Thing-Centered
Photographs
1992-94 / 2019
Introduction
It is April, 2019 and I am just now posting onto my blog this online version of a project I completed and exhibited in 1994. There are many reasons why I have waited so long to post this project. Perhaps viewers would consider the images "uninteresting, or maybe too dark emotionally--many of the things I've photographed are lonely, sad, neglected or forgotten; and some are even "tearing" and others are unrecognizable and thus nameless. In any case, this is an important project for me.
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In late 1984 I read a book of poetry edited and Introduced by the American poet Robert Bly entitled News of the Universe. I was deeply moved by Bly's essays and commentaries. The book as a whole, and especially the chapter entitled "Object Poems" inspired me to make some photographs. The "Object" or "Thing" photographs I began making became the inspiration for an important turning point in my creative process. Since reading News of the Universe I have produced a large body of photographs that I have identified thematically as "Thing-Centered" photographs.
I first started consciously making "thing" photographs for my Family-Life project (1985-88) and since then have never stopped making them when the opportunity arises. Indeed this project of 1992-94 was the first complete project based on the "Thing-Centered" theme, and the work became an initiating force that generated a long-term six-year project (1994-2000) of miniature photographs, entitled Studies, many of which were thing-centered images. Other Studies projects have followed, and all of them contain thing photographs. See the chronological listing of my online "Thing" projects at the bottom of this page.
Bly's Introductory essay to News of the Universe, and the essays that introduce each of the six chapters, and his two Afterword essays are beautiful, poetic, heartfelt arguments for the consciousness alive in all the things of the world. I recommend the book with great enthusiasm. If you go to my blog page entitled News of the Universe, Poetry for the Departing Landscape, you will get a taste of what is in store for you in the book, which was published by Sierra Club Books in 1980. Though there is an environmental agenda that recurs in Bly's writing, his choice of poems for the book and the overarching meaning of his essays are in no way limited by that agenda. It seems to me the message of the book is even more relevant today (2019) than it was forty years later. The poetic striving for a greater Truth, the living Consciousness that pervades all the things of this world, and indeed the entire Universe, is the other even more powerful creative force that pervades Bly's book.
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The photographs I am presenting here were first exhibited at the Michael H. Lord Gallery, in Milwaukee, in 1994. I am including, below, the "Artist Statement" I wrote for the exhibition. I neglected to pay homage to Robert Bly in the statement, though I can see now that most of the words and ideas, and even the writing style in "my" statement were inspired by his wonderful writings in News of the Universe.
I want to offer my heartfelt gratitude to Robert Bly (b. 1926 - ) for his life's work in poetry, and for his beautiful and important book News of the Universe. It is my sincere hope that everyone in the world will read the book. In this era of Trumpian denials of both science and the natural world, climate change, Global Warming, and the rapid decline of available drinkable water on our planet, Bly's book will offer some comfort and at the same time I hope motivate all of us to make some urgently needed changes in the way we see and interact with the natural world. I dedicate this online version of the Thing-Centered Photographs (of 192-94) project to Robert Bly.
Here is the statement, dated 1994, inspired by Bly and his book which I included with the exhibited photographs:
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Michael H. Lord Gallery
Artist Statement
Thing-Centered Photographs
1992-94
The things of the world are alive. In moments of intense seeing, everything has eyes. Everything is looking at me!
In the Mediterranean world at the time of Christ people believed that there were tears in things. Lucretius called it lacrimae rerum, literally "the tears inside nature itself." In our century, the poet Pablo Neruda wrote: "I know the earth, and I am sad."
There is something beautiful, something holy in a rain of tears; in the sober recognition of intense feeling; in seeing a thing clearly, deeply, with respect. The thirteenth-century Sufi poet-saint, Rumi, said "our soul takes the shape of things." Maybe this is why I sometimes feel it's so difficult to know where I begin and leave off in the world of things.
A traditional poem from Ireland says it all so simply:
I am the flash of sun on water.
I am the teeth in the sea-sharks's mouth.
I am the wind on the sea.
I am a hawk on a cliff.
I am a dewdrop, a tear of the sun.
I am the silence of things secret.
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Francis Ponge, a great poet who took the side of "things" with is prose poems about "the silent world of things" was highlighted in Bly's chapter on the "Object Poem." Ponge taught me to "listen" to what things are trying to say to us. In this respect, I think of my thing-centered photographs as an attempt to both listen to things and give visual form to the "silent voice" of things. I have tried to see and visually acknowledge those things that have been ignored, forgotten, overlooked; those things that long to be known and heard. I believe there are many things in this world that are sad; and they are sad because we have not paid attention; we have not looked; we have not listened.
My thing-centered images represent a "silent conversation" that has occurred between myself and the objects I've photographed. Also, in some instances certain images strive to unveil a conversation that existed between the objects I have centered on and the environment in which I found them.
When I center my attention on an object, I must place the Thing in the center of my picture frame. In this way the resulting photograph is a visual affirmation of a conscious and intimate relationship that has occurred between me and the thing photographed. In such "silent conversations" perhaps there can be at least a felt revelation of the consciousness we both share.
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Especially in the early years of my striving to articulate the "thing-centered" photograph, I was very preoccupied with the way a thing affected the place in which it was situated, and similarly the way the place affected the thing I was photographing. Many of the photographs presented in this project are concerned with place as well as with the thing. Later the thing-centered photographs focused on things that were more isolated. Then I began suspended things in the center of black space, which symbolized for me a consciousness merged with silence.
See my project: Thing-Centered Photographs (in black space) 1980's / 2003
It's possible that a thing and its environment are truly inseparable from each other in a world that essentially is a Unitary Reality. However, in an attempt to be helpful to the viewer, I have given each image a descriptive titled. Under each of the photographs I have named the thing at the center of my attention, and then described (in parenthesis) first names or describes in words the thing I have centered upon, and then (in parenthesis) I have briefly described the place or environment in which the thing was found. If you, the viewer, finds this information of little or no use, or interest, I encourage you to ignore the titles and focus solely on the image. Most important to me is the consciousness or presence which pervades the image of the thing I've photographed.
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In 1987, just as I was nearing the end of my Family-Life project, the ideas that drove my impulse to make the thing-centered photographs exploded into a new level of experiential understanding when I met my Siddha Yoga Meditation Master, Gurumayi Chidvilasananda. Her yogic teachings are very clear: there is nothing that is not a form of God, the divine Self, the Light of Consciousness. Every Thing is alive with the Creative Power of the Universe, with grace, with Shakti.
After practicing Siddha Yoga for the past 32 years, my experience tells me that yes, indeed, we all share the same living, divine consciousness. This is the essential message, the "News" that Robert Bly writes about in his book News of the Universe. Poetry is one means of transcending the separating limits of ego perception, and the symbolic photograph, an image radiant with grace, is another.
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Here are twenty-five photographs from the 1992-94 Thing-Centered Photographs project. They are digital copies made from the original 10x10" silver gelatin prints. After the photographs, I have provided links to several of my other projects in which the Thing-Centered photograph has a dominant presence. Welcome to my 2019 digital online version of my 1992-94 project Thing-Centered Photographs.
Thing-Centered
Photographs
1992-94 / 2019
#1 Thing-Centered Photograph : Leather bag (protruding through the back window of an old car parked next to a garage door)
#2 Thing-Centered Photograph : A small curled up animal (inside a metal bowl suspended in black space)
#3 Thing-Centered Photograph : Hammer (laying in a puddle which is reflecting the sky)
#4 Thing-Centered Photograph : House plant (behind a pulled down window shade)
#5 Thing-Centered Photograph : Rusting chain (wrapped round a cement column) #6 Thing-Centered Photograph : Corn Stalk (in a corn field, illuminated by the setting sun)
#7 Thing-Centered Photograph : Paper bird (taped to a window)
#8 Thing-Centered Photograph : A Dancing Bear (in a zoo pool)
#10 Thing-Centered Photograph : A Splash of Powder (on the top of a table)
#11 Thing-Centered Photograph : A Piece of Broken Wood (in a vacant lot, leaning against a fence)
#12 Thing-Centered Photograph : Piles of books (in a public library)
#13 Thing-Centered Photograph : A piece of white chalk (next to an eraser on a wooden trough)
#14 Thing-Centered Photograph : Bottle cap (near a paper bag on an architectural ledge)
#15 Thing-Centered Photograph : A Beer bottle (next to a stone under a bush)
#16 Thing-Centered Photograph : Puddle (face in an alley next to a piece of wood)
#17 Thing-Centered Photograph : Broken Plaster Dog (facing toward a shadowed area)
#18 Thing-Centered Photograph : Styrofoam cup
#19 Thing-Centered Photograph : Tearing Painted Stake (in a dark hole in the ground)
#20 Thing-Centered Photograph : Leaves (on cement steps, at night, two line shadows)
#21 Thing-Centered Photograph : A ripped open burlap bag filled with stones
#22 Thing-Centered Photograph : A piece of broken concrete (under a bridge)
#23 Thing-Centered Photograph : Milk box (tearing, on a front porch)
#24 Thing-Centered Photograph : Soap Bottle, smudged with black (sitting on a piece of glass)
#25 Thing-Centered Photograph : Two Wooden Cabinet Knobs and one tear (next to a pulled curtain and window)
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Other Thing-Center
Photography Projects
Thing-Centered photographs have appeared in so many of my photography projects after 1985, and in particular projects which includes Straight Photographs, that it would not be useful to list them all. Thus I have listed below, in chronological order, those projects which contain an abundance of this kind of imagery.
For an additional written statements regarding the Thing-Centered photographs, see my Introduction to Thing-Centered Photographs (with black space), and my Introduction to the Collected Studies Projects.
I also encourage you to see this link News of the Universe, in which I introduce Robert Bly's book and briefly mention one of his two Afterword "Meditations" or essays at the back of the book. In that link you will find a selection of my favorite poems from News of the Universe, many of which are "Thing Poems" or "Object Poems." Two of my favorites are Charles Simic's poem Stone, and Pablo Neruda's poem Ode To Salt.
Thing-Centered Photographs:
A chronological collection of related online projects
Collected Studies Projects See the Introduction
Straight Photographs The second of two essays; the first is about my Symmetrical Photographs
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This project page was announced on
my blog's Welcome Page on April 14, 2019
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.
