Beautifully and so wisely said. Exquisite image. And YES to the power of beauty. Thank you, Chris Jordan. 🙏 Molly
I see life fundamentally as a spiritual journey. At the heart of it is the experience of the great miracle of everything. We live in an infinitely complex and beautiful artwork made by an unknowable artist. The closer we look, the more amazing it becomes, and the biggest mystery of all is that we are here to experience it in the first place.
When viewed from this perspective, the problems of human culture, both environmental and social, can be seen as a kind of surface noise. The bad news is not the whole story. It is a finite set of solvable issues, held in a container that is literally the size of the Universe. This perspective doesn't minimize any of the suffering, destruction, or atrocities, or make them any less tragic. But it does provide a frame to hold it all in the mind.
For me the most interesting artists are those who somehow are able to take it all into account and come up with a gesture that is authentic to the moment. You can hear this in the work of great musicians, but whether it applies to photography remains an open question for me. Can a photo of clouds moving across water take the rise of fascism into account? How can an electronic device pointed "out there" reflect anything of what is happening "in here?" I have no answers. But what I have come to trust in, with all of my being, is the power of beauty. Like a compass, it points us toward home.
Image: To the End of the World #411 (moonrise behind clouds), Strait of Magellan, Chile, 2023 Carbon on paper 24x28"
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