Summer light.
ellen mccall
[there's more on my flickr ]
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This is where I would like to be on a day like today.
algae in a pool of water
c o l o r
My art studio and my husband’s music studio have one major thing in common: stacks of stuff. There are other similarities too - lots of bright colors and things that inspire us from floor to ceiling - but the bottom line is that both of our spaces are packed to the gills with stuff. And this is coming from someone who despises clutter. In my case, it is mostly paper items - prints, books, and endless pads of paper, all carefully stacked in a way that is pleasing to the eye, always with a collage of items that I like to look at on top. In his case it is all gear, cords, and a lifetime collection of records, cassette tapes and CD’s. As I tackled the daunting task of organizing his studio last week, it dawned on me that our kids will not share in this experience, as all of their media files will be neatly stored away on a hard drive. But to me, a computer is not the same as a book, and there simply is no substitute for an old dusty record with a pink Nice Price sticker in the corner. I like the stacks - the patterns and repeating shapes, the lines, the vibrant colors - I love to flip through them and find rare oddities that I forgot we had. This series of images celebrates the beauty that exists in the familiar and ordinary.
I have been reflecting on these images lately because I currently have them hanging in the Plastic Camera Works group show at Rebus Gallery in Raleigh. I took both photographs a few years ago. I recently had an invigorating discussion with three of the other exhibiting artists, one of whom described the act of photographing as a performance. This really resonated with me. For me, taking photographs is not a means to an end - the end being the resulting image - it is often a dance, a personal performance of sorts, and the end result is icing on the cake. I use whatever instrument will best help me to release control, experiment, focus, watch, and react.
The concept behind these images was to create them while physically in motion - by plane, car, and on foot - and to find some small trace of stillness and peace within all the movement. The interaction between the light leaks and the overlapping frames is critical to both photographs. These are relics of a specific time in my life - reactions to my immediate surroundings as well as to the fast pace and rapid change I was experiencing on a broader scale at that particular time. I could not recreate them again if I tried.
A dose of green for today.
fourteen things i love (happy valentine’s day)
scott’s voice (and hearing him play music from another room in the house when he doesn’t know i’m listening)…polaroids…unexpected letters in the mail…sounds of foreign languages being spoken all around you in the airport…my cat, especially when he sits in my lap and makes biscuits and purrs really loudly…lazy sunday mornings…riding bikes with no particular place to go…windows open in the springtime…thunderstorms…the MoMA…reading bedtime stories to children…the smell of the beach…freckles… my amazing family and friends, who truly mean the world to me. xo.
I am proud to be a part of this.
