Thanks all around for emailing me your Movement images. It's SO fun hearing from you and getting to see the goods!! I'm diggin' it. I would like to collect some more and then decide how I will get them up and comment on them. Keep them coming!
I got a comment today from Mel where she had assumed that her shot was "ruined" before she gave it a chance and then later recognized it as something different. It struck a nerve. A good nerve. You see, I have this philosophy (thanks to Moreena for seeing it as such) that there really are no mistakes. It's all about the process and learning, experiencing and experimenting. And even more than that, it's about being open to wonderful things coming in strange or unexpected packages. Did anyone see Whale Rider? The gift was before him all along. He just couldn't see it. He wasn't open to the answer coming in a form he didn't expect. Brilliant movie with an invaluable message. I could start a whole blog just on that movie. Anyone? Sorry, back to the point.
When I was in college I took a photo-processing and printmaking class. It was, by far, my favorite of all my classes. The teacher was amazing and the assignments were inspiring and very challenging. Printmaking classes are about working a gazillion hours on projects, spending enless nights in the studio, acid baths, litho stones, inks, presses, papers...and the photography? More of the same. Step after step, more work, all process. Hence, the photo/printmaking projects took double the time. Double the time that already felt doubled. But there I found my passion. It was exactly where I was meant to be my last semester of school, finally finding myself, my creative outlet, my calling.
I had worked on a polaroid project (this was way back when the transfers were kind of new and all the rage) and we had to shoot slide film and process it ourselves with this little funky plastic toy like thing. The goo that was supposed to get wiped evenly across my roll of slides squished and squirted and got everywhere that it wasn't supposed to. I thought I was going to have to scrap all images. But my teacher advised me to try to spread the stuff on by q-tip just to see what might happen. I had nothing to lose and to this day that project, that big huge ugly and serioulsy toxic mistake, stands as probably the most beautiful thing I have ever created (besides my daughters).
At the critique my teacher said something I'll never forget. "Tracey, you make the most beautiful mistakes I have ever seen." He was right. I did. And I still do. Keep reading this blog and I promise to point some of them out to you. But, for the record, although I may call them mistakes, I don't really consider them to be anything less than gifts. And I'll graciously accept them whenever they're given.
"Beautiful mistakes." I love that!
Posted by: Mel | 06/06/2006 at 02:04 PM
What a great perspective to have. And of course it works for life as well as art.
Posted by: Janeen | 06/06/2006 at 02:46 PM
Loved that movie "Whale ride"! And isn't that how things get created/made...through "beautiful mistakes"?
Love the pix you took. And glad you found your calling!! I've yet to find mine, although 3 children have found it for me...being a MOM!
Posted by: Waya | 06/07/2006 at 05:30 AM
great reminder. as a former artist (maybe i'll get back to it!) and printmaker myself I can totally relate. i am going to have to think about that with the photos i have been taking so frequently lately.
Posted by: mama without instructions | 06/09/2006 at 05:17 PM
Mama without Instructions, you must find your way back to your art in one way or another! It's a lifeline. COnsider this a little nudge. ; )
Posted by: tracey | 06/10/2006 at 10:46 PM
This is exactly why my hard drive is so full of pictures! I can't delete too many of them because I'm afraid that once I know how to use Photo Shop or some other editing software, I'll be able to go back and turn some of those priceless expressions in a not-so-perfect photo into something worthy of printing and framing! It's a catch-22. You can take a zillion pictures because you don't have to print them all, yet you don't delete too many of them because you may be able to redeem them later.
Posted by: Alissa | 05/22/2007 at 05:19 PM