While I write this, Hurricane Dorian – 9/1/19 - rumbles off the Florida Coast… Will it veer? Collide? Smash? Crush?
Last year, as the air grew cranky, I wondered along the shore of Boynton Beach, Florida, imagining roilings shuddering from some dark thing that was no longer distant.
Had I wandered into the moment before torrential combustion? An instant when the pistons of a storm seemed to be building up a force of wonder powerful enough to punch through brick and steel as effortlessly as a radio wave? In my imagination, nature’s phasers seemed to be clicking their settings up beyond stun.
But was the storm impending or receding? Were things shuddering from aftershocks of a retreating massive fiery tumult, or the blunt fists of an oncoming furious demonical onslaught?
A moment like – well – what the world’s news media seems to hourly predict for us all.
GEEK STUFF: The reference photo was captured on a late afternoon stroll through my Canon 7D Mk II’s EFS 17-85mm glass. Then in PSCC 2019 I got to work imagining a storm’s first tendrils snaking along this pretty palm-lined foot path which meanders through the sandy shore of Boynton Beach.
This is ImageFiction born from the maddening storm like the invective and jabbering idiocy which spews from the 24/7 news cycle. Like most art, 'Storm' is a question rather than an answer. Why? Because questioning’s what artists do, answering, on the other hand, is way above our pay grade.
2 comments:
I don't think I have ever disliked a picture you've created Ted, but of course, there are some that I like more than others, at least on an aesthetics level. That said, there are also those that… Well, those that inexplicably make themselves at home within every fibre of my being. 'Storm' is one of those.
It's not cyclone (hurricane) season over here but we have had some dust storms and your picture could be a perfect rendition of one.
I would agree that questioning is what artists do, but I would add that art does the answering. It just doesn't do it with words, thankfully.
Beautiful work. Truly.
Thank you Cedric for your encouragement.
Most artists are "progressive" ideologically. Why? Because they are seeking novelty, invention, creativity. They (we... you and I) find success in originality... which means what? Something NEVER done? You can not be an artist, I suspect, without challenging the commonplace. So the essence of art is challenging the status quo, right? That's the essence of progress? There's a difference between art and the merely beautiful. Beauty is frequently stereotypical... Which is one of the worst insults one can hurl at an artist.
So artists explore the boundaries where change (not necessarily beauty) is found. But the exploration usually fails to come with full body. The probes are tentative, wrapped in questions. "What if", "Imagine if", "If only". Dreams are 90% questions. So are artists. Um, y'think?
Whenever you pass through a border... where none have gone before... regardless of your determination, or conviction, you're posing a question. Factually, you are a question seeking an answer.
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