11/21/16

The Sacred Art Photography Projects : Steven Foster



  The Sacred Art Photography Projects
Steven D. Foster


From the project:
The Center of Being
In 2011, while traveling in Turkey I experienced the spontaneous eruption of a symbol while viewing a display of Islamic Sacred Art.  This mystical experience initiated within me several related questions:  What is Sacred Art?  What is "the sacred"  in sacred art?  Would it be possible to produce Sacred Art within a contemporary art practice (such as my own)?  

 These questions generated a response in the form of a two-year-long visual and textual meditation--a multi-chaptered photography project, entitled "An Imaginary Book" 2011-13.  I consider the Imaginary Book as the first in a quartet of important Sacred Art Photography projects; the other three are The Angels  2014,  The Photograph as ICON  2015, an important project in that it helps to clarify my idea of The Symbol and The Symbolic Photograph, which is the very heart of the notion of a Sacred Image. The fourth:  Photography and Yoga  2015 which in the first chapter describes in detail my 1987 meeting with Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, a True yogic Saint from India, as Sadguru and my classic yogic experience of her grace.

Gurumayi's grace made the other three projects possible.  "An Imaginary Book" was a major turning point in my creative process.  After the completion of that project in 2013 nearly all of my subsequent photography projects to the present moment (2022) have been focused on questions regarding selected yogic teachings and sacred art in general.  This blog page contains the complete, updated listing of projects I consider appropriate to the overarching title: the Sacred Art Photography Projects and other related projects. 

The Sacred Art projects are a sustained meditation--in both visual and textual forms--which strive to unveil the Hidden Treasure, the divine presence, the Supreme Self which dwells behind or within the appearances of the world, the things of this earthly plane of existence.  The revelations occur for me through the grace of my Creative Process and the The Symbolic Photograph.  

 It is the Symbol which conjoins corresponding opposites--the inner and outer, visible and invisible worlds--into an Imaginal Unitary Reality.  The True, living, grace-filled symbolic photograph transcends the apparent differences of dual existence: subject and object, above and below, dark and light, heaven and earth.  The symbol--its grace, and the grace of the contemplator--makes it possible to experience the Oneness of Being.  It is through the grace of the symbol--and our deep, sincere engagement with it--that we can dissolve our psychic bind (attachment) with the apparent outer world and become free to return to our inner, divine Origin, the Truth of who we truly are: the divine Self.

 The yogic scriptures tell us that remembering God, Guru, or the divine Self is the most essential practice of the spiritual seeker.  We become what we think about, what we meditate upon . . .   For me making photographs has become an unbroken meditation upon, and a visual affirmation of, the divine nature of all the things in the Created Universe including that divinity which dwells in every human Heart, and that exists within me, as me.  

I offer the fruits of my grace-filled practices--both yogic and photographic (which have merged into One) to my True Guru, my Sadguru, Gurumayi Chidvilasananda--and the entire Siddha Lineage--with the greatest love, respect and gratitude.
This photo is from 
  
The List of  Sacred Art Photography Projects     
Here is the list of online blog projects that directly addresses the question of sacred art within my creative process.  Each title is hyperlinked: simply click on the title and you will be taken to the entire online project. 

 The projects are listed from the most recent at the top down to the initiating project "An Imaginary Book" 2011-13, at the very bottom.  Several of the projects are multi-chaptered, that is to say, they contain several links under the main project title.  
  

My Favorite Sacred Art Photography Projects:
Among my favorite Sacred Art Photography Projects, I would include the following, especially because of the texts included with the photographs.

The Sacred in things, Places & Photographs Thing and Meadow photographs  Sept. 2022
Blue Angels   2-2023 A project about Death, Angels & the Blue Pearl

 
Also, I encourage you to explore the Welcome Page of my photography blog-website, TheDepartingLandscape.blogspot.com  It contains all of my online photography projects, many of which are sacred art projects "in spirit" though they do not textually address the questions of the Sacred as directly as in this list of blog projects I have identified as Sacred Art Photography Projects.  The date of each project follows the hyperlinked title, and the projects are lists from the most recent to the earliest, a project I consider to be one of the most important of all: "An Imaginary Book."


The Complete (updated) List of 
 Sacred Art Photography Projects: 

Sacred Art & The Symbolic Photograph  April, 2022
Maya's Veils of Illusion & The Truth That Lies Behind Them  February, 2022 
The Splendor of That Auspicious Interior Light  December, 2021 
THAT (ineffable, invisible, interior) PRESENCE  October 30, 2021
Snow Photographs In Praise of Christmas Music  Winter 2020-21 
The Conference of the Birds  ~  Images inspired by an escalating Pandemic    2020
 Returning Home : Interiorization ~  Images inspired by an escalating Pandemic    2020
Makom : the Place  2020
 Homage to Federico Mompou and his Sacred Music of Silence  2019
 I Was So Happy To See My Friend's Face   2018
 Studies IX : Lila  ~ Seeing Presence in the light and details of my everyday life  2018
The Rising Sun : Prelude To An Exhibition  2018
Postlude To An Exhibition :  Homage to White, Stieglitz, Silvestrov  2018
Alone : Blue Symmetrical Photographs  2017 
 The Eye of Siva : White  Blue & Gold Snow Photographs  2017 
The Siva Sutra Rock Photographs  2017 
The Pulsating Uncreated Heart : Origin & Center of Creation  2017
 Creation-Dissolution of a World  2017
Grace-Photograph-Symbol-Universe  2017
Time  Time-Changes  Sacred Time  2017
Snow Angels~Rilke's Angel of the Elegies~Khidr, Angel of the Earth  2016
The City of Souls  2016  
There Is No Thing To Know   2016
The Blue Pearl   2016
The Center of Being   2016   
Field of Vision   2015  
As Above, So Below ~ Mirror in the Temple   2015  
Photography and Yoga   2015  
Snow : Photographs from the Silver World   2015  
The Photograph as ICON   2015  
The Angels   2014 
The Space Between Color and Black&White   2014  
The Creative Process   2014 
Posted by Steven D. Foster at 11:44 AM