LAWRENCE RUSS: Soul, Art, and Society
Archives: Uncategorized
In the Name of All That’s Holy. . . .
This is not about politics or ideology, not about endorsement of any political argument or group or leader. It is about an instance of the horrible violation of our common humanity, of the divine life in each of us.
A Surprise Communion across Continents, Classes, Centuries, and Cultures
. . .In dejection from all the awful and discouraging news about reactionary political victories, rampant viral sub-variants, catastrophic droughts, and increasing violence (as well as, for me, unhappy views about my own self), I found myself doing something that I’ve done on occasion over the years, especially under stress: I was hand-writing, long past midnight, a list of my favorite artists and mystical writers. That exercise can calm and comfort me. not just as an obsessive-compulsive ritual, but as a reminder of real treasures that I’ve been given, for inspiration and illumination.
Good News about Photos That Mirror Bad Times
I’m not sure about the answer to the question posed by that photo title, but the news that I just received about the image may help me from having to respond to that question in the affirmative negative. I’m pleased to have learned that the Editors of LensCulture Magazine chose this image from my 2022 […]
“We interrupt our regularly-scheduled programming to bring you this important message. . . .”
As I said I would, I’ll write to you soon about the Fire in “The Friend Who May Not Seem a Friend.” But I have to share with you first an exceptional, timely gift that came to me this week.
“I wish somehow. . . .”
Dear Readers, I’m sorry to be so late with this “next” post. But you all know that sometimes we seem to be having even more difficulties than we usually do. And sometimes the world seems to give us even more causes for grief than it commonly does.
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 Poetic Image
“When people look at my pictures I want them to feel the way they do when they want to read a line of a poem twice.” Robert Frank
Lonely Truth versus the Chill of Ages
There’s a loneliness in being an artist, a feeling that almost no one else understands or values what you’ve intended or made. There’s loneliness in having had any kind of mystical experience, an ache in believing that you’ve gained something of great importance, but that you cannot open it to anyone else. And there’s a […]
Windows and Doors and Waves and the Well
“[The] notion that man has a body distinct from his soul is to be expunged; this I shall do, by printing in the infernal method, by corrosives, which in Hell are salutary and medicinal, melting apparent surfaces away, and displaying the infinite which was hid. “If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would […]
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, […]