writing

lens-artists: looking back to creativity

This week Leya invites lens-artists to “share a link to the old post, and then create a new post on the same subject” Oh how fun!

After viewing the WP listing of a hundred and sixty-seven Lens-Artist’s challenges … no creativity challenge. “Oh! I must have been absent that weekend? What to do? Take a different road to creativity? Will I be forgiven?”

Calling upon the courage needed to search outside Leya’s guidelines, I found, a 2018 post – A photo study: contemplative photography.

Creativity begins as we begin to think differently, move out of our comfort zone, start to use our head over the camera, and go beyond all apparent possibilities.  

iPad f/1.8 1/50 sec ISO 64

Creativity is the ability to make or do something new…the ‘something’ can be an object, a skill, or an action. To be creative, the object, skill, or action cannot simply be bizarre or strange; it cannot be new without also being useful or valued, and not simply be the result of [an] accident. …an important form of creativity is creative thinking, the generation of ideas that are new as well as useful, productive, and appropriate. The second is that creative thinking can be stimulated by teachers’ efforts…

~Lumen Learning

Pablo Picasso once said, “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”

Found object art began to take shape in 1912 when Picasso made his cubist constructions from various scavenged materials, adding such things as matchboxes and newspapers. Dada and surrealist artists then made extensive use of found objects. And now, the art form continues to thrive among mixed-media artists.

…our ordinary vision is limited…our conventional consensus of reality is not the only version of reality…the mind…in its attempt to provide meaning (security), continually rearranges the world to fit individual needs.  The failure to recognize the constructive nature of the mind can be a major obstacle to artistry and creativity.

~Tao of Photography, Gross & Shapiro

Nature gifts us with her ever-changing dynamic paint brush upon the canvas of life

Thank you for visiting

lens-artists: books

Within one of the realms of The Wheel of Suffering, is the animal realm in which a bodhisattva is depicted holding a book representing the need for wisdom that arises through thought, speech, and reflection.

” … I come to a place where I envision myself eagerly standing before bookshelves, my eyes lightly and briefly touching upon one book’s title and then another, feeling their words tickle my thoughts until I surrender to their unspoken promises. Once engaged by the promising nature of a title, it is hope that opens a book jacket and begins another journey through pages.  With the turning of each page, desire seeks the experience of validation within the configuration of a writer’s text. All of this, I believe, is driven by memory traces of how the words of unknown authors enfolded my emotional self …” (cited: B Catherine Koeford, A Meditative Journey with Saldage)

“… you and I in the living room.  You gave me three hard bound books…illustrated books. One about the lives of bees, the other about the Civil War, and lastly…the female reproductive system, “You are a woman now.  You must wash your face twice a day …” 

I was a woman.  Three books. Books freed us to worlds beyond a rural newspaper route.  Books were trips to the library, classical comic books left on my bed, novel reenactments, and later carefully National Geographic cutouts attached to your letters.  

I loved novels. You, nature and science …”  (cited: My Mother Came to Visit, memories of my mother during Covid …”it was a remembered touch that announced her arrival”)

Unseeded and Two Springs – two photo books of personal journeys of healing.

Two Springs: you left,
I remained… two springs

A photo journey…in remembrance of my mother, Elberta.

Unseeded: “The first time I heard the word “unseeded” I felt it resonate with another term saudade, a unique Portuguese word with no immediate English equivalent.

Saudade describes a vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist …”

 Ritva has invited lens-artists “to embrace your inner book lover and share your most creative photographic interpretation of anything related to books.”