Looking Glass Eyes

I noticed something last night, something that surprised yet pleased me. I had gone out to attend the ArtWalk here in Bozeman, Montana with the specific intention of meeting the sculptor who had created the angel wings pendent and earrings that I wear nearly ‘round the clock. I'd purchased the pendent last October, after my son moved out of my home, when I found myself living alone for the first time in my life and wondering how to begin living for myself once again. This very beautiful wearable art is titled Naissance, rebirth. Very fitting for the next phase of my life.

I soon began an email conversation with the artist asking him to create the matching pair of earrings I now wear and thus felt as though we had a connection that I wanted to honor. So off I went last night, in the rain, to meet him - a very nice gentleman, unassuming and friendly. We chatted for a few moments as he showed me the other work he’d sculpted using the earring design he'd created for me and then thanked me for the impetus to create the pieces. He then went on to show me other new artwork and that’s when I noticed it … the self-judgment. He called his work “weird” with a wincing that showed on his face. I was bemused by this display of self ridicule.

Being an artist myself, and having more than my share of self-judgment, I’d always put other artists up on a pedestal, or at least on a step-stool. Above me. “Real” artists, those who make a career of their calling and who support themselves with their art, who have gallery representation, and who, unlike me, have talent and visible success. This had been the internal self-dialogue I'd heard for many years. Not the truth, mind you, just my own self-judgment and recrimination. So this sculptor stood, in my mind, upon a pedestal of endorsement and accomplishment. I, on the other hand, have only had one solo show, three invitational shows, three juried shows, one second place award, and was a guest lecturer, but only once. Obviously not enough to justify calling myself a “real” artist. Like I said, self-denial and censure, lies I told myself.

It was through the More to Life program that I’d learned the truth about who I am, the truth about my abilities, talents and character. And it was the more than two years of truth-telling that led me to the next point in my conversation with this “real” artist. I whipped my business card out of my back pocket and handed it to him stating that I am a photographer. I didn’t say “I want to be” or “am trying to become” or “dabble in” as I frequently have said in the not so distant past. There was no framing of it, no qualifying or explaining, no down-playing and minimizing. “I am a photographer,” I said and smiled. It was owned right down to my toes and it showed in my demeanor.

It was only after walking out of the gallery that I noticed the absence of shrinking in myself. I stumbled across it while reflecting on the flinching I’d witnessed as he spoke of his “weird” art. I had seen my former self on his face, a self I am happy to leave behind. And isn’t it ironic that it was this wincing man’s artwork, this Naissance that I wear daily around my neck, that bore my intention along this very self-affirming journey from purpose, through vision and into reality?

Perhaps he saw himself, too, his true self, in my looking glass eyes. I can only hope.

Honor in His Heart

As time goes on, this photo still remains my very favorite and, as a prizewinner, it's the one I'm most proud of.

Photography Show!

You are cordially invited!! There will be two distinct bodies of work being exhibited, "Light" and "Shadows."

Artist's Statement for "Light"

My photographic art allows me to indulge my love of bold color while pushing the envelope of realism. I am motivated to repaint my world in new shades through the interplay of natural subjects clothed in unnatural hues. In this series, the colors of my digital photographs are enriched to produce images which reveal the dynamic of nature’s intensity, otherwise lost to the casual observer. In creating art that requires the viewer to interact with the work, I force the eye to search for value and definition thereby discovering my subject’s secret life as art.

Artist's Statement for "Shadows"

Think of all the descriptive labels you may have ever used to identify a teenager, perhaps someone you knew or simply saw hanging out downtown: punk, freak, slacker, druggie, jock, goth, slut, bitch, flake, etc., labels you‘ve used in thinking and speaking of them; labels that may have served as barriers to keep you safe from them, which may have identified you as superior to them or at least as being different from them and they from you.

Now recall the labels that were used on you as a teenager: weirdo, jock, brain, egghead, momma’s boy, juvenile delinquent, teacher’s pet, bum, stuck-up, whatever it was – we all had them.

As you stand before these images fill your mind with all of these limiting labels … then look into their faces. Do you see an emotion you’ve felt, a pain you’ve carried, a freedom you’ve longed to know? Can you bridge the gap between you and them?

PS: This is one of the reasons I haven't posted a blog for a while.

Happiness is ...

My niece, Becca, after savoring a slice of her grandfather's birthday cake last Sunday.

Art as Financing

Good Medicine © 2006

Just sold this piece through the Sweet Pea Art Show. It has always been my most popular piece of photographic art and now the proceeds will finance my October show. I love it when this stuff happens and I accept with gratitude all of the abundance that the Universe bestows upon me. Aho!

Directions

Wherever you go, there you are!

(And a great view of the magnificent Bridgers always makes life more bearable.)

Living the Dream

For the past few days I’ve been working on creating an invitation postcard, an invitation to my first photographic art show. It feels somewhat weird to be making such a statement, as though it should be about someone else. But it isn’t and I’m wondering why I’m finding it to be a bit of a challenge to don the mantle of artist when it has been a lifelong dream of mine.

I suppose it’s about stepping up to meet the goal, to make the final push to the summit. What will change afterwards in the way others see me, in the way I see myself? It seems best not to even think about it, not to step outside of the experience and look at it like a movie, but rather to simply go on experiencing my life from within the dream. Aside from having a desire to create, to live in those moments of spontaneous artistry, I haven’t really had a clear objective, much less a plan for how to get there. I am merely responding to my long ignored prime directive to be an artist. It is no more than a matter of being who I am.

So, yes, I am having my first show in October and I’m no longer qualifying it by adding that it is only in a coffee shop; it is still my first show. And at the urging of my good friend and sister in spirit, a very well known Cherokee fine artist, I will be issuing a press release and having an artist’s reception. It’s good to have friends who will hold the mirror for me, who encourage me to see myself in their looking glass eyes.

August Augie

Augie, lying on top of the computer armoire, from where he surveys his vast domain.

Lovely Lauren

Copyright 2007 Trish McCormick Photography

Photo Art

Sunflower, v. 2.2
Copyright 2006 Trish McCormick Photography

Streaming Photography

I’ve been working with a coach because I want channel my passion for photography into a profession that will nurture and sustain me financially as well as emotionally and creatively. Toward that end, one of the first tasks she assigned me was to write, in streaming thought mode, about what photography means to me. I didn’t reread any of what I had written until just prior to my next appointment two weeks later and I have to say that I was floored by what I read. The following triptych is the as-written, unedited assignment.

Photography

Photography is me touching the world, holding the bits and pieces in my heart and finding myself in every capture. I shoot, I collect, I create; alchemy of light and spirit revealing what may be hidden to the naked eye, what fades from view in a world teeming with must-do’s and gotta-go’s.

I see myself camera to cheek, voyeur to pain and suffering, love and fear, reckless laughter and convulsive sobs. The eye tells all. The subject is freed from normal constraints, from the strictures of propriety and, in a slicing glance, tells me what words can never convey.

I shoot, I move, I speak gently, connecting not just with my lens but with my own pain and vulnerability, with my memories, with my experience, with that part of my being that can only be seen in moments like these when the camera becomes a portal allowing you to come to me.

At The Opening

The gallery is made alive with the life force held not nearly frozen in the interaction of chemical and paper, ghosts but seconds away from stepping out from within the frame to mingle with the wine-sipping guests. The viewers look and discuss, interpreting, deciding, blaspheming, spilling opinion all over my offerings. But I am there amongst my offspring, rubbing shoulders and hearts with the residual energy of one explosive moment in time when spirit and pixels collide, forever fused one to the other. I vacantly smile and give thanks, feeling the power of the images working on me, on the others, on the walls and lights and ruby red carpet. Only I can see who is real and who is not and grin widely at my peopled creations.

End of the day

Alone in my room I undress, taking off my clothes as well as my defenses, placing them at the foot of my bed. They look odd, strangely like slithered-out-of snake skin. There is my pride, my ego, my holier-than-thou, draped over my tripod; there is the part of me that says ‘I am a photographer. I am and you are not.” The boorish editor who normally occupies my left brain finds herself snagged on the quick release. These are not the essence of my self, the true artist, the one whose heart connects across the Nikon bridge. They intrude, they taint, they sabotage. Only when I have managed to bind and gag them does the beauty of the model, of the moment, of the creation reveal itself. And with each new digital gift my power swells from within the secret place inside of me. Photography reveals me to myself.

My Passion

While you may have heard some parents say that they'd like to shoot their teenagers, I actually get to do it.

(No teens were harmed in the making of these images. All photos Copyright 2007 Trish McCormick Photography.)