Kraus: A 1968 book of Photographs

Kraus 1968 

A book of photographs

Introduction
Kraus is an accordion-fold hand-bound book  which contains thirty-six 5x7" silver gelatin black & white photographs made in Chicago in 1967--1968 in fulfillment of the Senior Visual Thesis requirement in the Photography Area of the Art Department at the Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago.

The page size is 10 x 11.5" and there are are 25 double-page spreads in the book , some with an image on both of the facing pages, others contain only one image, either on the left page or the right.  

I have selected 12 images from the book and presented them below in six sets of paired images.  The pairs are not necessarily taken directly from the book; my intention here is to give you an overall feeling for the project.  The juxtaposition of images I have presented, however, will provide you with a good sense of how I have juxtaposed and sequenced the 36 images throughout the book.

The space between the images is a dynamic aspect of the book experience.  In the interaction between the images--either those facing each other, or following each other sequentially as you flip through the pages--new "subtle" images are born within the mind or imagination of the viewer.  Even blank pages are important spaces potentially fillable with Imaginal material generated by the overall sequential development of the 36 photographs.  

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Kraus is about many things for me.  After the presentation of selected images from the book I will offer eight brief commentaries addressing particular areas of interest and concern.

___________________________________________

Kraus

12 Selected Photographs   

     1, 2
   

   3, 4

     5, 6

     

     7, 8


  
    9, 1 0


    11, 12

__________________________________________
Commentaries

1)  A Homage to "Street Photography"  ~  Kraus pays Homage to "street photography," a genre that was popular in the 1960's art photography scene, and which of course was very influential on my work in the late 1960's.  Most of all I respected the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson, W. Eugene Smith, Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, Gary Winogrand, Mario Giacomelli and Dave Heath.   


2)  A Visual Love Poem  ~  Kraus was inspired by my blossoming relationship to Gloria Meleo in late 1967 through the spring of 1968 in Chicago.  (See Image #9 below)  

Gloria's sister Phyllis and my best friend Jim Erwin married in the spring of 1968.  When Jim and Phyllis left Rochester for Chicago to go to graduate school at the Institute of Design after marrying, I decided to leave Rochester too.  I felt I had gotten all that I could get from Rochester, the city, and the Rochester Institute of Technology.  Minor White had left RIT to teach at MIT, and I had studied two years with Nathan Lyons in his Home Workshop.  So, I too felt it would be interesting to live in Chicago and study with Aaron Siskind.     

I was accepted into the photography program at the Institute of Design in the spring of 1987.  Gloria visited Phyllis and Jim a few times in Chicago and we began to develop a relationship that gradually intensified by the time I graduated from the Institute of Design in the spring of 1968.  So the photographs in Kraus are a lot about my longing to be with Gloria, to know her better.

In the fall of 1968 Gloria had planned to go to Pratt Institute in Brooklyn to study art, so I decided to move to New York City, to live and work there for a while so I could spend more time with Gloria.  By the summer of 1969 Gloria and I had decided to marry and move to Albuquerque, New Mexico where I was offered a Full Teaching Fellowship in Photography. Gloria pursued her undergraduate art study in New Mexico with an emphasis in ceramics. (See my blog page: Snapshots : Stories of My Life In Photography and Teaching.)


3)  The Vietnam War  ~  Kraus was created during the last phase of the Vietnam War.  There was a growing consciousness among young people like myself that the war was a sham and a travesty.  The draft board was after me and it threatened to deny my growing relationship with Gloria.  I did everything I could do to avoid getting drafted.  After three physical exams--the first two were in Chicago, the last one was in New York City--the draft board finally recognized my physical situation and gave me a 4F classification.  Many of the photographs in Kraus  are about my anger and anxiety about the war, about being drafted, about mu fear of loosing my relationship with Gloria and my country.  Fortunately it all worked out well for me and Gloria.
         

4)  About the Title  ~  The title of the book, Kraus came from Gloria; she mentioned it to me one day while talking about a book she had read for a Russian literature course.  She said the word Kraus meant something like "Young Love," or "The Spring of Love."  I have tried to find the word on the internet but could not locate the word.  But now you know what the title means, at least, to me.


5)  A Music Inspired Project   ~   Kraus is probably the earliest of my many photography projects which were inspired by music.  (See my blog page Music Inspired Photography Projects.)  The sequence of the images, the use of blank pages, and the recurrence of certain images within the book's overall structure was inspired by the music of Richard Wagner, especially his Ring Cycle, and Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time (Remembrance of Things Past).  

I became fascinated by Wagner's Ring Cycle while taking a wonderfully taught European Literature course at the Institute of Design.  The teacher was a Wagner fan who had traveled the world many times to hear the complete Ring Cycle.  He played the piano for us in class to teach us about Wagner's use of leitmotiv in the Ring and in the literature he had been having us read, including Marcel Proust, Thomas Mann, James Joyce, and many others.
  
I listened to Wagner's Ring Cycle constantly when I was working on Kraus.  Certainly both the music and the process of creating Kraus were powerful ways of giving expression for the longing I felt for Gloria.  She was living in Rochester at the time I was making the book, and we were seeing each other about every six to eight weeks in Chicago.


6)   Image Recurrence  ~  Certain images repeat once or in some cases several times, often in slight variation form, within the book's sequence.  There might be slight variations in the repeated image's overall tonal range, or in varying thicknesses of the borders, or perhaps the removal of a border altogether).  These changes mean something; they function something like a visual code that must be interpreted by the viewer.

This was my way of experimenting visually with Wagner's idea of leitmotif.  I was interested in seeing how the same picture could mean in different ways when placed in varying visual contexts within the book's overall structure.  

Later, when I discovered the music of Morton Feldman in 1999-2000 the idea of repeating images became an obsessive aspect of my Creative Process.  Two of my Feldman inspired projects, Triadic Memories and The Departing Landscape, were very large, multi-chaptered projects which used image repetition in many ways in response to his music.  Later, in 2011-13, I continued the idea of image repetition in my project "An Imaginary Book" and particularly the symmetrical photographs I began making for this large multi-chaptered project.    

As my Creative Process progressed over the years I would often re-use select images in various blog projects, or I would use the same image in multiple transformed variations across multiple projects.  After I started making symmetrical photographs I would often present the straight "source" photograph and the symmetrical version of that image within the same project, or in different projects.  (see my blog link Sacred Art Photography Projects)   
   

7)   Light Tonalities  ~  The frequent use of light tonalities in my Kraus photographs was probably inspired by two very different photographers: I became fascinated by the photographs of Lee Friedlander in which people's faces were washed out to pure white, as if they were wearing a mask.  And later, I saw a box of photographs that Mario Giacomelli had sent to Nathan Lyons at George Eastman House.  His use of light and dark tonalities excited me even more than Friedlander's work.  The light tones have persisted in my photography in many ways. (See the following links to my projects: Faint Photographs;  Dream Portraits;  Negative Print Series ~ Memories of Childhood;  Snow Photographs.)


8)  The Hand Bound Book  ~  My use of the hand-bound book as the presentation form for my Senior Visual Thesis requirement at the Institute of Design was largely influenced by Nathan Lyons.  I had taken two years of his Home Workshop in Rochester, NY. while at the same time pursuing my undergraduate degree at RIT.    Nathan spoke regularly about the power of the book form as a means of making a strong and visually articulate statement on a theme photographically.  Robert Frank's book The Americans was held up as a masterpiece of photographic book making in Nathan's Workshops.  

Nathan gave us several book assignments, placing emphasis on image sequencing and image juxtapositions.   We were expected to make an overall coherent visual statement with the photographs selected for each book.  The idea was that the whole of the book should be greater than the sum of its individual images.  

I found that the accordion-fold spine approach to hand binding books was the easiest and most practical approach for presenting my photographs.  I standardized the page size and print size and placement of the dry-mounted image on each of the separate pages (heavy bristol paper), then I taped the double page spreads together (on the back), then after deciding on the sequence of double page spreads, I taped each of the double page spreads together (again on the back of the bristol paper).  I used a heavier matte board for the front and back covers.  

The accordion-fold method of binding made it quite easy to edit or re-arrange the sequence of the mounted photographs.  I just removed the tape off the back of the page I wanted to move and then re-taped the page in its new location in the sequence.  

You can see one of the books I made for Nathan's Home Workshop at this link: Untitled Book, 1965-66.)

When I created the Photography sub-major for the Art Department at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, (1975 - 2007) I required my Photo II students to make a hand bound book of photographs for their final project of the semester.  Some students would chose to make books for their senior final projects as well.  

Addendum

Photographs 1968-69 (from my project Homage to Giacometti Part 7)

Below are some photographs I took in 1968-69 in Chicago and New York City.  Most of the images were included in a book of photographs I made for my senior thesis project at the Institute of Design in Chicago entitled Kraus.  In general, the images are about anxiety and stress, about feeling alone, confused, fearful and ungrounded, about how the young were being indoctrinated to war, and about wanting to distance myself from the military.  After graduating from ID in Chicago in 1968 I went to New York City hoping to continue and deepen my relationship to Gloria.  The image below entitled  Entangled in String was made in New York City in 1969, just before Gloria and I got married and we moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico where I studied for my MFA degree which would allow me to teach photography at the college level, and Gloria finished up her undergrad work in ceramics.

Just before leaving New Mexico in 1972 Gloria gave birth to our son Shaun, an event which appears to have been a miracle.  (To learn more about the miracle see my project New Mexico Photographs  1971-72)

Young Soldier 1968  

Young Soldiers 1968  Chicago

Soldiers and Bystander  1968  Chicago

Walking Men  1968  Chicago

 Entangled in String   1969   New York City

My Shadow on a Walking Man   1969   New York City

Ungrounded   1968 Chicago 

On a cold winter night in 1969 before my third military physical exam, Gloria and I went to hear the New York Philharmonic perform Beethoven's last Symphony, the ninth "Choral Symphony," with free tickets someone had given us.  I was so anxious that that my right thumb twitched nervously, completely out of control, throughout the entire concert. 

Fortunately, the letter written by the Chicago doctor on my behalf worked well for me in New York City.  I finally received the medical 4F classification.  At last I felt free to move on with my life.

* 

I had applied for a MFA graduate fellowship in Photography at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, and in the spring of 1969 I received notice that I was awarded the fellowship.  I would be expected to teach Intro to Photo courses each semester to earn my tuition and a living stipend.  

I wanted to ask Gloria to come to New Mexico with me, but was uncertain about doing that.  She was in school in Brooklyn and I was afraid that she would not be willing to leave her studies to be with me in New Mexico.  I then had a dream in which a blind 'wise old man' who worked in a circus told me I would be a fool if I didn't ask Gloria to marry me.  

So I asked Gloria to come to New Mexico with me.  She agreed, but, because of her family situation, we decided it would be best if we got married so we could live together with her parents' blessings.  I proposed to Gloria and she accepted . . .   

This project is a revised version of an earlier project page about 
my music inspired projects.  The re-published version
was posted on my blog's Welcome Page as
 Kraus, 1968  on December 7, 2019.

Related Links:

The Complete Collection of Music Inspired Photography Projects

Snapshots : Stories of My Life In Photography and Teaching

A Personal History of Photography  An illustrated, annotated chronology of all my photography projects 

New Mexico Photographs, 1971-72

Welcome Page  to The Departing Landscape website which includes the complete hyperlinked listing of my online photography projects dating back to the 1960's, my resume, contact information, and more.

Center of Being pt3 Epilogue : Turning things Inside out

Turning Things Round & Inside-Out

The Center of Being : Epilogue part 3: 

Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs

Click on the image for best viewing
The Center of Being : Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs
Part 1   :  The Internal Dimensions of An Object
Part 2  :  Commentaries On Selected Photographs
Part 3  :  Epilogue : The Circle  &  The Wheel of Consciousness
Addendum : The Blue Pearl

Textual Prelude

By turning the world inside out, by giving birth in the world to that  

interiority which is characteristic of the things of the soul . . .  

we return the hidden dimension to the manifest  

and uncover the depths that lie just under 

the surface of the world.     

For Henry Corbin the bridge between creature and Creator is ta'wil, 

the transformation of the sensory world into symbols, into open- 

ended mysteries that shatter, engage, and transform 

the entire being of the creature.    

Ta'wil transmutes the world into symbols which by their

 very nature transcend the distinction between the outer and the inner, the 

subject and the object, and by interiorizing the cosmos, by revealing the Imago mundi 

[the Imaginal world], transform and lead the soul beyond the literal understanding of the world

  to its truth . . . its origin.

Tom Cheetham 

The World Turned Inside Out:

Henry Corbin and Islamic Mysticism

~

When you receive shaktipat initiation from the Guru . . .

your eyes are opened to an inner world that you

never knew existed.  ~  You see familiar

things in a new way. . the miraculous

begins to envelope your existence;

you cannot tell if all this beauty

is coming from the inside out,

or  the outside  in.

Gurumayi Chidvilasananda

Inner Treasures

Introduction

Henry Corbin, in his fascinating book Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth, explores the universe of the ancient Persian sages and mystics, the angelic Mazdean universe in which the Earth is transmuted through archetypal-imaginative vision into a symbol of the Heavenly Paradise, the center of the soul.  He writes: "the dawns, waters, and plants are perceived in their Angel, because beneath the appearance the apparition becomes visible to the Imagination.  And this is the phenomenon of the Angel, the figure which the active Imagination reveals itself to be, which it reveals to itself beneath the appearances . . . "

Corbin explains in his insightful scholarly-poetic way how the Mazdean Earth is irradiated with its own internal light, a mystical energy known to the ancient Persians as Xvarnah, light which "constitutes, haloes, and enlightens the soul, and the primordial Image of itself which the soul projects.  Thus it is the organ by which the soul shows to itself earthly things transfigured. . ."  Corbin then continues: "In the soul raised to incandescence by this Light of Glory [Xvarnah] with which it is finally identified, it becomes possible to see that the Earth is an Angel, or rather for the Earth to be seen in its heavenly person . . ."

This primordial, luminous, transfigured vision of the world is precisely what I strive to achieve in my symmetrical photographs.  Since 2011 I have been exploring the notion of the sacred in art, the possibility of a Sacred Art in today's contemporary world which is fraught with terrorism, governmental corruption, and environmental crisis.  I want the Images I create to transmute outward appearance into incandescent symbols, Images imbued with the grace, the sacred, archetypal power through which I can return to the center of the Created world, the Unitary Reality of the divine Origin, the Soul, or in terms of the yoga I practice, the divine Self.

My symmetrical thing-centered photographs are--like the Earth-- essentially round or circular in form.  They are visual manifestations of an unfolding creative process in which the hidden interior archetypal world manifests from its center-point and opens outward into visual appearance.  These images which "turn the world inside out" move internally according to their own mysterious circular orbits, but they also lead the viewer toward the center-point of the image, the origin of all creation.  In this regard, the images have the character of a mandala, an instrument of meditation, a contemplative process of turning within.  Henry Corbin wrote of the Persian archetypal representations of the Earth as mandalas, images which "guide a movement of thought that travels, not on a syllogistic or dialectical track, but as in the way of the ta'wil, the exegesis [interpretation, exposition] of symbols . . .  leading back to the origin, which is the center . . . where the apparent can be occulted and the hidden manifested. . ."

The symmetrical photographs can also be thought of (perceived) as "whirling wheels" of consciousness, energy centers known in yogic traditions as cakras, power places of concentrated, radiating creative energy known as chiti shakti.  The most powerful cakra is the Heart.

The Circle & The Wheel 

of Consciousness

  
"The Heart is the Hub of All Sacred Places.  Go There and Roam"  click here
In the yoga tradition that I practice, the Siddha Yoga Path, the center of all things, of all space, of all being--both interior and exterior--is the Heart of Supreme Consciousness.  The yogic sages and scriptures teach that an infinite number of universes exist within the Heart, thus when we experience the center of any thing, place or space in this world we are experiencing the center of our own divine Heart, that place of Origin from which everything flashes forth into earthly existence.  The essence or presence of all things is said to be the Heart of the Supreme Lord, which is symbolized by the point or bindu at the very center of the Wheel of Consciousness.  The practice of yoga, then, is the act of turning within and becoming centered and identified with the Heart, the internal primordial center of being where we come face to face with the hidden and yet palpable presence of the truth of our own divine Self, the Origin of Unitary Reality, the place where heaven and earth are inseparably bound as One thing. 

In the quote above (The Heart is the Hub) by the great yogic saint of modern South India, Bhagwan Nityananda (the spiritual guide of Swami Muktananda, and who commanded Muktananda to initiate the Siddha Yoga Path), the word "Heart" is clearly identified with the word "hub" which connotes the center of a transcendent, cosmic wheel, a wheel of infinitely immense proportions which turns in a circular movement of unfathomable sacred power which envelopes all that is.  The saint's command to "go there and roam" invokes the idea of a mandala and one's movement through the mandala's internal landscape to its center, its hub, the Heart of the Supreme Creator.  The modern poet, Rainer Maria Rilke wrote of this in a very personal way:

I live my life in growing orbits,
which move out over the things of the world. . .
I am circling around God, around the ancient tower,
and I have been circling for a thousand years,
and I still don't know if I am a falcon,
Or a storm, or a great song.  
                                                      Rainer Maria Rilke  /  trans: Robert Bly 

Our own personal lives consist of recurring cyclic moments around a sacred center like the way the planets circle the sun, and the way constellations of atoms, each with its own system of protons and neutrons, are held in their orbits by an all-powerful nucleus.  At all levels of existence, in all cultures, we will discover circles, movement round a central point of ineffable transcendental energy.  For example, the Lakota Indians of North America have a saying:  Everything the power does, it does in a circle. 

The turning of the Wheel of Consciousness around its hub, the Heart, is an archetypal movement; and equally so is the movement of "turning within" and entering the Heart.  Interestingly, Swami Shantananda describes the wheel of consciousness diagrammatically as four concentric circles around a central circle which is the Self, the heart.  I personally find this of particular interest because of the diagram's direct association with the four-fold symmetrical photographs I have been making over the past five years, images in which four repeated mirroring images conjoin at the very center-point of the image, the point from which the image appears to have unfolded from a hidden, internal, archetypal-Imaginal dimension into outward visual manifestation. 

When the symmetrical photographs function for me at their most meaningful, as true, living archetypal symbols, they seem to be aligned with and in correspondence with the yogic conception of the Wheel of Consciousness.  The center-point of the symmetrical photograph, then, becomes identified with the hub of the wheel, the Heart, the Supreme Self. 

Swami Shantanda says that for him personally the Wheel has as its nucleus the awareness "I am" with all the powers of the universe whirling round at its command; and he says every human being and every thing in the universe is an embodiment of this vibrant wheel of powers, a microcosm of the divine order.  He briefly explains that in the yogic tradition there is a rich tradition of study and meditation on these circles of power or cakras which are said to be constellated throughout the human body in an orderly way; it is understood, he says, that these cakras are also intertwining throughout our lives.  Swamiji writes: "The events of our personal lives, and, no less, the movements of human history, take form from the continuous interactions among the forces of these conscious circles."  

The goal of yoga is achieved, explains Swamiji, when one has entered the vast Heart of Consciousness and become united with its perfect stillness.  As I have written many times, the practice of photography is, for me, a meditative yogic practice, and the creation of four-fold symmetrical photographs is nothing less than the ritual-creation of Images which have the archetypal character of the mandala, images which still my mind, and, through the grace of the image gives me the very experience of the unity of being.  The symmetrical photographs, at their most articulate best, celebrate the center of being, the soul of the world, the Heart of my very own divine Self.  

My Creative Process places all the things of the world in the Great Circle of Power, the most sacred place in which everything in this world is experienced in its Angel, in its Center of Being, the Heart.

*

Conclusion
I will conclude this Epilogue and the Center of Being project with one last commentary on an image which I presented in part 1, an image of two flames reflecting upon themselves and in the process of merging into One another.  This is an image which symbolizes for me Corbin's Angel of the Earth, the soul raised to incandescence, and correspondingly, in terms of the yogic teachings, the Fire of Consciousness, the Light of the Self shinning within the Heart.  

In Swami Shantananda's commentary on the final sutra, #20, of the Pratyabhijna-hrdayam he writes:

In the entire universe there is one knower, one knowledge, and one known.  Pratyabhijna, then, is the knowledge of the knower turning back to know itself.  The light of the Self reflects on itself, always turning to its own rapturous presence as the only knowledge that exists.  In the impeccable space of our own heart, love adores love, bliss revels in bliss, light shines on light, every action is an act of worship, and all perceptions are forms of meditation.  Splendor of Recognition, Swami Shantananda

*          *          *

This project, "Epilogue" to the Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs

project was announced in the Latest Additions section

at the top of my websites Welcome Page

on March 1, 2016

Click on the image for best viewing
The Center of Being : Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs
Part 1   :  The Internal Dimensions of An Object
Part 2  :  Commentaries On Selected Photographs
Part 3  :  Epilogue : The Circle  &  The Wheel of Consciousness

Addendum : The Blue Pearl

Other Related Links
Siddha Yoga Path
Thing-Centered Photographs  1980s / 2003-ongoing
Pratyabhijna-hydayam / Splendor of Recognition by Swami Shantananda

On the Construction of Symmetrical Photographs
Celestial Gardens
Preface to "An Imaginary Book"
Part 5 : Acadia / Arcadia 

OnThe Sacred in Art : An Ongoing Series of Photography Projects
"An Imaginary Book"  2013
The Angels  2014
The Photograph as Icon  2014-15
Snow : Photographs from the Silver World  2015
Photography and Yoga  2015
As Above, So Below : Mirror In the Temple  2015
Field of Vision  2015
Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs  2016

Welcome Page  to The Departing Landscape website which includes the complete hyperlinked listing of my online photography projects dating back to the 1960's, my resume, contact information, and more.