Tuesday, July 01, 2008
Gettysburg pickets and lilies
My pen pal Suzanna Smith took this photo today. I like it. She says: "it was taken in Gettysburg, Pensylvania. On the battlefield. General Meade's Headquarters off Taneytown Road. The pickets were hewn a century or more ago. This is the fence around a small homestead that became Meade's Headquarters at the time of the Battle of Gettysburg. The day lilies are wild."
I bet things grew a lot better there after the battle. I heard that in Belgium their crops grew incredibly well after WWI. That might be funny if it wasn't so sad.
ReplyDeleteBrian H.
Suzannah Smith-Miles grew up with visions just like the pickets and lilies in her backyard. This photo is exactly as she described, "like home". I'm very proud of her artistic flair; not everyone gets to have and enjoy it.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous in SC
What artistic flair? It's a snapshot of a fence with some flowers growing in front of it. People become photographers because they lack talent for anything else. It's like high school "poets" who love blank verse.
ReplyDeleteAside from taking issue with the glib comment on why photographers become artists (Ansel Adams?), there is a lot more to be seen in this picture than flowers against a fence. Look closely at the pickets. They are why I took the picture. Every one of them is different, hand hewn in the 1800s. This woodworker may have been only a simple farmer but he had talent. He took the mundane task of creating a picket fence and brought form into function with a reality that caught my own artist’s eye a century-plus later. I am not a professional photographer. I am, however, a writer and an artist. The creativity in this fence enthralls me. It is the simple made grand; a pure artistic statement. Forget the photography. Look at the fence. Think blank verse, like what Shakespeare wrote. Free verse, I think is what anonymous meant. Alas, sir! We should not fence.
ReplyDeleteMe, I never saw the appeal of rhyming anyway. David Bowie is one of the greatest poets of the twentieth, and his lyrics never rhyme.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, one might imagine that anybody could have taken a photo like this, just because it's not technically tricky. But the fact is, they don't. A billion people with cameraphones don't. They don't get down on one knee and carefully fill the frame with the fence. Probably they don't even notice the fence.
Most people probably don't, considering that most people wouldn't go there in the first place. It's nothing to do with sports, after all. There's no peanut guy or hotdog guy. No beer. What is there to appeal to Joe Twelvepack? Nothing!
ReplyDelete"Anyway, one might imagine that anybody could have taken a photo like this, just because it's not technically tricky. But the fact is, they don't."
ReplyDeleteExactly. And this applies to creative work in general. Writing a book, painting a portrait or even composing a symphony is not that tricky, technically. Many people could (learn to) do those things. But they don't.
What makes an artist, therefore, is actually doing it. Making the decision to write or take photos, and then staying at it until the project is complete.
People overestimate the "talent" needed to do things, but grossly underestimate the endurance and patience needed to actually complete such a work.
Publishing even one photo on the net requires many steps. So many that most people don't bother. It's easier to sit on the couch and watch TV. Or comment on other people's photos.
Author Steven Pressfield refers to the lure of "not bothering" as the Resistance. His book War of Art is about the mental battle of actually doing it.
Writing a book, painting a portrait or even composing a symphony is not that tricky, technically. Many people could (learn to) do those things. But they don't.
ReplyDeleteTotally wrong. People like to downgrade the ability of your Mozarts or your Da Vincis by saying that with effort anyone could do it. Anyone couldn't. You could learn to draw and paint as well as Leonardo, that's just technique; to be art there's something more.
I'm not sure you want to be quoting Steven Pressfield, who is probably the worst writer of historical fiction in the history of the world. Ever read Gates of Fire? Blech!
"... Steven Pressfield, who is probably the worst writer of historical fiction in the history of the world."
ReplyDeleteMaybe that's why he switched to a different genre in War of Art.
"Ever read Gates of Fire? Blech!"
No. I am not keen on historical fiction.
I've read Gates of Fire and it did stink - it was shameless pro-war propaganda and is supposed to be popular with people in the U.S. military. Amazon has a five-star review by Newt Gingrich. As far as accuracy goes it is better than 300 by not by much (Frank Miller and Co. can at least say that they were not in the least bit interested in accuracy).
ReplyDeleteMaybe that's why he switched to a different genre in War of Art.
I'm not sure Pressfield would know Art if it bit him on his (presumebly fat; he's a writer after all) ass.
Historical fiction can be very good in the right hands. Mary Renault's historical ficton novels are excellent. (I would say that The King Must Die and The Bull From The Sea are half-way to being historical fantasy, though.) I guess like with any genre there is a lot of variation in quality.
"I'm not sure Pressfield would know Art if it bit him on his ... ass."
ReplyDeleteThe book, War of Art, is not about art. It's about war.
You write about about stuff (Gates of Fire/historical fiction) that has nothing to do with the subject of this thread. And you make yourself look like a fool by criticizing a book you haven't even read (War of Art).
The book, War of Art, is not about art. It's about war.
ReplyDeleteIt's about art, not war, dumbass. The subtitle of the book should give you some clue, and if not the blurb would tell you. You're some specialy kind of stupid.
You write about about stuff (Gates of Fire/historical fiction) that has nothing to do with the subject of this thread. And you make yourself look like a fool by criticizing a book you haven't even read (War of Art).
You mentioned Pressfield, and I mentioned his abysmally poor historical fiction writing to point out that someone lacking ability or integrity has no business writing a book intended to help people "channel his or her creative energies." I can see why your tiny brain might think it's about war in a way, because it is, as The Library Journal says in their review, about how "the focus is on combating resistance." If you equate combating anything with "war" (a word obviously used here in a very loose, abstract way), then I can see why you might think it's about war (armed conflict).
You obviously have not read the book either (I never claimed I had), or you would not have written something so asinine as "he book, War of Art, is not about art. It's about war". You are a fool. You make a fool out of yourself any time you post on any subject. You've been made to look so incredibly stupid by many other people as I have seen looking through the archive of past months. When that happens, it seems you go away for a while until the heat dies down. You are unfortunately one of the stupidest people I have ever had the misfortune to encounter (even though it is over the internet).
I can only hope your post was an attempt at a joke, which I've taken as serious.
Gee Suzzanah...
ReplyDeleteIf your battlefield photo brought on this war of words...I can't wait to see what your next photo may bring...
Uncle Ron
"You are a fool. You make a fool out of yourself any time you post on any subject. ... You are unfortunately one of the stupidest people I have ever had the misfortune to encounter ..."
ReplyDeleteWow! I feel important! :-)
Suzannah,
ReplyDeleteI never really looked at a photo that way. Looking at it as a commemoration of someones effort and skill.
Where I saw the beauty was in the regularity of the fence, the repetition, over-laid by the freedom and randomness of flowers. The brightness of the flowers over the cleanliness of the paint helps. We also have the layers of texture added by the grain and knots in the wood, the splits, the coarse texture.
Overall a pleasantly busy picture.
But to stop and see the human history involved. Sorry, missed that. But that's just me.