Speaking on the phone the other evening with Rita, we got onto the topic of her art. I'd noticed on her deviant art page that she hadn't posted a new piece in quite a few months. Inquiring as to why, she confided in me that she hadn't had much inspiration lately. Being the ever-aspiring therapist (in-training) I am, I began to ask her more questions to see if she could find some answers to this blockage she felt she was encountering.
Her art, you see, is digital in nature. The confines of her illness limit her tremendously, which is why she has come to do art in the first place. She can't even step outside her back door. The closest to the outside world she can come, physically, is by lying on the floor of her living room watching the beautiful doves dance around her old, untended garden. Her art requires photographs... photographs of the outside world. Photographs which she has no way of taking herself. She has considered using stock photos, but they simply lack the inspiration necessary to engage her.
This is where the idea machine in me began humming. I have a few cameras. I have been aching for artistic purpose and inspiration for years now, having been swallowed up by the gulf of academic writing and research. What if we started a project together?
Here's the idea we've come up with so far: Throughout the week I take my camera with me everywhere I go, shooting pictures of things which speak to me. I'll send her all of my weekly photos and she'll then look at them in search of one or two which speak to her. She will then transform this photograph into one of her remarkable digital works and send it back to me. Then, I will take her piece of art and "listen" to it, writing either a poem or a little story to go along with it.
The end-product could be either a blog we keep in which we update a weekly 'art speak' creation... or we save all of our work and put it together in a book. I think we should shoot for both!
We're so excited about our new adventure together that we can already feel the electrifying pulse of inspiration rivetting our consciousness. The project is really about empathy, and how two friends communicate to one another via the media of art. I'm interested in the way we take up, interpret, and re-create that which we share with one another. I believe it will open up a new window onto the uniquely beautiful relationship we have together.
To begin, I sent her these few images shot over the last few years. If we find that we can work together in this way, we'll start this journey of speaking through the tongues of art...
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