and sometimes we would dance in the stone street
sometimes I would put my head on his shoulder
and wonder what sadness there was in the world
when the sun could be so warm
when the island flowers could smell so summer strong
when people could dance with such grace
when my heart had a thousand chances left
Amy Turn Sharp, extract from #82 her series, a poem a day for a year.
I love this woman's poetry. There have been so many treasures so far. I'm looking forward to spending a year reading her.
“Because of the routines we follow, we often forget that life is an ongoing adventure....Life is pure adventure, and the sooner we realize that, the quicker we will be able to treat life as art: to bring all our energies to each encounter, to remain flexible enough to notice and admit when what we expected to happen did not happen. We need to remember that we are created creative, and can invent new scenarios as frequently as they are needed.”
Maya Angelou
I think one’s art goes as far and as deep as one’s love goes. I see no reason to paint but that.
Andrew Wyeth.
Exploring the depth of my love for a place seems like an inspiring reason to take photographs too. There is more passion, more depth and emotion, when you turn your camera on something you love.
Piazza Banchi, the place where I buy my pink flowers when in Genova. Taken one winter's night, January, 2012.
(Note: this was taken after the sun had gone down. I spun my Canon EOS 5D MkII's ISO up to someplace around 6000 (thank you to Canon for this option) then handheld the camera to see what I might get without a flash or a tripod.)
"Artists come together with the clear knowledge that when all is said and done, they will return to their studio and practice art alone. Period. That simple truth may be the deepest bond we share. The message across time from the painted bison and the carved ivory seal speaks not of the differences between the makers of that art and ourselves, but of the similarities. Today these similarities lay hidden beneath urban complexity -- audience, critics, economics, trivia -- in a self-conscious world. Only in those moments when we are truly working on our own work do we recover the fundamental connection we share with all makers of art. The rest may be necessary, but it's not art. Your job is to draw a line from your art to your life that is straight and clear."
- David Bayles & Ted Orland (Art and Fear)
found over on The Drawing Board.
We’ve been lucky, I said. We’ve been able to live by what we love. And to live painting, as we have, wherever we have, is to live passion and imagination and connection and adoration, all the best of life - to be more alive than the rest.
Extracted from The Passion of Artemisia, by Susan Vreeland.
We are lonesome animals.
We spend all of our life trying to be less lonesome.
One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to say and to feel
‘Yes, that is the way it is, or at least that is the way I feel it.’
You’re not as alone as you thought.
— John Steinbeck
Quote sourced from the blog of the truly gifted photographer, Steve McCurry.
Yesterday, as we worked through our day, Hanna, Francesca and I found time to pop into my favourite church here in Genova ... located in Piazza Maddalena.
I was giving Hanna a little information about photography and explained ... there are all the rules but then you can break them and, sometimes, that’s where the magic happens.
This is one of those shots, for me anyway. I was handholding my camera in an incredibly dark church, kind of falling in love with the light and voila, the light let me have a little of its beautiful self.