Artist’s Statement
I am an artist. Photography is the medium that I use. I paint with light. I look at the world in an unusual manner, often focusing on reflections and shadows rather than the objects that create them, or on abstractions of larger objects, taking them out of their usual context and seeing them in a new way. Photography is all about light: it is the physicochemical reaction between a photon of light and a grain of silver halide that permits us to capture an image on film, and to print it on photographic paper. The obverse of light is darkness, and the interplay of shadow and light in black and white photography makes this genre unique: pure composition, less the added distraction of color. This is what initially drew me to black and white photography: the Zen quality of the images, the yin and yang, capturing the binary nature of the universe. Similarly, shadows – or reflections – of objects transcend their literal content and meaning, entering into the mystery of what constitutes reality. If art consists of one limbic system communicating with another, then the reality is in the eye of the beholder. With my photographs, printed in my Taos darkroom, I abstract the essence of the real world while permitting the viewer to find one’s own reality within that image.
I also take my inspiration from jazz, where the structure of the music is no structure at all, and where the notes lead wherever you let them take you. Jazz musicians do not let themselves be forced into boxes by the expectations of others. The find themselves in strange and unknown places. The great saxophonist John Coltrane was once asked by Miles Davis, “Trane, how come you play so long?” Not to be intimidated, Coltrane replied, “Miles, that’s how long it takes me to get it out.” You go where the music leads you. In the darkroom, that is my strategy. I go where the photograph takes me, and I rely on my inner sense of esthetics to shape my work rather than a technical playbook designed by someone else. As Thelonious Monk once said, "Piano ain't got no wrong notes." Neither does darkroom.
Analog photography is messy. It doesn't produce a perfect image. Every grain of silver halide is unique, while each pixel is identical. Digital photography places an emphasis on technical perfection that analog photography can't achieve. But it is the inherent imperfection of analog photography that sets it apart as fine art. Every print is necessarily unique, as no two pieces of photographic paper possess the identical distribution of silver halide grains. Every digital print is identical, because every dot of ink is like the next one. Analog photography is also three dimensional, as the solve grains are embedded in a matrix of gelatin. This produces a richness of image that digital prints cannot match.
Returning to the jazz motif, the necessity of finding your own voice – not Charlie Parker’s voice, not Frank Morgan’s voice – is a frightening necessity. Grace Kelly, a young jazz artist who was Morgan’s protégé, once found herself in terror of performing with a large orchestra, because she did not trust her voice. Morgan spoke with her on the telephone, and calmed her fears, telling her to “just play like Grace.” As a photographer, I lose confidence in photographing and printing “just like Meredith,” because there is so much pressure to conform to others ideals of photographic excellence – the jurors/judges/reviewers who want your work to look a certain way, and only that way. And then I remember Morgan’s words, and try to center myself – to do my art the way I see it, and not the way some anonymous expert wants me to see it.
I am an artist. Photography is the medium that I use. I paint with light. I look at the world in an unusual manner, often focusing on reflections and shadows rather than the objects that create them, or on abstractions of larger objects, taking them out of their usual context and seeing them in a new way. Photography is all about light: it is the physicochemical reaction between a photon of light and a grain of silver halide that permits us to capture an image on film, and to print it on photographic paper. The obverse of light is darkness, and the interplay of shadow and light in black and white photography makes this genre unique: pure composition, less the added distraction of color. This is what initially drew me to black and white photography: the Zen quality of the images, the yin and yang, capturing the binary nature of the universe. Similarly, shadows – or reflections – of objects transcend their literal content and meaning, entering into the mystery of what constitutes reality. If art consists of one limbic system communicating with another, then the reality is in the eye of the beholder. With my photographs, printed in my Taos darkroom, I abstract the essence of the real world while permitting the viewer to find one’s own reality within that image.
I also take my inspiration from jazz, where the structure of the music is no structure at all, and where the notes lead wherever you let them take you. Jazz musicians do not let themselves be forced into boxes by the expectations of others. The find themselves in strange and unknown places. The great saxophonist John Coltrane was once asked by Miles Davis, “Trane, how come you play so long?” Not to be intimidated, Coltrane replied, “Miles, that’s how long it takes me to get it out.” You go where the music leads you. In the darkroom, that is my strategy. I go where the photograph takes me, and I rely on my inner sense of esthetics to shape my work rather than a technical playbook designed by someone else. As Thelonious Monk once said, "Piano ain't got no wrong notes." Neither does darkroom.
Analog photography is messy. It doesn't produce a perfect image. Every grain of silver halide is unique, while each pixel is identical. Digital photography places an emphasis on technical perfection that analog photography can't achieve. But it is the inherent imperfection of analog photography that sets it apart as fine art. Every print is necessarily unique, as no two pieces of photographic paper possess the identical distribution of silver halide grains. Every digital print is identical, because every dot of ink is like the next one. Analog photography is also three dimensional, as the solve grains are embedded in a matrix of gelatin. This produces a richness of image that digital prints cannot match.
Returning to the jazz motif, the necessity of finding your own voice – not Charlie Parker’s voice, not Frank Morgan’s voice – is a frightening necessity. Grace Kelly, a young jazz artist who was Morgan’s protégé, once found herself in terror of performing with a large orchestra, because she did not trust her voice. Morgan spoke with her on the telephone, and calmed her fears, telling her to “just play like Grace.” As a photographer, I lose confidence in photographing and printing “just like Meredith,” because there is so much pressure to conform to others ideals of photographic excellence – the jurors/judges/reviewers who want your work to look a certain way, and only that way. And then I remember Morgan’s words, and try to center myself – to do my art the way I see it, and not the way some anonymous expert wants me to see it.