The hardest part about being an artist is the media in which you choose to express yourself. As an artist, I see life in technicolor and have this overwhelming desire to express to others what I’m experiencing. Whether it’s photography, video, music, writing, acting, dancing, singing (all of which I have dabbled in), the challenge is expressing not only the event but the internal emotional state of mind of the person having the experience. Take a look at the photo on the upper left. I shot it last night during an amazing summer storm. To you, it’s stunning. To me — ok to me it’s pretty fucking awesome but it’s not awesome enough. It doesn’t encapsulate the smell of the desert rain, the surround sound of thunder reverberating across the high plains and the overall visual excitement that one can only experience with depth perception. The split second captured in the photograph is much better in realtime being viewed with two eyes than looking at a flat static image.
There’s no lens that can see what our eyes really see, no microphone that hears what our ears really hear.
There’s no device to record the sensation of the little hairs standing straight up on the back of your neck when your two eyes and two ears experience several bolts of lightning and claps of thunder rolling across the expanse of the high desert plaines.
If I could come up with such a device, I’d be a very wealthy man.
But this artist must keep expressing himself or he’ll die. That is one of the biggest things I have discovered about myself. The true core of my soul is to act as an on-the-spot reporter of life. I have this uncontrollable urge to not only see what’s happening around us but to express it from my own biased point of view. I’m going to show you what happened…to me.
Film at 11.
As a fellow artist I can feel your pain. Most people either don’t understand what we’re trying to express or just think we’re weird. So be it. I’m proud to be a weirdo. I even dream in cinemascope, techicolor and stereophonic sound. I know, these are old-fashioned Hollywood terms but you get my drift.
I love storms. Unfortunately, we hardly ever get any here in the high Mojave desert. I, for one, can smell the rain, feel the rumble in my belly and hear the echo traveling along the plains when I’m looking at the photo of the lightning hitting the side of the mountain. And any photo with Ray in it is just like a force of nature in itself.
Two blog entries in a week. Wow! You should get tattooed more often.
Amen.