Time Slips Away –
At its most sublime, art can transport us to a time, a place, a feeling, or a memory. It may be the entire image, or the smallest aspect of the image, but we are reminded of some profound connecting thread; it becomes a commentary on our lives, past, present, or imagined.
And this can become even more profound if we know the back-story of an image.
This is one of my favorite images I have ever created. It’s a very simple image really. But it’s my connection to the subject matter and the back-story behind the image that draws me in every time I look at it.
This picture was taken in my parent’s back yard. It was the view from their kitchen sun porch. I looked at those trees thousands of times over the years. Rarely did I ever go down there though. It was a long sloping lawn to a pond with the golf course behind. There was no reason to go down there. But the vista was oh so beautiful.
That morning I took the image the house stood empty. Nothing was left—everything had painstakingly found a new home. It was an eerie feeling to see a house that was once so full of life be completely empty. They were gone and now their house was soon to be gone.
I decided to walk the property—maybe for the first time in my life (they had lived there 22 years and I had lived with them during graduate school for several of those years.) But much of the land was just overgrown that I never bothered to explore. So my dog and I ventured out with my iPhone in hand. It seemed a final tribute to my Dad.
I took hundreds of images that morning, then packed the last of my things in my car and drove off for the last time.
To quote Picasso: “A painting is not thought out and settled in advance. While it is being done, it changes as one’s thoughts change. And when it’s finished, it goes on changing, according to the state of mind of whoever is looking at it.”
Art continues to change in accordance to the viewer who perceives it. I will always see my parents in this image. Other people see all sorts of different things as they contribute their own richly textured interpretations. The one thing I’m sure of is that every time I look at the piece I’m reminded of what I know, or may have momentarily forgotten, about my parent’s lives.
With all good wishes,
