Artist Statement:
“Find a stillness, hold a stillness, let the stillness carry me.” These opening words from an old Transylvanian Unitarian church hymn echo in my mind as I engage in my spiritual practice: photography. Cultivation of a spiritual practice is an important part of a grounded and engaged life, especially for chaplains like me. Without intentional focus on keeping our own cups full, we can find that sharing our compassionate energy and witnessing presence with others can leave our cups empty and our hearts dry: we can find ourselves teetering on the brink of exhaustion and burnout.
In photography I have found a spiritual practice that refills my cup. The diffuse-yet-focused attention that brings me to awareness of a subject; the amalgamation of intellectual study and aesthetic sensitivity; the cultivation of physical and spiritual stillness in the act of preserving and transforming a living moment into an image; all these disparate impulses and elements brought to bear in one single eyeblink that, God willing, captures something of the unlikely beauty of being alive.
At the same time, being alive is experiencing brokenness alongside beauty, and being alert to the places where those two qualities intermingle. This what draws me to the Polaroid emulsion lift process. In this process a newly shot Polaroid image is cut from its white bordering frame, its protective coatings are peeled away, and the impossibly delicate image layer is lifted off to float alone in a bath of hot water hopefully to be caught on a piece of watercolor paper. The resulting image is transformed in unpredictable ways, and the artifacts and imperfections of that transformation become transcendent emblems of the signifying uniqueness of each image.
Buddhist monk and teacher Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us that, “Spiritual Practice is not just sitting and meditation. Practice is looking, thinking, touching, drinking, eating, and talking. Every act, every breath, and every step can be practice and can help us to become more ourselves.” The creative process of Polaroid emulsion lifts helps me to stay open to the “broken” places in each of us that are, in truth, emblems of our connection to the divine; even as I find refuge in the beauty of presence and stillness.
Exhibit Location:
J5/1 Corridor
University Hospital and Clinics
1st Floor
600 Highland Avenue
53792