I have spent a lot of time in the wild, mostly at rock outcroppings climbing. But this past weekend, I had a different objective: to hike into the wilderness and sleep. Accompanied by two new friends I made here in Canon City and Roadie, we set off on Saturday. The day was moody and threatened to rain on us. But, as has happened before, the Colorado weather doesn’t always do what you think it will do.
So our approximately five mile hike in was mostly cloud covered and quite comfortable. The Aspens were still bright yellow. I brought my new mirrorless camera (ounces become pounds and pounds become pain) and played with settings. The boulders were a form of architecture. What a special place.
Maybe it’s that I just finished Sally Mann’s new memoir Art Work: On the Creative Life, but I’m happy to be outside and making pictures, allowing my heart to be moved. Perhaps another iteration of the “Ode to Seasons” western edition is in store.
An excerpt from Sally Mann’s new book:
“In Somerset Maugham’s novel Cakes and Ale, the narrator, a literary figure, observes that ‘serious people’ tend to laugh at him when he writes from the fullness of his heart, and, indeed, as time passes, he finds he laughs at himself also, despite the sincerity of his emotion. And why not, he muses, for man is but ‘the ephermeral inhabitant of an insignificant planet,’ and, despite all his suffering, striving, and ambition, is merely ‘a jest in an eternal mind.’
I encourage you to defy that perception, to attach your zero, which is where we all start, to the limitless integer of your creativity, your drive, your accumulated skills, your tenacity, and your passion. Your sincere emotions matter, and not just to you. It is not sentimental or romantic to want to share your feelings. Or, maybe it is, but do it anyway; the worst that can happen is that you invite the condescension of a supposedly sophisticated audience. Be true. Despite the platitudious precipice on which they teeter, embrace without irony or apology the concepts of beauty, hope, joy, honesty, and always, affection. Leave your fearless trace, dove sta memoria, because beauty matters. As an artist, you are a sensitive filament picking up unique frequencies and making the work they evoke. And if you are lucky, when that work is released, it will find untingled nerve endings out in the world and lustily tingle them, manifesting indeligible truths in which someone will one day find beauty. That is our job.”