Artist’s Statement #43-729f or ‘But Is It Art?'

On the eve of December 24th, 2007, I was afforded the opportunity to spend the many late hours with a very dear friend of mine. She, like myself, is an artistic Jack-of-all-Trades. Primarily a visual artist (one o’ the best damned painters I’ve ever known), she also excels at playing and singing the blues at numerous locations around the city and the province and the country with 3 CDs under her belt, writes poetry and prose and the occasional play, can computer-graphic (yes; a noun) herself out of a paper bag and, is a prolific photographer. I, myself, write, paint, draw, dabble with musical composition, adore playing the recorder (not the tape type), create with food and, have become a prolific photographer. In a sense, the two of us are perfect examples of what I term the ‘Cocteau Syndrome;’ we love to create: we need to create: we have to create yet we aren’t quite satisfied with solely one form of creative expression.

Yes, a Jack-of-all-Trades. Yet at times, it can be all-too-easy to crumble under the frustration of being a Master-of-None.

I’m not digressing here; just setting the mood, the feel, the framework. After all; what’s the most important thing? ‘Location, Location, Location.’

Okay, that was a digression.

We spent the evening talking about this and that while drinking this and that and watching this-and-that movies until eventually, the conversation turned around the curve, missed the off-ramp (she was driving, I was holding the map, and I won’t say anything about my opinion regarding female drivers – Let’s just say ‘it’s not what you think.’ Famous last words), and after much whining (that’s a pun) on my part, pulled into a deserted food-‘n’-foam called Photography for directions.

In the span of a year, my friend takes 2 or 3 trips to different parts of the country to play at festivals or in bars while visiting friends. She always takes her camera with her and she relishes being able to take photographs of almost everything. Friends, family, and her favourites: landscapes, dogs, rocks, plants, burning flames, and a shit-load of more rocks. Her process it thus: on any given day, she will shoot over 100 images – if she sees a certain texture in a pile of stones, she will take dozens of photographs of it – then download them onto her laptop. Some of the images will be used in future projects while others simply remain to be seen, remembered in a Proustian sense, and eventually backed-up onto album disks.

I take a different approach. The most photographs I have ever taken on one single day can be numbered at about 40. Sometimes I will only take 15 – I’m getting very good at the ‘1 or 2’ shot of something. Of the daily total, 20% are snuffed directly on the camera – unintentionally out of focus; oops, wrong button; no, I actually do not want a photograph of that person – and, after transferring the remainder to my laptop, I cut, perhaps, 25% of the remaining. The I ‘do’ stuff with them; arrange them into portfolios which I print; give them to friends; use them on blogs; brood over what, exactly, I AM going to do with them – you know, that kind of stuff.

Let’s do some math: I take 10 photographs on Monday. Before the laptop, goodbye 20%. Those 8 photographs left get laptopped (yes, another noun which Word doesn’t seem to like) where I get rid of 2 more (the 25%). I’m down to 6 and it is with those six that I ‘do’ things with (‘Bad, Syntax! Bad!’ I’m not much of a dog person but if I ever got meself a puppy, I’d call it ‘Syntax’ just so I could say things like that). But it doesn’t end there. A lot of times, once I’m done with the doing, I’ll just get rid a couple of perfectly good images here and there.

Perfect example. Christmas. I had about 15 photographs which I created solely for presents and cards. All seasonally themed related. It ain’t Christmas anymore, therefore I don’t need them, therefore I keep one or two and bye-bye to all the rest.

“But Thomas! That was such a beautiful photograph!”

“Which is why I took it. Which is why I gave it to you. Now you have it and if I ever feel the need to take a spooky, dimly-lit photograph of my evil looking piggy-bank well, hey, I know where he lives.”

Which brings me to what I take photographs of.

I don’t get out much. I don’t have the means to get out of the city much, and for those of you who live, as I do, in this city, you know, that during the Winter months, this city is dull. Sure, sure; I’ve experienced some magnificent out-door Kodak moments. But that would mean taking my gloves off, standing there in the cold, and I’m a bit of a wimp.

I also don’t have a lot of time on my hands. And the time I do have on my hands is way too much time on my hands. One third of my life is spent at work; I take a lot of photographs around work. One third of my life, roughly speaking, is spent asleep; that’s when my mind takes photographs. And the other third, again, roughly speaking, is spent in my apartment.

I take a lot of photographs around my apartment.

And why not? I love still-lifes. Not just of the ‘fruit in bowl’ kind. I mean, if a flock of fruit in a bowl is deemed worthy of some sort of artistic representation, then why not a couple of cigarette lighters, or electrical outlets, or people’s shower curtains.

The challenge for me is to be able to take a photograph not so much because I will like it or I want to remember the moment, but in order that when someone else sees it, they will see it for what it is, but then see it for what they think it is. Which is why I love actually setting shots up and trying to instil some form of actual narrative into the image.

Back to Christmas Eve – After much discussion about Photography, I asked her if I could see some of her pictures. Seated in front of her computer, she began to take me through a lengthy tour of 100s of photographs. Landscapes, rocks, people, everything. There was a story about each and everyone of them and some of them were wonderful and some of them were crap. Her opinions, not mine.

Back in the living room, I pulled out a portfolio of 48 photographs which I gave her to look at and she coursed through them like someone on Boxing Day in an electronic store that was stocking iPods on sale for only $20. The really, really, new ones; not the 3-week-old, out-dated ones.

Of all of the photographs, only one gave her pause for reflection: two pink jacks entwined together.

I told her that it made me think of either two people dancing together or two people having sex together, to which, she told me a quick story about how it reminded her of how she, as a young child, used to play jacks.

I didn’t have a chance to tell her how I used to play jacks as a child as well which, in all probability, is why I took the damned photograph in the first place.

I’m not judging other’s intent, accomplishments, or ideals. I’m just stating mine.

And with that said, here are a few of my landscapes.