Tag: text

When did we become so small and so apologetic? Why do we apologize for our humanity? Love what you love, and make no apologies. This is your identity. The most horrendous suspensions of freedom are self-imposed. We imprison ourselves daily, hourly.

We have one life, one shot at all the glorious things of life, and we walk about constricted, apologetic, afraid. We have so little time; we have so little space upon which to spread our love and our talents and our kindness. Run toward life fulsomely and freely.

It runs from us so quickly, like a frightened dog or youth or daylight. Chase it and care for it.

Of course art should be about something big. Something terribly big must be at stake. I don’t see this anymore. Our art is becoming terribly polite and apologetic, much like us. It slinks away like a sagging breast, empty of milk or promise or comfort.

We need to get very fervent again. We need to get jacked up.

Tennessee Williams (via jrmgh)

Stop thinking about art works as objects, and start thinking about them as triggers for experiences. That solves a lot of problems. Art is something that happens, a process, not a quality, and all sorts of things can make it happen … [W]hat makes a work of art ‘good’ for you is not something that is already ‘inside’ it, but something that happens inside you.

Brian Eno  (via anorsexic)
Source: artpropelled

#450: Leelah & Project Rose

“Fight the good fight and love something true and kick some holes up into heaven so’s some angels fall through.”

…

I never knew you, Leelah but the world is darker without your light. I wish someone would have told you while it may not get better, it does get different. Different isn’t necessarily better but it’s rarely worse.

We need to do more, be better and find ways of accomplishing both with understanding and nuance and radical empathy.

Goodnight sweet girl.

…Little surprise that in one of the states where folks like Leelah’s Ass Douche Slurpee™ parents are all harem scare ‘em about the possibility of Sharia Law, there’s no problem whatsoever with arresting/not-arresting sex workers and giving them a choice between church or prison. It’s called Project Rose and it’s happening in Arizona and you should know about it.

When we boil water over fire to make tea, the water does not go from cool to boiling instantaneously. For the water to boil, continued exposure to heat for some time is required as the energetic frequency of the water gradually increases from cool to hot. Consciousness is like this. Enlightenment cannot be attained in a day or a month or even 5 years. To bring the consciousness from the gross to the subtle requires many, many years of disciplined practice. Though it is possible to soar quickly into an exalted state of consciousness or to plunge into the depths of despair, this effect is always limited and temporary. The only short cut on the path of realization is settling for lesser attainments.

Gananathamritananda Swami (via psychonautical)
Source: psychonautical

Collaborators sought

If you’ve followed this blog for a while you’ll know I’m not completely talking out of my ass, I am a photographer.

I shoot analog exclusively, almost always with the camera locked down on sticks. In other words, my process is  so slow as to best be termed glacial. (But aren’t glaciers breathtaking?)

The images I’ve made of which I am the most proud have all been collaborations with dear friends. Truth be told: my understanding of photography is entirely rooted in ideas collaborations. I think setting up a camera and saying do this, no more like that is extremely creepy and unsettling. I want your input on frame, blocking and for us to work together to use the mise-en-scene to convey the insinuation of some sort of narrative thread that encapsulates both or notions of what the image is trying to be.

Lately, my friends–my customary pool of potential co-conspirators–are scattered to the winds. And I’m finding myself reduced to a lonely specter roaming the streets of Brooklyn taking postcard snapshots instead of channeling dreams forgotten upon waking onto strips of celluloid.

It’s just not fucking sustainable; thus, as terrified as I am of putting myself out there, another year of not making the sort of work my soul craves will almost certainly kill me.

I have no prerequisites for potential collaborators–except that whatever we make must exist outside of both our respective comfort zones.

If this sounds intriguing or even if you are more curious than dubious, please DM me or send email via wlpw [at] outlook [dot] com.