LAWRENCE RUSS: Soul, Art, and Society
Archives: Art as Experience
Art and the Mad Machine: The Spirit of Life vs. The Spirit of Addiction
What you see above is a reproduction of the cover of the July 1992 issue of OMNI Magazine, for which I wrote the month’s “First Word” piece. The “First Word” name of the feature referred to its being the first piece of writing in the issue (on page 3 after the Table of Contents), and […]
A Little Guidance and a First Pair of Clues
We’re all taught – or, rather, misled – by our families, our schools, our occupational or professional training, by the ubiquitous stream of advertisements, to believe that what is unreal is real, what is real is unreal; that what is poisonous or trivial is priceless, that what is priceless isn’t worth our time. How often […]
A Welcome to Further and Farther Voyages
If you’ve read my first post on this blog — “Welcome to Artists, Lovers of Art, and Unknown Friends” — you’ll have a good indication of my intentions here. And if you’ve been here before, you may have noticed that I’ve upgraded the template for this site. But that was just a prelude to more significant […]
Art and Mystery
“. . . there is only one thing valuable in art and that is the bit that cannot be explained. To explain away the mystery of a great painting – if such a feat were possible – would be irreparable harm . . . if there is no mystery then there is no ‘poetry,’ the […]
The Body, Mortal and Immortal, as a Camera
Yes, the word “camera” is italicized in the original text of this passage from “The God of the Living” by George MacDonald. The word opens an entrance into these thoughts as a revelation of what photography, at least great photography, in its essential, not its merely “definitional” nature, is and aims and serves to […]
Who Really Made That Photograph? – Part 2 of 2
I drove by the site late one day and took a few photos for my final-stretch planning. After dinner, when I looked at the photos on my computer, I did a troubled double-take. In the few days since I got the property owner’s consent, the very tree whose “pose” I intended my wife to imitate […]
Wishing You a Wonderful Thanksgiving
I wish you all for thanksgiving what, in a sense, but only in a sense, we already have — a world of wonders. Or, rather, I wish that we would all enter into it more wholly. I wish that everyone, and certainly all photographers, knew and loved the following poem by Thomas Traherne (ca. 1636-1674). (Forgive me, Thomas, […]
Alligator Intellect
[The ink painting above, by Sengai, pictures a scene from the famous Zen koan in which the Zen teacher, Nan-ch’uan, tells his students that he will chop the kitten in half if none of them can say immediately whether reality is (a) objective or (b)subjective. This picture and the one at the end of this […]
The Heroines’ Unpinned Hair
I don’t know how many “favorite” photographs I have, but I know that one of the frames in my sanctum of photographic love holds Imogen Cunningham’s “The Unmade Bed.” It’s clicheish to say that you could look at a particular artwork every day of your life and never grow bored with it. In fact, though, I can pretty […]
Summoning the Genie’s Power – Post 3
Society works to make us believe that we’re small, insufficient, that we have to run on the fumes of worldly ambition, that we’ll be doomed if we don’t buy what it sells and strive for its peer approval and prizes. On the other hand, countless religious texts, artworks, books of psychology and philosophy throughout the […]