LAWRENCE RUSS: Soul, Art, and Society
Archives: Creative Power
“The Friend Who May Not Seem a Friend” – The Cat and the Fire, Post 1 of 3
To understand why I show you this carved cat in flames, you need to know that my childhood was plagued by sweat-through-the-night terrors, terrors that could take hold even in daytime. . .
It Is Always at Your Doorstep
The artist’s world is limitless. It can be found anywhere, far from where he lives or a few feet away. It is always on his doorstep. – Paul Strand
Keith Carter and the Cloud of Mercy – Part 3 of 3
It’ll be tempting for me at times to get lost in exposition or explanation, but I want to stick as much as possible to what’s central to this series of posts: an experience that I had some years ago on August 28 in Israel that suddenly came to mind as I was looking at Keith Carter’s Fifty Years and thinking about his use of shallow focus.
We Don’t Know How
I’ve written posts before about the inspirations or events that come to us, without our having planned or willed them, to spur or add force to artistic works (you don’t need to read or re-read these for the purposes of this post): for instance, “Who Really Made That Photograph?” Parts 1 and 2 (December 2016) […]
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 […]
Dear Li Bo, Brother of Clouds and Dragons
Li Bo, how could you keep your heart from loneliness, calling always to the moon?
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 […]