All the Information is Already There — Transactions with Beauty

Jun 20

Jun 20 All the Information is Already There

I keep learning lessons from my still life practice, which is why mainly I think I’ve been able to keep at it, in spite of all the challenges of the last 2+ years. I understand composition better than when I started. I’ve learned by looking at others’ still lifes, but I’ve mainly learned through the practice. Putting one object in a place, and then moving it to a slightly different place. I’ve done some hard looking. I’ve seen. I’ve become more intuitive. (The more time you put in, the more intuitive you become, seems to be a true statement). I also know a lot more, so that I know how much more I need to learn, become better at. The more you see, the more you can see. There’s a line in one of the many books I love, as you know I love a lot of books, and it’s by Enrique Martinez Celaya, On Art and Mindfulness. And he says, simply, “Do not dabble.” And so I’ve tried not to dabble in this practice. As you probably also know, I’ve been writing a book of essays on still life, art, a life in art. I’ve been reading and reading on the subject for years, of course, having written Calm Things a billion years ago now.

The pandemic has slowed my writing practice down, but my photography practice has gained some ground. I’m not sure how this will end up meaning long term, but for now, I’m going with what I’m given. I’m doing what I’m able to do. In the still lifes of today’s photos, I was thinking about Manet’s last flowers, and then of Adriaen Coorte’s shell paintings, two painters of different eras. Yet, they speak to each other; the paintings are in conversation with each other, however different in style and subject matter. Both of them have in common the fact that they’re painting what they have on hand, what they’ve been given.

If you’ve read my Calm Things book, then you know the story of how we received these shells in the above photo, from our neighbour. When I first started this photo project of mine, I made a vow to not go out and buy anything for it, and I’ve mainly been able to stick to that. (Granted, I have a leg up on this because my husband paints flowers and in the past painted more traditional still life and thus we have a bit of bric-a-brac from that time. The flowers are something he needs for his work, and I’m usually able to use his cast-offs so to speak). The thing is that you can make something with what you already have almost always. All the information is already there….

It’s interesting to me, to think about how and what we know, and then how we bring that to the information we have, or in terms of still life, to the things we have at hand.

And so that thought, that we have what we need, already, has been with me for a while. Which is probably why my soul was a little jump-started in a good way, when listening to one of the most recent On Being podcasts. In this one, Krista Tippett is in convo with Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, a marine biologist, and wow, you don't want to miss it imho.

What really struck me (and there are a lot of takeaways in the episode) is the part where she talks about how we have all the information we need regarding climate:

“So I think that climate communication has focused too much on the problem. I will admit, I don’t read the details of every UN climate report, because I know the summary is, it is worse than you thought, it is happening faster than you thought, and we really need to get our act together. And I focus on the getting our act together part, because I think that’s the pivot that we need right now. We have more than enough information. I’m grateful for the science, and it’s helping us make more nuanced and clear decisions, but the broad strokes that everyone needs to pitch in, have been there for a long time.”

And I think it’s been that way for Covid, too, from the beginning. Yes, we didn’t know everything. But one of the first things I heard about Covid being an aerosol was to imagine that someone had smoked a cigarette, and then left the room. The smoke lingers, the aerosol lingers. And I thought, why aren’t more people sharing this? But they weren’t. It was a communication thing, and then the disinformation gang started coming out in force, and well, say no more….

I love also what Johnson says about how she/we are best motivated by what we love. And I really loved the way she went about her research:

“Oh man. I think it just made it less theoretical. And so I spent a lot of time drinking beer with fishermen. I, for months, was driving around with a cooler full of beer and sodas and snacks in my trunk and a bunch of folding chairs, and I had this survey that was, I don’t know, 200 questions long, and I would just be like, Tell me everything, I’ve got time — and having hundreds of hour, two-hour conversations, with fishermen on Curaçao, on Bonaire and Barbuda and Montserrat.”

Maybe I just want to go around with a cooler of beer and folding chairs, but I just loved that she did this. And her question, What if We Get This Right? Wow, hey? Such a great perspective check.

So, yes, still life. The possibilities. What if this is the order of things that speaks of beauty with the most clarity? What if this composition is the one that creates a necessary feeling of calm in the viewer? What if this is the one you love? What if by arranging this here and that there, a particular layer of the universe rhymes and resonates? If we can get this right, what else can we get right?

I hold out hope, is all. I’m getting better every day.

June 20, 2022