place them in the right order on my list of priorities. I realize I am a fraction of this world, and driving helps me further realize that I want my fraction to be positive, progressive, and loving, not negative, stagnant, and brooding. For all the times I have wished my mind would go blank, being behind the wheel helps me get there. Rather than see things through my own eyes, my car provides me with another layer, another lens to see the beautiful complexities of life outside my own mind.

Annie utilizes her whole life as a subject for her artwork, and I find that inspiring. It can become easy to pick and choose the moments of life that one thinks are significant enough to document or discuss. Annie’s life, however, makes it clear that every moment matters and that it is in fact the moments between all the significant, document-worthy events that form the foundation for one’s life, the glue for one’s worldview, and the basis for one’s personal poesis. 

my blurb book

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/3005646

an artist's statement: the perception of time

“Time is too slow for those who wait;

too swift for those who fear;

too long for those who grieve;

too short for those who rejoice;

but for those who love, time is not.” Henry Van Dyke

As I have tried to do but not nearly as elegantly, Van Dyke articulates the essence of time. Time escapes us, every passing second unable to be relived or recaptured. We are continually becoming part of a social and personal history that cannot be rewritten. We see time in our destruction and creation; we feel time in our hurt and glad hearts. We both loathe and yearn for time. Time grants us knowledge; we learn what to take with us from our past and what to leave behind. While time blesses us with knowledge and choice, it also forces us to leave things behind, things, perhaps, it does not think we need. Memories fade, the minds loosens its hold on images, voices, and people, and things that were once our present cease to exist. I have waited, I have feared, I have grieved, I have rejoiced, and I have loved. As Van Dyke makes clear, each respective experience and corresponding emotion yields a particular attitude toward time. In complete agreement, I would also argue that at the end of our lives we never truly hate time. We merely miss it—the moments, the people, the love. We take photographs and record videos to document our existence, to assure ourselves and others that a particular time did exist, that particular people were indeed part of our lives—as both moments and people can be tragically and/or blissfully fleeting.

Time is both beautiful and scary, full of changes that will surely bear sorrow and joy. If one can manage to love, however, one can hold time, nourish it. Love allows us to embrace time, to feel its passing, to witness its growth. One can live in harmony time if one can simply manage to love strongly enough and accept what is. 

project 4: perception of time

project 4: perception of time

project 4: perception of time

project 4: perception of time

project 4: perception of time

project 4: perception of time

project 4: perception of time

project 4: perception of time

project 4: perception of time

project 4: perception of time

richard avedon, self-portrait(s)

lee miller, 1935 self-portrait

man ray, 1942 self-portrait

an artist's statement: me and subject, you and object

With regards to a “meaning” or precise definition, my existence is constantly in flux. My existence has changed with every year, month, week, day, hour, and minute to bring me closer/farther to the people I was meant to influence and closer/farther to the people who were meant to influence me in return. I have found my physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual journey to be one rooted in a yearning to find focus. I’ve always sought to see things clearly, but more recently (and arguably more importantly), I’ve begun to long to see myself more clearly. This craving is a process, and a cyclical one at that; the moment I feel like I’ve “found” myself, the moment I feel like I’ve seen myself in focus… I change. My desire to see myself clearly and in focus is therefore a constant, recurring endeavor. I am coming to realize and accept that longing to figure myself out, longing to understand my existence will birth insights but also yield endless seeking. I am part of a spiritual network in which there will be moments where my pursuits will shine clarity on both myself and my existence; however, because each new moment changes me physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually, these moments of clarity, though perhaps attained, will be fleeting as well, and I will once again be “unfocused” and unfound. This circular movement renders countless moments of realization and even more opportunities for learning; it is a movement that has helped me to realize seeing myself in focus is wonderful and comforting, but learning and growing and moving toward those realizations is equally magnificent.

Photography, then, is a means to express this constant flux. It is a way to see myself, or, at least, a way to try. In society, photography aids in various constructions, be it in regards to that which is surface-level or universally, spiritually humanistic. On a personal platform, though, I am able to explore myself through photography; I am able to learn; I am able to search for focus; I am able to analyze what I am drawn toward; I am able to make my own constructions and deconstructions and label them as extensions of myself; I am able to find me. Photography, be it the works of others or myself, helps me to build ideas. I am able to take elements from various images—images of things, people, events, movements—and add them to my construction of self.

There are several artists whose photography strikes me powerfully. Photographers Richard Avedon, Lee Miller, and Man Ray, took striking pictures of themselves, and the ways in which they did so impacted me strongly. Richard Avedon took a series of three photographs later in his life, all of which reveal something unique about him. Two of the three avoid eye contact with the camera entirely, while in the last Avedon timidly glances toward the lens. In 1935, Lee Miller took a self-portrait in which her profile is captured in a striking pose. The viewer, then, only really gets half of her being. In 1942, Man Ray took a self-portrait in which half of his face is shaved. Again there is a play with halves, covering and uncovering. What I find most interesting about these three artists’ self-portraits are their decisions—their posture, their gestures, their eye contact, their expressions, their clothing. These artists all chose to construct themselves in a particular way, and I find the rationale, the emotion, the strict capturing of self fascinating. The artists’ decisions and their reasoning bind them to me, to every human… There is no hiding the struggles and successes; every look, every gesture is a revelation, a decision.