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Lightly Child, Lightly

March 5, 2020 by 10 Comments

“Although light is coming down from the top of the piece, it appears to rise from the bottom like the light that rises in the east as the sun goes down in the west, when you are actually looking at the shadow of the earth projected into the atmosphere. In painting, two dimensions are used to allude to three dimensions. Here there is a picture plane which appears to have two dimensions, but that turns out not to be the case. There seems to be a surface that is not there. Here there is a sense of touch, a desire to feel, but there is no object, just as there is no image and no point of focus. There is only perception of itself. There is a tension from the state of desiring touch or from knowing there is something there to touch but not having done it. There is, of course, nothing to touch. The feeling comes with the eyes and the eyes have a feeling as important as physical touch. Just like the moment when you first meet someone and you have yet to touch, to kiss, or to make love. Then the tension exists from not having done it. Here the tension cannot be satisfied by touch and so it is sustained. The eyes do the touching.”

– James Turrell, from “James Turrell: A Retrospective” by Michael Govan  & Christine Y. Kim 

Notes:

  • Photo: James Turrell’s Skyspace, Houston in Texas Monthly, June 2012. Quote via noosphe
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”
Filed Under: Grow, Inspire, Life, Photography, Quotes Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

I want to stick around till I can’t see straight

June 1, 2016 by 12 Comments


…spending many hours — sometimes all day…while sitting in front of the screen, she told me, “I developed burning in my eyes that made it very difficult to work.” After resting her eyes for a while, the discomfort abates, but it quickly returns when she goes back to the computer. “…I’d turn off the computer, but I need it to work the frustrated professor…has a condition called computer vision syndrome. She is hardly alone. It can affect anyone who spends three or more hours a day in front of computer monitors, and the population at risk is potentially huge. Worldwide, up to 70 million workers are at risk…and those numbers are only likely to grow. In a report about the condition the authors detail an expanding list of professionals at risk … all of whom “cannot work without the help of computer.”…Studies have indicated 70 percent to 90 percent of people who use computers extensively…have one or more symptoms…The effects of prolonged computer use are not just vision-related. Complaints include neurological symptoms like chronic headaches and musculoskeletal problems like neck and back pain…the use of a computer for even three hours a day is likely to result in eye symptoms, low back pain, tension headache and psychosocial stress.  Still, the most common computer-related complaint involves the eyes, which can develop blurred or double vision as well as burning, itching, dryness and redness, all of which can interfere with work performance.

~ Jane E. Brody, Computer Vision Syndrome Affects Millions

Notes: Portrait: Nadia (via Newthom). Post title taken from Foreigner’s Double Vision lyrics:

Tonight’s the night, I’m gonna push it to the limit
I live all of my years in a single minute
Fill my eyes with that double vision, no disguise for that double vision
Ooh, when it gets through to me, it’s always new to me
My double vision always seems to get the best of me, the best of me, yeah

Filed Under: Life, Photography, Quotes Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Ma

November 12, 2015 by 12 Comments

train-sit-rest-pause

I told Miyazaki I love the “gratuitous motion” in his films; instead of every movement being dictated by the story, sometimes people will just sit for a moment, or they will sigh, or look in a running stream, or do something extra, not to advance the story but only to give the sense of time and place and who they are.

“We have a word for that in Japanese,” he said. “It’s called ma. Emptiness. It’s there intentionally.”

Is that like the “pillow words” that separate phrases in Japanese poetry?

“I don’t think it’s like the pillow word.” He clapped his hands three or four times. “The time in between my clapping is ma. If you just have non-stop action with no breathing space at all, it’s just busyness, But if you take a moment, then the tension building in the film can grow into a wider dimension. If you just have constant tension at 80 degrees all the time you just get numb.”

~ Roger Ebert, from “Hayao Miyazaki Interview,” RogerEbert.com (September 12, 2002)

Credits: Quote – Improve is Easy. Photo by Bruno via Mennyfox55.
Filed Under: Inspire, Photography, Poetry, Quotes Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

like this one, like that one, like this one

December 5, 2013 by 20 Comments

robert creeley

“I think
I grow tensions
like flowers
in a wood where
nobody goes.

Each wound is perfect,
encloses itself in a tiny
imperceptible blossom,
making pain.

Pain is a flower like that one,
like this one,
like that one,
like this one.”

– Robert Creeley, ”The Flower”

Robert Creeley (1926 – 2005) was a major American poet of the 20th century. He was born in Arlington, MA and was a teacher, a scholar, and a fierce presence: “I look to words, and nothing else, for my own redemption either as a man or poet.” He lost the sight in one eye in a car accident when he was two years old. The loss of his eye and his father, both early in life, affected Creeley profoundly. For the first half of his life he travelled as an outsider, his heavy drinking often leading to brawls with friends and strangers. Creeley was sometimes an angry young man who wanted “the world to narrow to a match flare”.  Unable to sign up for World War II because of his sight problem, he joined the American Field Service and drove ambulances in India and Burma. He returned home with two medals…Just days before he died, he gave his final reading — in Charlottesville, Virginia — breathing from what he called “portable wee canisters of oxygen about the size of champagne bottles”. In between the poems Creeley said very simple things that rang true: “There has been so much war and pain during the last century. We need to learn how to be kind; kindness is what makes us human.”

(Read full Bio by Robert Adamson @ Jacket 26)

Credits: Poem – sleepwalking.nu. Portrait: beatbookcovers

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Stressed? Try Butterflies.

October 16, 2012 by 22 Comments

Fifteen years ago, I would have told you to get out of my office (get out of my face) and stop wasting my time.  10 years ago, I would have called “bulls-” on this malarkey.  Today, the image above calms me.  And I’ve come to believe that I need this…It’s good for me.  It’s good for the team around me.  (But let’s not get too excited.  I’m a toddler here.  I’m on the 3rd step of a 107 step program.)  And since it has now been endorsed by the Truth, the Wall Street Journal,  I’m in. (:)  Lao Tzu (604 BC – 531 BC): “A Journey of a Thousand Miles Takes a Single Step”…Time to take that step… [Read more…]

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