Art is only a means to life, to the life more abundant. It is not in itself the life more abundant. It merely points the way, something which is overlooked not only by the public, but very often by the artist himself. In becoming an end it defeats itself.
—Henry Miller
A new calendar year is upon us. A couple of readers wrote to ask whether I intend to write an end-of-year summary as I have in past years. It was in fact after reading those previous posts that I was finally convinced I should not write more of them. In prior years I struggled to reconcile, never quite convincingly to myself, my desire to highlight my most recent work with the recognition that in truth nothing noteworthy in my life begins or ends when the Gregorian calendar year rolls over.
There is no need to visit with me on any specific date to see what I’ve been up to in the previous year (or any other period). I update this blog and the photographs in my Recent Addition gallery regularly, any time I feel I have something worth sharing.
With that said, regardless of whether you are one who associates some special meaning with the Gregorian year count or whether, like me, you appreciate that a new year begins with every passing moment, I wish you a happy New Year!
Of course, I am especially grateful for those of you whose continued financial support on Patreon helps make my living in these uncertain times, a little less uncertain.
My thoughts have been scattered widely since I last updated this blog, which is to say that I have not given especially deep consideration to any one photographic topic in a while. Broadly speaking, much of my recent thinking involved stoicism-inspired examination and attempts to distill some useful lessons—perspectives on life—from so many trends and momentous events now unfolding in the world and in my life.
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It came as a bit of a surprise to me recently when someone asked why I care so much about photography as art. My surprise did not come from the question but from the realization it led me to—that I have, in fact, spent a great deal of time recently speaking and writing about formal and historical aspects of art. This even though in my daily life and work I rarely give these subjects much thought unless prompted to do so by others. Perhaps by being so vocal in recent weeks about my views on what art is (and is not), I may have inadvertently neglected to explain why I consider an artistic life important, and the role that artmaking plays in my life.
Put succinctly, in my experience the most important and valuable reason to make art, is not to make art. Rather, it is the cumulative effect of engaging in creative work and thinking as a way of life, as an attitude, as a constant prompting to think seriously about what is most meaningful to me, as a way of engaging with and interpreting the world, as a worthier use of my time, skills, and faculties than so many other—lesser, pettier—distractions.
Beyond any other benefit that art may have, I believe (and have been validated in my belief) that the most important purpose of creating art is not to produce any artifacts but to elevate the living experience of the artist. This, much in the same way that the habit of philosophical thinking may elevate the life of the thinker, and the pursuit of knowledge may elevate the life of the student or the scientist.
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Being that we live in a so-called “information age,” we have the privilege of unprecedented, broad, and deep access into the three great domains of human accomplishment: science, philosophy, and art. Considering that each of these domains may yield profoundly more satisfying experiences than the daily news, the workaday grind, or other mundane trivia, and considering also—without prejudice and undue platitudes—the short and unpredictable nature of a life, I think it is worthwhile for any person to become interested and immersed in at least one of these domains. For anyone aspiring to become “well-rounded,” I suggest that a degree of knowledge in all three may be nothing short of life-changing.
Understanding, even at a layperson level, the genealogy of existence as we understand it at this point in human history: how interactions among quantum fields may yield the building blocks of matter, how quantum mechanics gives rise to the classical laws of physics, how physics gives rise to chemistry, how chemistry gives rise to geology and biology, how geology becomes geography, how biology gives rise to life, how life gives rise to sensory perceptions, to ecology, to psychology, to emotions, to abstract thinking, to language, to philosophy, to art, and to then consider one’s living experience in context of this vast realm of knowledge, is the most potent salve I know of for the frustrations, anxieties, and disappointments that may arise in the course of daily living.
No, I did not forget consciousness. It is in there, at least as I understand it, woven from every term that relates in some way to enabling an arrangement of particles to possess the sense, or at least the illusion, of having subjective experience, which is… in one sense or another, all of them. Just be mindful, as to not be led astray, to separate science from pseudoscience, mysticism, and fiction.
The reason I believe such well-rounded knowledge is helpful in combating the challenges of daily life, is that such knowledge puts one’s own being and experiences in the grand perspective of all existence, at least as far as we humans living today may claim to know, let alone understand it. Still, even what little we know about such things as the nature of matter, the scale of this universe (and the possibility of others), or just the puny span of so-called “geologic time” on this tiny clump of cosmic dust where we happened to have evolved, is more than sufficient to overwhelm completely any sense of importance or meaning beyond one’s immediate experience. Nothing we do is, ultimately, of any great importance except in the context of our subjective experiences, which is why our primary task must be to gain the most from these experiences as we have them.
In the proverbial “grand scheme” not one being, not one species, no one system of belief, no tribe, no people, no country, no planet, no star, no galaxy, matters in any universal, objective sense. All are temporary features of a young universe, in time to mature into a serene, dark, and lifeless vastness. Whatever subjective experiences we manage to accomplish, and whatever meaning we ascribe to these experiences within the tiny blink of time we each get to be a conscious living animal at some coordinate in space-time is, by any practical consideration, all that matters.
As I have mentioned before, my literal “word of advice” to anyone seeking some next level, some great insight, some significant improvement to one’s quality of life, remains this: read. But if I’m allowed a few other words to better make the point: experience, learn, assimilate, feel, dare, philosophize, live. Then, when you have discovered in these activities something significant and worthy, express this thing—photograph, write, make art—for your own sake first, although no doubt a thing of such power may benefit others, too.
