Today's post is dedicated to my talented wife, Lana, whose photography skills are lately being recognized all over the place. On Saturday night she won first place in photography for her "Foggy Morning" over at the Lacombe Art Guild Spring show. Her "Grebe and Grasses" photo, which I personally love, got honorable mention. You can check out her post about the contest and see the winning entries at her blog.
To make things better, Lana's winning entry, "Foggy Morning," was taken almost outside our front door. Gotta love that.
Lana already picked up another first place award for photography at another art show earlier this year, and her photos were in high demand at a recent art market in Madisonville down here. These days, with technology, many people can take good photos with the digital cameras available, but there's still something about the eye of the artist that adds to the quality of photos and turns them from the mundane into an art form.
Quite often as we are out on our nature walks, Lana and I will see the same physical scene, but her eye catches patterns of light and shadow that I never see, or she will become entranced with the geometric lines found among growing plants or in natural arrangements of stone. Often, with wildlife, there will be only a second available for the special shot, the one that raises the level of the scene to art, and she somehow manages to capture it. I stand in awe. I hope you'll check out her blog.
-----
-----
Showing posts with label Art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Art. Show all posts
Monday, April 04, 2011
Sunday, February 17, 2008
The Power of Beauty Compels You
Is writing an art or a craft? In day to day practice I usually approach it as a craft. I have a certain amount of work to accomplish, and I must accomplish that work even if I’m not particularly inspired, even if I’m feeling under the weather, even if the work is more reportage than imaginative. But I understand that what attracted me to writing in the first place is the artistic heart of it. This is one reason why I look forward to the times when I can write fiction. This is not to say that nonfiction can’t be art, but most of the nonfiction I do is focused on the reporting of facts. The key requirement is clarity, not artistic flourish. The old adage of “kill your darlings” is more important in nonfiction than fiction, I think, because metaphors and other beautiful turns of phrase may serve to obfuscate facts.
For me, however, fiction is about more than just a good story. I can read a book or story that is plainly written but in which the prose doesn’t sing, as long as the plotline keeps me wondering what happens next. But, the works that I remember are those in which the words and sentences are infused with beauty as well as functionality. Consider:
“The evening sky was streaked with purple, the color of torn plums, and a light rain had started to fall…” James Lee Burke, The Neon Rain.
“Johnny James was sitting on the front porch, sipping from a glass of gasoline in the December heat, when the doomscreamer came.” Robert R. McCammon, “Something Passed By.”
“That country where the hills are fog, and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay.” Ray Bradbury, “The October Country.”
“To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth.” John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath.
“Outside lie dark turned fields with rags of snow and darker woods beyond that harbor yet a few last wolves.” Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian.
“In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains.” Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms.
The beauty of these lines compel me. There is meaning “in” the words, and also “behind” the words. I “feel” things in these pieces that go beyond the vocabulary and grammar. Therein lies the art. To do more than just tell a story. To do more than just move the reader from one scene to the next. That’s what I hope to do every time I sit to write a story, what I hope to do and too often fail. Art is a goal that is always difficult to achieve. But it is a goal that is worth the effort.
For me, however, fiction is about more than just a good story. I can read a book or story that is plainly written but in which the prose doesn’t sing, as long as the plotline keeps me wondering what happens next. But, the works that I remember are those in which the words and sentences are infused with beauty as well as functionality. Consider:
“The evening sky was streaked with purple, the color of torn plums, and a light rain had started to fall…” James Lee Burke, The Neon Rain.
“Johnny James was sitting on the front porch, sipping from a glass of gasoline in the December heat, when the doomscreamer came.” Robert R. McCammon, “Something Passed By.”
“That country where the hills are fog, and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay.” Ray Bradbury, “The October Country.”
“To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth.” John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath.
“Outside lie dark turned fields with rags of snow and darker woods beyond that harbor yet a few last wolves.” Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian.
“In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains.” Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms.
The beauty of these lines compel me. There is meaning “in” the words, and also “behind” the words. I “feel” things in these pieces that go beyond the vocabulary and grammar. Therein lies the art. To do more than just tell a story. To do more than just move the reader from one scene to the next. That’s what I hope to do every time I sit to write a story, what I hope to do and too often fail. Art is a goal that is always difficult to achieve. But it is a goal that is worth the effort.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)