'I don't do what I wish, I do what I can'
These are the words of George Braque. The words with which i comfort myself whenever i am confronted with the gap between my ideas and the reality of what i manage to produce.
The phrase 'Mind the gap' also comes to mind, for on bad days it is not so much a gap as a yawning chasm, into which one might easily fall. There are ways to avoid the gap, or at least live with it, both honest and dishonest.
The best way to avoid it completely is to never finish a project. That way it can always have the potential to transform into something better at the last minute, to suddenly catch up with the way one saw it intially before it was realised with all its imperfections. This way is favoured by many artists and photographers i know and i have frequently used it too.
The more honest and difficult way is to finish something and stand back and look at it. This takes a bit of courage.
Recently i took part in SoFoBoMo (Solo Photo Book Month) which required photographers to shoot and produce a book in just one month. When i had finished my project (portraits of local traders and business people in my local area) i showed it in a local cafe. I stood and looked at it and realised it was full of mistakes. I didn't like the prints (too grey) the wall on which it was displayed (too flowery) the way it was shot (too hasty) etc. etc. In fact i didn't like any of it. Except that i loved it. Really loved it. Mistakes and all. It was a sweet project with its heart in the right place, shown in an ideal venue for the subject matter and one that seemed to really speak to people and got a great response. It was full of mistakes (that no-one else seemed to notice or mind as much as me) and yet it worked.
What i learnt from this experience was not to let myself fret over the gap, but work towards closing it in the future. If i had assessed my work before showing it i would never have put it up. If i had not done that i would not have been able to look at it frankly, to listen to how people reacted to it and to learn from all the mistakes.
So, like Braque, i did not do what i wished, but i did what i could. And the remarkable thing is, i think that was enough.
2 comments:
I chanced upon your site here through EDM. I am intrigued by your talk of meditation and the 'gap'; and it reminded me of a buddhist teaching I remember from my days when I kept up with such things.
Without intending to be presumptuous, the experience of 'gap' is worth looking into. Here is a quote I plucked from the 'net (I have no affiliation with this group nor a desire to persuade you to go and join a group): http://lists.shambhala.com/pipermail/
dharmaocean/2004-December/000197.
html . See if this speaks to you. If not, no harm no foul.
By the way, the photo of the flower and vase is exquisite.
thank you rock. The quote did indeed speak to me. i have copied it down to think about it a bit.
i'm a bit of a newbie with this meditation lark and aside from knowing that i am agnostic but really interested in practising mindfulness i don't know a lot! but that's ok. i love learning. and i'm fascinated by the way mindfulness and meditation join up with art, photography and life - it becomes all part of the same thing.
thank you for your comment about the photo. i'm really glad you liked it.
Post a Comment