8/2/19

Emergence, 1973, Atlanta

  
Emergence
Atlanta, 1973


Introduction
Immediately after graduating in the spring of 1972 with an MFA degree from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque I was offered a teaching position at Georgia State University, Atlanta.  In the fall of 1972, I began teaching with John McWillams who had created the photography program within the Art Department.

The ten photographs I am presenting here were made in the latter part of my first year in Atlanta, and the project was completed in late 1973.  The word Emergence and the photographs I have presented here, mean many things to me, as will become obvious as you read the commentary I have provided following the presentation of the photographs.

If you have not seen the project that chronologically precedes this one, I encourage you to visit the New Mexico Photographs, 1971-72I consider Emergence a continuation of the story which was begun in New Mexico.    ~  Welcome to Emergence, Atlanta, 1973.


The Photographs
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Commentaries
The Emergence photographs are imbued with a quality of slow, long, carefully studied and concentrated seeing.  That is in part due to the fact that all of the photographs were made with a 4x5 view camera on a tripod. The search for images was as much about looking inside as outside.  I understand and fully agree with Fredrick Sommer who once stated: "You only find outside what already exists within you."

Though I didn't know what I was searching for . . . a direction, an idea, a visual theme, anything that would lead me to an eventual destination . . .  I had already learned that I could trust my Creative Process.  I just needed to be patient, and keep working.

I am writing this text in July, 2019.  Looking back on that early period of my career as a teacher and exhibiting artist--which essentially began in Atlanta--it seems like everything was emerging and unfolding, and just as it needed to.  A year earlier I had completed a major Written Thesis on the ideas of Carl Jung in relation to my Creative Process in photography, and his ideas, of course, influenced not only my teaching but also my picture-making.  At practically the same time my wife Gloria and I were gifted with our first of two children, Shaun.  He was just a few months old when we arrived in Atlanta.

In the following brief collection of commentaries on each of the ten photographs, it will become apparent how Carl Jung's ideas, which had cast a spell over my photography in New Mexico, continued to impact my work in Atlanta.  Jung's ideas about synchronicity had formed what became the center of my Written Thesis:  The Symbolic Photograph.  In the commentaries I am about to share with you on images created 46 years after I first made them, I have chosen to try to discuss the work from the perspective of the Jungian world view that preoccupied me in those important formative years in New Mexico.  (see my New Mexico Landscapes & Interiors project).  Each of the ten images I have commented on here continue to function for me as symbols.

There were probably over twenty images in the project when I had completed it in 1973, however in 2019 I found only fourteen vintage silver gelatin prints in my collection.  All of the prints in the series are approximately 6.25"x8" in size.  The ten prints I selected for inclusion in this digital version of the Emergence project were scanned and then adjusted with Photoshop software before posting onto this blog page.


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Image #1.  I was drawn to making this photograph when I noticed the illuminated pebble laying on the edge of the horizontal line where shadow and light meet.  That pebble became the center point of my attention, and so I placed it in the center of my picture space; everything else just seemed to fall perfectly into place.  ~  I had been seeing these kinds of events frequently in that first year of photographing in Atlanta:  a little thing would catch the light and then my attention, and then the thing seemed to call out to me: "I am here.  I have been looking for you, and now you have found me. Take a photograph."  ~  The heart shape near the bottom edge of the picture has--quite noticeably--a direct relationship to the pieces of a broken glass bottle on the left edge.  After contemplating this, I believe the picture is dramatically pointing out the stress I was feeling: of being a new parent, in a new state, in a new living space; the stress of beginning a new job--my first full time teaching position.  Everything had changed in my and Gloria's life.  Our son Shaun was not sleeping much at nights and so we were both sleep deprived.  It was stressful for Gloria to spend long stretches of time alone with Shaun while I was away teaching or out photographing, and we were living in a rapidly changing neighborhood on the outskirts of Atlanta.  We had chosen to live in a house (rented), and in a location outside of the city, in a more rural area.  ~  The entire experience of living in Georgia was new and challenging and being sleep deprived, Gloria and I were always feeling "on edge."  Image #1 sums up most everything we were going though and feeling in our first year in Atlanta.  The broken bottle and the heart represents for me a feeling of loss in regards to that earlier time when we were newly married lovers, and students--when romance won the day.  With the birth of our first child, the completion of our school years, and the beginning of my teaching career and Gloria's new role as a mother, both of us had entered a new phase of our lives with new roles to play and new responsibilities, each of which came with its own unique constellation of stressful challenges.


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Image #2.  I would probably have titled this picture The Queen, or perhaps The Great Mother if I had been titling the pictures for this project.  The photograph has a numinous quality.  It's mystery is something I enjoy experiencing in my photographs--as long as it has manifested spontaneously within my Creative Process.  In that regard, this image authentically functions for me as a symbol even after 46 years have passed since the making of it.  ~  The image has an archetypal presence that for me has something to do with what Jung may have termed the Eternal Feminine.  ~  Perhaps we are witnessing a birth, here; the emergence of a new life.  Perhaps something is being devoured or purified by fire.  ~  This is the only image of the ten photographs presented here in which I have noticeably manipulated or transformed the photographic image (see the lower left hand corner) with a technique known as "flashing" or solarization   I used this technique frequently in the work I presented in my MFA Visual Thesis Exhibition at the University of New Mexico.  (Click here to see the 1971-72 New Mexico project)


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Image #3.  Four of the ten photographs presented here have circles or rings in them.  This is the first of those four.  In Jungian terms, the circle or ring or spiral represents a condition of wholeness or perfection, the Oneness of Being.  ~  A ladder goes down into the darkness that perhaps offers an adventurer a magic ring--a familiar mythological-archetypal motif.  But the potential to descend is obstructed by the luminous bar that cuts horizontally across the vertical picture plane.  As the viewer/contemplator of the image, I feel un-invited to enter the deep dark space below the bar.  As the photographer who made this image, perhaps I am attracted to the unknown, but feel unprepared for what I could find in that realm of darkness-- which in Jungian terms, is the unconscious psyche.


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Image #4.  This photograph embodies the idea of emergence in a very simple, direct, elegant way.  Along with image #10, it is among my very favorite images in the project.  ~  A horizontal monolith (a piece of masonite perhaps) arches upward out of the shadowed darkness into a soft silvery light--a light that seems as if it could be coming from within the surface of the board itself.  ~  The moody atmosphere of the image invites contemplative attention.  ~  There are only two horizontal photographs in this sequence of ten.  I wondered about where to place them in the sequence, and if they should be kept together or separated?  ~  The dark tonalities in this picture seem to extend upward and conjoin with the dark space in the lower part of the #3 image above.  ~  The subject matter throughout this sequence of images is rather consistent: mostly urban-industrial places, perhaps construction sites, dirty stuff, traces perhaps of un-namable events.  ~  There is a nearly timeless sense of the moment in this image.  It's as if the upward arching of the board has occurred over a long period of time.  This sense of time, and the emerging of the form into the soft atmospheric light, gives the image an aura of mystery which invokes a feeling in me of the sacred
 

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Image #5.  I have placed this, the second and only other horizontal photograph, immediately below  the first.  ~  The two share the motif of an arching movement upwards.  ~  Here, I see a bird.  Perhaps it has crash landed, or exploded.  Energy is expanding outward and curving upward.  ~  The rising energy of this "bird" image invokes the archetype of the Phoenixthat mythic bird which has risen up from the ashes of a funeral pyre.  In this image, the bird's body is light--light from a luminous sky which is being reflected in a puddle of water.  ~  In the lower left hand corner of the image there is a circular or spiraling form which hints of perhaps another order of turning--a turning inward.   ~  The circular form invokes an association with another archetype known as the Uroborus (or Ouroboros), a snake eating or swallowing its own tail.  In medieval alchemy the Uroborus represented the idea: "the all is one," Unitary Reality, perfection--the the goal of alchemy which is synonymous psychologically with what Carl Jung has termed knowledge or attainment of the Self.  Jung believed that within each individual there lived an instinctual impulse that wanted to move the individual beyond its fragmented state of being toward wholeness.  ~  It occurs to me that this image represents a fragment of a much larger circular composition which expands beyond its borders.  ~  The circular form in the corner here anticipates it's reappearance in the concluding photograph of the sequence, Image #10.


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Image #6.  Though I took this photograph 46 years ago, I still remember being attracted to a flash of light that I saw in the small rectangle of glass (perhaps a mirror?) set carefully (by whom?) upon a horizontal cement ridge on this huge concrete wall that is slanting backward, upward.  It's brilliant white presence within this generally dark composition is related to the pebble I photographed in Image #1 and the ring in Image #5.  ~  The arching limb of a small tree or bush in the foreground echos the slanting verticality of the wall, and it inhabits something of a figurative presence.  ~  We have seen this arching motif in earlier photographs: Images 2, 4 and 5.  (And in the next photograph, Image #6).   ~   The highlights on the leaves, and in the piece of reflective glass, stand out together against the darker ground of the wall like stars in a night sky which form a circular or oval constellation . . . of swirling lights.
  

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Image #7.  Here again we have a slanting wall; a monolithic form rising up vertically out of the dark earth.  Wrapped around the monolith is a figurative form, a line drawing of light reflected on metallic rope or wire which stands out against the dark ground.  There is a presence of movement as well as light in the figurative form.  ~  I see three other pronounced light shapes that stand out against the dark earth tones.  Two of the shapes form a pair of eyes; and perhaps the cup provides us a mouth.  With these three shapes I can imaginatively project a "face" into the figure's "head."


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Image #8.  This vertical form (yet another monolith) is vibrant with horizontally linear luminous energy. (click on the image for a closer look)  In the lower right hand corner, a little white thing stands vertically next to the larger form.  It is a peanut-shaped piece of white styrofoam, and it stands out brilliantly against the darker tones of its surroundings, calling attention to itself.  Its curving verticality has a figurative presence for me as well.   ~  We have here another formal constellation which invokes the Mother and Child archetype, a theme that dominated my New Mexico Interiors project. The image also invokes another related archetypal situation: a small human figure about to embark on a great adventure, perhaps the challenge of climbing a great and dangerous mountain that extends beyond sight into the luminous clouds above.  The goal of the adventure is to reach the very top of the mountain--which in this images extends beyond the boundary of the picture's frame.


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Image #9.  As in the image just above, we have a vertically ascending field of luminous repeating horizontal lines.  The lines are numbered and they are progressively diminishing in size and luminosity. ~  The splashing form has returned (see image #5) and this time the splash is blindingly white.  There is an implied movement horizontally across the vertical form, as if a bird is flying at great speed, but then abruptly comes to a stop.  The bird is being held frozen, immobile; it wants to lift up vertically, but the vertical rectangle is confining, forcing a horizontal movement.  ~  As in images #5 and #3, a circular form once again appears, this time in the very center of the image and in the very heart of the splashing, white bird-like form.  The ring appears as a darker form against the white ground.  ~  Above and to the left of the circle I see two eyes (and perhaps a smiling mouth) which further animates the form.  ~  The eyes may be looking at me.


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Image #10.  Here, again is the Uroborus, this time rising up and emerging from the shadowed darkness of the earth into the undefined luminous energy that exists just above the horizon line.  ~  We have seen similar horizon lines, frequently, within this brief collection of images (#1,2,3,4,5, 6,8 and 9).  ~  The ring is glowing with an internal light against the dark earthy tones within the shadow area, and the ring's very top part is just beginning to emerge into the light above the horizon.  ~  I am reminded of a waxing moon that is about to dissolve in the light of a rising sun.  ~   When this image first made its appearance within the series, it provided me with a more conscious understanding of the direction this project was needing to go in.  ~  It is an image of emerging wholeness, an auspicious movement from dark into light.  It is for me an image of hope, an image which affirms the unfolding of the wholeness of life--my life which, with the grace of my Creative Process, is unfolding in the way that it needs to unfold.


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I have tried to show in my commentaries how this brief sequence of photographs is tightly knit with many auspicious and at times archetypal recurring motifs. The horizon line would continue to be a dominant concern in two later, important projects: see my 1980-81  Intimate Landscapes, and the project which followed it, my 1981-82 Lake Series

The ten images--each of which functions for me as a symbol--share among themselves a silent dialogue which is accessible to anyone who is willing to join in the conversation through the act of contemplation.

By opening one's mind and heart, and in this way achieving a state of true receptiveness to a symbolic photograph, the contemplator can imaginatively enter into the image--and the spaces between a sequence of images--and quietly, patiently "listen" with the "ears of the Heart." The pictures want us to hear what they are saying.  The kind of listening I am referring to here is a very subtle act which involves absorbing and integrating the grace--the creative power of the universe--which has given the symbol its living vitality, its ineffable radiance and meaning, a meaning which transcends the dualistic nature of words and the human intellect.

Grace has its origin in the Oneness of Being, a psychological-spiritual realm of wholeness which Carl Jung termed the Self.  Jung was deeply concerned with the human dilemma he characterized as the "fragmented psyche" (which consists of, among other things, the ego, the intellect, the shadow and the personal unconscious).  It has been my experience that a photograph which functions for me as a symbol is an Imaginal form of grace, a "messenger" which can help bring a contemplator into the full, conscious recognition of his or her true nature, in other words, Knowledge of the Self.


Postscript

After the completion of the Emergence project my photography began to flourish.  The Georgia Woods Series followed in 1974 (it was later retitled In the Woods - Homage to Charles Burchfield).  That project turned out to be but the first in a trilogy of multiple-exposure/solarization projects, followed by The Atlanta City Serieswhich was completed in the summer of 1975.  It was just a few weeks after the completion of that project that I accepted a teaching job in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where I would create the undergraduate and graduate photography programs in the Art Department.

Our daughter Jessica had been born in Atlanta, in January 1975, so she was around seven months old when she, her brother Shaun, Gloria and I moved to Milwaukee in the late summer of 1975.  In the first winter we experienced in Milwaukee, Jessica got deathly sick.  She survived a difficult and frightening ordeal in Children's Hospital, and then in the following months, and into the summer of 1976, I created the third and last of my multiple-exposure projects, The Persephone Series, 1975-76 which gives expression to my terrified reaction to that difficult time, but which also gives visual form to the unconscious, mythic-archetypal underpinnings of that experience.

In 1977 I began working on the Steve Lacy Series, a visual response to the music of this great jazz musician.  The project opened doors for me into Chicago's art scene.  In 1982 I was given a mid-career retrospective exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, curated by David Travis.  And in that same year the Carol Ehlers Gallery began representing my work and showing it regularly in Chicago, and the Michael Lord Gallery began showing my work regularly in Milwaukee.  I invite you to visit my blog's Welcome Page which provides a complete listing of my online photography projects, presented in chronological order.

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Jung's ideas, which dominated my photography and my teaching in the early 1970's through the early 1980's, had prepared me for the next major step in my Creative Process.  In 1987 Gloria and I met Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, living head of the Siddha Yoga Path, and began practicing Siddha Yoga Meditation together.  Through Gurumayi's transforming grace I came to understand experientially the direct relationship that existed between my photography and the yogic practices of meditation and contemplation.  Siddha Yoga also impacted in wonderful ways my relationship with Gloria.  The grace of Siddha Yoga has been the driving force behind a growing series of more recent projects I have identified as The Sacred Art Photography Projects.  See in particular Part One of my multi-chaptered project Photography and Yoga.



Gloria 
___________A Dedication____________  

This digital version of the Emergence project was created for my blog throughout the month of July, 2019 simultaneously with the project which chronologically precedes it, New Mexico Photographs, 1971-72.  I have given both projects the same publication date, August 2, 2019 in honor and in celebration of Gloria's and my 50th wedding anniversary.  For the reasons I will briefly outline below, and for those reasons which words cannot possibly say, I am dedicating this project to Gloria.

The New Mexico and the Emergence projects tell the story of the early years of our marriage.  In 1969 Gloria agreed to marry me and come with me to New Mexico where I was offered a full Teaching Fellowship at the University of New Mexico which enabled me to pursue my three-year MFA degree studies while gaining valuable teaching experience.  In those years Gloria completed her undergraduate degree in Art at UNM with a major in ceramics.  We both graduated in June 1972.  Upon graduation I was offered my first teaching job, in Atlanta.  Two months before we graduated, Gloria gave birth to our first child, Shaun.

In the years that followed in Atlanta, while I was working on the Emergence project and teaching, Gloria was taking care of most of the domestic chores and giving her full attention to nurturing and raising Shaun.  In 1975 I took a teaching job in Milwaukee.  The semester before we left Georgia, Jessica was born.  In Milwaukee Gloria continued caring for the kids and supporting me in my career as a teacher and exhibiting artist; however, in the mid 1980's she went back to school to get her Master's Degree in School Social Work. (see my project Family Life, 1985-88)  

Gloria's additional income from her work in the schools made it possible for us to provide Shaun and Jessica with their undergraduate college education.  And Gloria provided innumerable children and parents in the Milwaukee area with not only the professional help they needed, but equally important, she served with nurturing compassion and love which, in many cases, both the parents and the children were desperately in need of.

Gloria has always been a courageous fighter . . . for what is True, for what is right, honest and fair, and she has been a fighter for intimacy.  I have certainly been gifted in untold ways by the generosity of her large heart and her radiant, compassionate spirit.

After we both retired in 2007 we moved from Milwaukee to Canandaigua, NY.  Gloria and I joined the very active fight to ban Hydrofracking in New York State.  In 2010 I then started the construction of my photography blog, and Gloria has continued to offer whatever support she can to various social and political groups and organizations--not only locally and in New York but everywhere it has been needed around the world.

In the past five years, with the births of our two grandchildren, Claire and River, Gloria has also been very active as a loving, nurturing Grandmother.  She has shown them how to make pots and clay sculptures, and slowly but surely she has begun returning to making her own pottery.

The past fifty years of my life with Gloria has been a great blessing.  And after we became involved in Siddha Yoga and began performing many of the practices together, our lives and our relationship with each other has become all the richer and more meaningful for both of us.

It is with the deepest heartfelt feelings of gratitude and love that I dedicate this project to Gloria and our sacred union. 

This project was published and posted on my blog's Welcome Page
on August 2, 2019, Gloria's and my 50th Wedding Anniversary



Related links:


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