The tree and the sea

The tree and the sea.

I am often asked why, if my passion is for painting, did I choose to teach photography. It's a good question and the simple answer is that it was more fun. Photographers are gregarious, share stuff, move more quickly and have a wider spectrum of activity and are not so scared of messing up.

Another reason was that I wanted to instill in photography students the slower and often deeper instincts of a painter.

Sounds somewhat elite this doesn't it?

But that is not the case at all.

Let me explain by giving a simple example from this past week of how this is still relevant in my life, a life which has me floating in the space between these two expressive forms of creativity, respecting both for their differences and power to affect our lives in incredible ways.

The Tree

This I pass half a dozen times a day walking to my garden studio. I posted a photo of it to our Facebook page 'Mindful Photography'

I added an explanation, describing it as a City, probably three times my age, which is the home of a colony of 10,000 ants, spiders, beetles and a myriad of micro creatures as well as black squirrels occasionally, and of course birds; a living organism in itself and a host to other living creatures.

Not an unusual thing to do you might say, but for me this is so. Unusual because I have always taught that a photograph must, if it is meaningful photograph, say all of these things by the singular power of its image alone.

So I would impress on students that making a photo is easy, but to fully absorb oneself in the subject of interest, absolutely so, this is what one must do, even before even thinking about picking up a camera.

The Sea

And this below is a painting I made at the same time.

I live by the Adriatic sea in Italy and this is one of a series of the influences this area is having on me, feelings and thoughts and mindsnaps which are bouncing into me, of the wind, the colours of the sea and the adjacent land, the boats and the stark boatyards, the smells even of the fishing boats and the continuous movement of birds and people around its shores.

But can you see how different these processes are?

There were times in which I forbade students from taking more than one photo a month; all the time slowing them down, becoming what we now refer to as mindful (although I prefer mind empty, except it sounds a bit odd)

So, there you are. Memories which surface from time to time which serve as teachers.

Historically of course, I am referring to a time at Bournemouth Art College in the 80s and 90s (when it was nicknamed the Zen School of Photography); a time when there was time, and with only a small number of students too. But to me, these principles of course still apply; that any form of creative expression must involve complete absorption into the arena in which we choose to express ourselves.

And you get there by going there.

Michael Eldridge and Naga Dipa are running a workshop in Brighton in July entitled 'Mindful Photography' for details write to michael@starstone.org

And Michelle Rumney and Michael are running a workshop in Italy in May entitled 'Time and Space to be Creative' Click here for more info or write to michael@starstone.org

Michael is interviewed on the subject of Creativity

Michelle Rumney and I have been putting the final touches to our retreat this early summer in Assisi and she reminded me of when she had interviewed me back in 2010 about Creativity for one of her Room on the Edge interviews. I hadn't listened to it for years, so I played it back to myself yesterday evening. I know what you are thinking, that I was riveted with boredom and fell off my chair. Not so. She has put it up on the Starstone Creativity Retreats Facebook page but here it is for you bloggers http://artistsadventur.es/michael-eldridge-interview/
It is interesting for me to contrast this with an interview in November with Anthony Rogers, director of The Foundation for Recovery and Wellness and to hear how the questioner got different stuff out of me; squeezed out more recent memories. Here it is http://www.irwcconference.com/michael-eldridge-creativity-and-wellbeing/
These should go down well with a nice cup of tea and a cake, in the evening
However maybe they are both too wordy and give the impression that creativity is somehow difficult to rediscover in ourselves, should we ever imagine that we have lost it somewhere in our lives (which in truth we haven't)
But words apart, (and these can be inspiring but are never enough)...what I was struggling to express was the simplicity of living creatively; contrasting this with the mind's seeming objection to this state of being.
And so, our workshops are about the pure physicality of being immersed in this realm. To experience what it is to act with the absorption of a child, to be fully attentive to the actual, where past and future thoughts just peel away and we can watch them past by as if they were fish in a stream which we have no wish to catch or engage with. To be absorbed in the realm of creativity by the very act of creating where we and the flow and the act become one.
There! That is what I wished I'd said.

Michael 3/3/16

Time and Space to be creative

I wrote in a previous blog about the Seminars Tony Maestri and I attended at Brockwood Park with Krishnamurti; the many books we read and how we based an entire Photography Course at the then Bournemouth College of Art, (now Arts University Bournemouth) on his teachings (a secret course which ran parallel with the official one we pretended to follow)

And this is the very heart of the teaching I have followed ever since. He wrote something which particularly inspired me..

'that the state of creative emptiness is not a thing to be cultivated- it is there, it comes darkly, without any invitation, and only in that state is there a possibility of renewal, newness, revolution':

'....to die to everything of yesterday, so that your mind is always fresh, always young, innocent, full of vigour and passion. and that it is only in that state that one learns and observes'

In short, that is what our workshops and retreats are all about. They are where the adventure starts.

No need to tell you any more right now, simply because there is no written formula to follow in being creative. Can you remember when you first learned to swim or ride a bike? Of course you can. And it's like that, we just do it. painting, poetry, photography, making, doing and of course walking, eating, laughing; inhabiting this beautiful space where our creativity is released, it is suddenly there.

Our next Time and Space workshop/retreat is May 26 weekend in Assisi, with Michael Eldridge and Michelle Rumney
Time
Where past and future are brushed aside and our minds are fresh young and innocent once more
Space 
 

                      The studio at Casa Faustina

A beautiful studio on the hill beneath the swaying pine trees at Casa Faustina

You can find out more on this link  
And you can hear Michelle interviewing Michael on this link

And should you wish to write to Michael, here is his email
michael@starstone.org
Or call him whatsapp +39 3283535358

Best wishes

Michael 

Talking about Bowie

Every fortnight I connect with my photography buddies on SKYPE and we chat about the state of the medium, about philosophy and art in general. There is never any exact theme or subject matter to discuss but somehow the conversation flows and there arrives a point where one of us touches upon something significant and it as if a light flashes on and we do a sort of Spock mind lock. And so it transpired this morning, when suddenly we were talking about the malaise of contemporary photography and I am thinking, what malaise?

REWIND

It is just a day after David Bowie's death and the truth is that we are each of us fuzzed up emotionally, not knowing quite what to say or how to react in any clear way to the news. He has disturbed our tranquil fortnightly chat.

We have no choice but to talk about what he represented; creativity, innovation, change, and above all, a continual smashing of that vessel we call normality. And what is he doing to us now? Confusing us, that's what. Because our adventurous inner selves really hate normality too. Lazarus, Jesus Christ, resurrection, death (but eternal life too remember). He is making death a theatrical event but didn't Jesus do just that too?

For the most part, I guess he lived in a realm he created for himself and is/was offering this as a gift to us others through his music and by making himself into an art form, one in which now he has even incorporated into his own death. For us to learn something? But what exactly? I'm thinking seriously about this, there's a lot to think about in what he has left behind.

So much has already has been said and written about Bowie in just these last 24 hours and I would bet that there is so very much yet to come which will surprise us all. 

Who knows? Maybe his death is just another beautifully choreographed beginning (but this is just my fanciful thinking;  because his life, and now his death, naturally foment such thoughts).

But he is gone (is he?), and we are alive (are we?). And our talking about him took us to the awareness of how damn lucky we are to have time left to add to this world. To add ourselves, our work, our creativity and our art in whatever form that might take, as a gift to life, a gift to our planet.

CONCLUSION

So our conversation tailed off as less of a conclusion but more of a dawning reaffirmation that creativity is a doing verb. That the very act of doing, making, manifesting in any medium, opens the door to that creative realm, a sacred place which is available not just to the few, but to us all.
We must thank him for that.
Michael
Next 'Photography and Awareness' workshop in September, in Italy

Letters to a friend part 6

'Thanks my friend,

Meant to respond to your image for Oct earlier, but here I am.

                                                                        photo Holly Woodward

A comforting photo because it says what all gardens should say. That we are welcome and secure and and that they exist because we exist and that our eyes and hearts give them their purpose, their raison d'etre.

When Steve and I put 'Trees and Sky' together we decided (in fact we didn't decide it just happened synchronistically)...... that we would make images from  a max distance from our homes (for me it was 250 metres)...and that limitation was in fact liberating.

Lovely image'...................

I just wrote the above to a friend and this brought in mind, triggered off, a need to put it into some sort of context. Here I go. 

We are a group who got together at the Bristol workshop in July which was entitled 'Photography and Awareness' and we decided to keep our contact alive by sending each other photos every month. This, incidentally, is mine for October

And this is the idea.
No judgement, no criticism, no competition.
Just observation.
No hunting for images. Instead letting the images come to us as if carried on the wind

And so,'Photography and Awareness', although the other way around would make more sense because with a developed and acute awareness, photography just follows like a happy and obedient puppy.
Then again, I would prefer the word 'Absorption' to 'Awareness' but it would sound silly as a title, so we'll let it stand.
You see, when we are in a state of absorption, the awarer is not there as a separate entity and there is no duality. And we all experience this state when deeply into a book or film, or fishing or playing chess whatever. And of course children spend most of their waking hours in this wondrous state until adults begin to interfere. And the deepest state of absorption is when we are in the act of creating, whether a painting, a poem, a garden etc. In short, simply doing the things we love, if we haven't forgotten what these are.
Which takes me back to Holly's image. It is not simply another photo of a garden. It is a state of being where the experiencer and the experience and the subject of the experience have become one.
And this is what I mean by absorption.

Michael, October 2015

Painting and Photography

This article in the Guardian makes me faintly smile; that desperate yearning that photography has had for a century now to be recognised as an art form.

At Art College my chosen discipline was painting. I was a term into the three year course when I realised that being stuck in a corner of a studio with introverts was going to bore me. And I began to strike out sideways, looking for a more adventurous outlet for my energy. Tried ceramics but found it too slow, etching ditto. Then photography! Took to it like a squirrel to acorns.

It wasn't just that it was an instant experience, taking photos, developing film, making contact prints, printing images, not just that. What appealed to me were the people, the students. They communicated with one another, showed each other their images, smoked and drank too much and weren't so damn serious like those painting types.

So this is where my life divided and I found myself equally fascinated by painting, which slowed me down and Photography which sped me up.

Then I become equally bored by the Art Institution itself and started an art adventure club which did daft things to keep minds alive. I would hire a plane for a day and fill it with a hundred students and lecturers and fly off to Amsterdam to see an exhibition. Such stuff. It was performance art of a sort.

So even then I couldn't stay still enough to be considered as one thing or another in terms of a definition.

And after all those years I still think the same way. Which is what?

It is this. I tell young people to just get on and do stuff. That creativity is all that matters, and when you get on that train, it could take you anywhere and you don't have to stop at any station.

And I like to create art communities, to mix things up to turn folks upside down. Just because art can never be static, creativity is a wild river which cuts its own  direction.

And my photography and painting live happily side by side and have a relationship, one with the other. I paint images which drift into my head from the Gap. Then (and it could be any time later), I see that very same image out there somewhere in photographic reality. Oh, not the exact image graphically but they are the same to me in the zing effect they have on my imagination, that wondrous clearing house in my mind.

Here are two images which I offer as an example

 

Don't ask me for an explanation, it would spoil things.


I have opened a community 'The Creative Village' on Arthur Fox's site Innovation Global Network which you might like to join and find out about workshops planned in Italy next year.
Costs nothing to join and is full of interesting people

Michael
At Starstone
Next retreat in Assisi, Italy  'Wellness, Mindfulness: Painting your Life, 12 to 17 October

Awareness in the People's Republic of Bristol

Bristol: Photography and Awareness

I'd written off my car in Italy the day before I had to fly to the UK for our workshop at Hamilton House and arrived in a nervous state knowing full well I should have cancelled the trip (bruises, wounds and all). Glad I didn't though because the experience proved to be a fascinating one both for us photographer/leaders and for the participants I'm sure. This was our first workshop together, Steve, Colin and I, although we knew each other from our collective past and had a show in Turkey last year together with the same title 'Photography and Awareness'

So that was exactly a month ago and during this time we all us had pledged just one photo each by the end of July; the theme 'A heartfelt image'

'The object isn't to make art, it's to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable'....Robert Henri

This is my fall-back message to self whenever I am working on a retreat or workshop (in fact I must get the T shirts printed) and in Bristol this popped up and swam around my head from start to finish.

Let me explain more clearly by going back and forth in time, starting from yesterday on the beach at Porto Potenza.

The image below; Man the photographer/hunter (may he forgive me, whoever he was)

  

When Tony Maestri and I started to work together at the then School of Photography and the now Arts University Bournemouth, we'd been out in Mexico and California and were fired up on all that stuff out there, stories about all those West Coast Boys (and girls), those photographers who had elevated photography into an art form, Weston and Adams, and then  Imogen Cunningham and the f64 group. I'd met Ansel Adams a few times and remember someone asking him the technicalities of his famous 'Moon over the Sierras photo' He answered 'Heck I don't remember. We were rambling down to New Mexico, all drunk as hell in a dodgy station wagon and happy and laughing. Saw this huge moon and we stopped to breath it in. And I stuck my tripod on the car's roof and just opened the shutter for I've no idea how long...and that's what I got. Luck? No of course not! The photo wanted to be taken and that's all there was to it'

Love that memory.

So, you are getting the drift of this, huh?

In my mind there are two types of photographers, The hunter (image above) who searches outside of the lens and then the poet, dreamer, who operates this (the mind) side of the lens. For the former, the camera is a metaphor for a rifle, stalk your prey, make a killing. For the latter, a mystical machine which interprets his unique inner vision. And there are those, of course, who float in between, searching for that space (gap) where the light gets in.

So, these were the  conceptual seeds we sowed during our great weekend in Bristol. 
And the heartfelt image task?

Looks easy eh?

Not at all! It was our cheeky ruse to throw our kind participants into a quagmire of turmoil, one where they would find themselves lost and drifting between those two worlds.

And why would we be so unkind?

Well, to prepare the theme for the next onslaught of course in Assisi this coming October.

Interested?
For all details of our Autumn programme click here

Michael