the open field

Buddha Face (c) D Harris To me, creativity is sitting right at the coalface of the unknown. This takes courage because failure is imminent. Ego likes certainty and security, which is the known. So the basis of the view that I am creative person or that I produce wonderful work is always on the verge of collapse when facing the unknown. It is a turning towards and facing the existential angst. Pressures mount, anxiety intensifies, and other questions haunt below the surface and threaten to overwhelm the mind, such as 'who I am?' This is a natural process, although it feels very much the opposite. This needs to be breathed through, quietly, the aim being to let the noise settle, and at some stage, begin.  Where is the coalface of the unknown in your own creativity?  For me, in music, it is composing a piece that has feeling, is melodic, and forms the basic structure of a track or a larger piece of music. All other choices are pure distraction. What instrument should...

                                                         untitled (c)  D Harris   "If there is a path before you, it is not your path" Joseph Campbell I find it useful, for any creative endeavour, to have a look into the nature of creativity itself. My first caveat is that you must do this for yourself. Don't be lazy. Laziness is anathema to creativity in the long run. My second caveat is to choose your own metaphor for creativity. My third caveat is to define terms that get straight to the point. My last caveat is: you do not have to pursue a creative endeavour, it is your choice to make. My metaphor:  digging deep, mining creativity, archaeological exploration, sitting at the coalface, in the solitary darkness, buried, excavating, exploration, discovery. These are my terms:      Pa...

Ephemeral (c) D Harris Any type of art practice is the consistent, structured application of practices and methodologies to concepts that centre around meaning making and communication. The process is integral to the result. It is multi-disciplinary, experiential, and is self validating through the need to create and make sense of self and /or one's relation to one's experience of the world. It is more than a hobby, it is primarily about meaning making and the joy of creating. It is not a substitute for a mediocre or safe or conventional life. It enriches life and in turn life enriches the practice. It is as much about exploration as it is about expression. An exploration of self, of who you are, a way of relating to and interpreting the self and the world around us. It is multifaceted, as it integrates life, philosophy, meaning, reflection/meditation, contribution, and a heart felt sense of joy from solely focussing on the love of the medium. Just as jazz lost its way...

                                                 Dream #2 (c) D Harris                                                    A photograph is essentially an object, an object on a wall, in your hand, on a page, or on your screen. It is two dimensional. It is usually rectangular, or, if the photograph is square in format, it is usually on a rectangular page or screen. The two-dimensional physicality of a photograph is important because it is the end product. It is the message. The actual act of photographing is entirely different. It is the means of communicating, the medium through which communication takes place. Or is it? Immediately several questions remain.  Is there a message? Who are we trying to communicate to? Th...

Carisbroke Station (c) D Harris P hotography and music appear to be different languages. However, the same question underpins both: Why learn and speak the language? It is not about having something to say. Words are available for that. To me it is something more. Time is crucial in music. Sloppy timing isn’t satisfying. Good exposure (recording the light) is important in photography. Both require a level of technique. Let’s call technique facility. Having facility means being free to express, not being stuck or hindered by technique. Both photography and music have structure. Facility through technique requires structure. The rules of harmony allow certain types of soloing as expression. Some sound pleasing, some don’t. The rules of exposure and framing create a certain order as opposed to randomness. Structure is an aid to gaining facility. At a certain level though, structure acts as a constraint on personal expression. Stuck in the same patterns, playing the sam...

Shadow Self (c) D Harris T hat we construct our own reality is a fiction. To construct reality, we would have to be apart from it, outside of it, in order to construct it. This is absurd. Yet this is the state of a lot of contemporary art and contemporary art photography. It is a double fiction, because its sincere belief that we construct our own reality has become a 'reality' in itself. It is like the old saying, "tell a lie long and often enough, it becomes a truth." We could argue that, like novelists, we dream up characters that have believability and that these characters interact in real-life plots, and that this can reveal truths about ourselves and our world. Yes it can. It is still fiction if the photographer’s own truths are not expressed. A contemporary course curriculum for art photography states: "Consistency adds believability to your work and persuades your audience to suspend its disbelief." Two critical questions immediately arise: ...

Interior Landscape #2 (c) D Harris Is this image that of a flat piece of land set against a blue sky, or is it a table top against a wall? Our perception may allow us to recognise it as both. We are programmed to perceive what we expect to see. Sometimes, what we are looking at may not be what we perceive it to be. Which one is true? It depends on your perception. Our logical minds cannot process a “both-and” scenario and dictate that it must be “either/or”. However, truth is linked to perception and perception makes truth relative to the individual. This naturally leads to an experiential point of view, for what I have I experienced, I can ‘know’, in the felt sense, and what I have not experienced, I do not know. I may claim to know, but that is mere conception. In Zen, emptiness is a particularly challenging barrier on the path to ultimate awareness. It is a great test because the barrier is an illusion itself, set up by the conceptual mind, but perceived as real. There i...