The creative “moment”
I often share the time and place that I pressed the shutter button as when and where I made the image. This always feels dishonest. For most of my work, I live with the raw files for around a month before I recompose, re-imagine, and edit an image over several days. Sitting with an image like the one I have here, my understanding of the “moment” of its creation slowly begins to expand beyond the limits of what one would call a “moment”. If I sit with it long enough, I’m left with the realization that there is no single “creative moment”.
The image above is one of my more recent additions to a portfolio I’ve been developing for 18 years. That means that the process of creating this image started at least 18 years ago. But it goes further back. I was first struck by the magic and potential of photography as a means of expressive language when I stood next to Sally Mann as she developed glass plate negatives in my elementary school’s art room sink around age 8. But surely it must go back further, before I was was even conscious of art, as I was born into a household where art was respected, and where the material conditions were such that the idea of “artistic pursuits” wasn’t an unattainable luxury.
We are the sum of our influences, the influences of those influences, and the world we are born into. The art we create is a reflection of that. I take to heart the concept that every photograph is a mirror that reflects both the photographer and the person viewing it. We are not separate from our influences, and neither is any work of art we see. The way I am moved by the work of Wynn Bullock is unique to my time and place. I can read reviews and writing from when he was active, but I cannot entirely separate my understanding from the decades of new concepts, philosophies, and technological advances that I have been influenced by.
Back to the image I posted above
When I view this image, I see Edvard Munch’s “The Scream”, I see the outlines of a David Lynch creature, I see the swirling post-impressionist influences if Van Gogh. I also see the influence of contemporary artists I follow on Instagram that most have not and will never hear of. People like Ruth Stanners (IG @ruthstanners4), who is a master of manipulating light on organic forms, Thomas Pohl (IG @thomaspohlig), who does magical things with darkness in the landscape, or Naoko Hashimoto (IG @na082), whose collage/photo hybrids on a black background evoke deep grief and emotion through non-objective form and line.
I also see the influence of my middle-school obsession with Pacific Northwest Indigenous wood carvings. My late teen obsession with Frederick Sommer. In other ways I see the influence of the Beat and Harlem Renaissance writers, various religious images, and fleeting memories of being drunk and laying on the forest floor during a wind storm at night, staring at the stars through the thrashing of the tree tops above.
What I’m trying to get at
The older I get, the less impressed I am at an individual’s “creativity”, and instead look for who they were able to be in the moment they found themself. It is an empathetic approach that I learned from the better art teachers I’ve met. You grade and push someone based on the individual’s starting point, their willingness to growth, their ability to be vulnerable with themself, and the honesty of what they are doing. All of those things are work, not “talent” or “creativity”.
I don’t follow a lot of established or famous photographers. My favorite photographers today are the people who call themselves amateurs or students. The people who use the medium to explore themselves and the world around them. The people who seem allergic to “comfort” and chase the next moment of gnosis—knowledge through experience.
Temples was a project about gnosis and the unconscious. There was a world hidden inside my mind that I felt gnawing at me and this project was my way of exploring the outer edges of it. Through repetition this exploration and exposure became routine and the work fell flat. It became an aesthetic exercise with a set of known patterns for “success”. Stepping away to “live my life” has meant taking on new influences and life experiences. Returning means being honest with myself about my shortcomings and being patient.
So, I’m doing the same thing I have been for 18 years. How do I bring creativity to it?
I chase gnosis. I make a point to learn new ways of disillusionment. I break my sense of self an pour it into the moment dispassionately, take a step back, and do everything in my power to accept what I see. And I do all of that with empathy. There is a bit of myself that craves notoriety, fame, and material success, and has fantasies and delusions of how that might be achieved. Being a success also means acknowledging this impulse and holding it at bay, only letting myself indulge in it as a means of motivation. There is no separating it from my influences, but I can do my best to keep it from dictating the “creative process”.
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