AWE Gallery: Stacy Boorn

One of the things I love about the artist Andy Goldsworthy is that nature seems to be both his canvas and palette.  Not to mention his creative playground.  It is with respect and gratitude to the earth that he uses her elements to construct his vision.  Ice, drift wood at low tide, leaves moving in a stream are among  the many things that Goldsworthy fashions into temporary art, standing until the tide or sun moves them along into a new location.

Andy Goldsworthy is a British sculptor and photographer, an artist who produces  site-specific sculpture and  land art situated in natural and urban settings. He lives and works in Scotland although he is often seen on location right here in the Bay Area!  For his ephemeral works, Goldsworthy often uses only his bare hands, teeth, and found tools to prepare and arrange the materials; however, for his permanent sculptures he uses tools and machines and sometimes cranes and other people.

Most of us tend to bend down and pick up a colorful leaf, sparkling pebble, a floating feather or fallen pine cone.  Sometimes we just examine the object with every sense available to the task.  But other times we can’t resist taking it with us, providing there is no sign prohibiting it.

Some nature and outdoor photographers boast that they create images with things in their found positions and never confess to placing the red maple leaf on a rock in a fast moving stream.  I find that the earthen canvas is also my playground.   If you can’t take the pebbles with you, why not move them on location into particular compositions, even corny ones like this outline of a heart of white pebbles in a group of black ones.  I enjoy gently running my hands over stone ledges and the curve of beach boulders; connecting with their distinctive energies is mystical and cathartic.

Keenly looking at everything, you may come across hidden treasures waiting detection.  When I focused in on some white grapes nestled against their corpulent vine I noticed a tiny bird’s nest no more than three inches in diameter.  In the nest was a little egg not much larger than the surrounding wine grapes. Although these small items appear close together, you need lots of depth of field to render both subjects in focus by using a very small aperture opening.  I chose f/22.  Another method would have been focus stacking.

If you haven’t viewed the 2004 documentary “Rivers and Tides” about the work and person of Andy Goldsworthy I suggest you look it up.  It is timeless!

One of my favorite chants is “Light and Darkness.”  Those words are just repeated over and over again.  It brings home the equality of their importance in the cosmos and each person’s individual existence.  I am singing these words right now on the Autumnal Equinox. The ebb and flow of all nature seems to come back to the relationship of light and darkness.  (Also the two most important tools of photographers.)

Equinox – an equal amount of light and darkness — is a sign of the importance of each particular part that makes up a “whole.”  Like the right and left side of our brain which I mentioned in the last post or things like complimentary colors or grapes and  leaves.  At this time of the year I seek out circle shapes – moon, grapes, candles, frame drums, pumpkins, labyrinths and community.

Everyone who has traveled in the wine country is convinced that you can jump out of your car at any and every vineyard/winery and snap a prize winning shot.  You would think so because the scenery is incredibly lush and eye popping! But as with every image it usually takes some planning and deliberate choices to present your mind’s eye view.  It takes both left and right brain skills.

In the fall I never leave home without a diffuser and reflector and, yes, that little spritzer bottle.  The sun is usually shinning every day in Napa and Sonoma in the fall to finish off the ripening of those grapes harvested late for high sugar content.  This is the best time to photograph clusters because the cold nights begin to cut off the chlorophyll process to the leaves and the reds and yellows begin to show.

Low morning or late afternoon light on your subject is best but it still will produce dark and deep shadows and high contrast.    So I either diffuse the light by placing a diffusion disc between the sun and my subject or add fill flash or reflected light to open up the shadow areas.  It may seem strange to add light to a subject that is already bathed in sunlight but it helps even out the distribution of the light without making it feel flat.

Under the leaves that have not been cut back you can often find some grapes that are behind schedule in the ripening process.  They make for a wonderful contrast of color and growth pattern when photographed next to the plump deep purple orbs.

The Celtic Blessing proclaims, “May the circle be open but unbroken.  May love of the Goddess be ever in your heart.  Merry meet and merry part and merry meet again.”  Circles are a blessing.

This Maltese, wide hipped Goddess draped in rosary beads surrounded by the round votive candles also seemed an appropriate Fall Equinox symbol.  She is encompassed by the light and darkness from both within and without.  The islands of Malta and Gozo in the Mediterranean were once occupied by a prosperous culture who worshiped the great Goddess of early agricultural people. In the period between 4000-2000 B.C., they created art in her image, ranging from life-size statues to delicate hand-held figures. Even their temples, the oldest in Europe, were solidly built in the shape of her life-giving body.

Anthuriums – at Flower Nursery

While sitting in a cafe with friends there was a moment when all of us were on our “smart phones” at the same time.  When the server noticed she told us she wasn’t going to get into using a smart phone because “it will be the downfall of our abilities to communicate with one another.”

It just happened that each of us at that table was looking up something to share with the others to enhance our conversations.

Our smart phone technology may just have the potential for “re-wiring” our own internal hardware for building peaceable and compassionate communities, especially with the imagery that we see and create with them.  Creating and engaging with imagery we can nurture the right side of our brains.

Rows of 2×2 Succulents – blurred edges

The proposal of Leonard Shlain’s book, “The Alphabet Versus the Goddess – the Conflict Between Word and Image,” is that, when the alphabet was created, with its venerated focus, it over-nurtured the left side of the brain. When driven to primary left-brain thinking cultures shifted from egalitarian community to patriarchal misogynistic patterns.

Shlain argues that “learning to think without resorting to images is indispensable to alphabet literacy.  ‘Make no images’ is a ban on right-brain pattern recognition.  All who obey it will unconsciously begin to turn their backs on the art and imagery of the Great Mother and, reoriented a full 180 degrees, will instead seek protection and instruction from the written words of an All Powerful Father.”

Goddess in Light – herchurch

I agree with Shlain’s “optimistic appraisal that the proliferation of images in film, TV, graphics and computers is once again reconfiguring the brain by encouraging right hemispheric modes of thought and bringing about the reemergence of the feminine.” – Hungry Mind Review.

Canon, Nikon, … iPhone … lets have at it.  The more engaged we are with imagery the more possibility there will be for a paradigm shift from patriarchal domination to egalitarian compassion!  I think the succulent and anthuriums are with us on this one.

“Oh Great Spirit, earth, sun, sky and sea.  You are inside, and all around me.”