061 - Peering Deeply into the Horizon
"When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not." ~ Georgia O'Keeffe
There is an idea, that more than the horizon and beyond, the act of looking begins closer. That the answers come in sight as we get better at looking with the idea of knowing and not confirming.
This letter is about that idea, to get to a place to see what is hidden in plain sight, to translate trepidations of bound beliefs to tendencies of interest, to cast more than a glance and make more known sights familiar.
Time Well Spent
One corner of the Internet I really enjoy being at is Razib Khan’s Time Well Spent series. I felt the web could do with more such nooks.
I Could Read the Sky, revisited - ‘Steve Pyke and I wanted to make a book where the photographs and the words do what only they can do but come together in a single act of storytelling.’
The Art of Healing - ‘Day after day, as I painted, my muscles began to loosen. My nerves, tight as guitar strings, began to let out. Painting picked me up and catapulted me into the terrain of magical shadows and rainbows.’
Book Review: On the Marble Cliffs - ‘…the fate of Germany in the late 19th and early 20th century, as viewed from the perspective of German nationalists who were not Nazis — the perspective of people like Ernst Jünger’
In John Berger’s Ways of Seeing, the first of its seven essays suggests that every image embodies a way of seeing, but also that its perception is defined by our own ways of seeing. Of how we only see what we look at, and to look is an act of choice.
But how do we make this choice? How do we see what an artist reveals if we choose to not look at it? Is it even necessary to see exactly what the artist intended for us to see?
While O’Keeffe certainly saw the gap in the gaze and never reconciled with the sexualisation of her flower portraits. Gwendolyn Brooks, however, permitted a space for sexual interpretation of her banned poem We Real Cool, even when it wasn’t intended. “I,” she said, “firmly believe—that poetry is for personal use. When you read a poem, you may not get out of it all that the poet put into it, but you are different from the poet… take from it what you need.”
Sunday Matinee
A big influence on Georgia O’Keeffe’s painting once she entered the universe of Alfred Stieglitz were the photographs of Paul Strand and Edward Steichen, (besides Stieglitz of course).
I have my own conspiracy theory that O’Keeffe perhaps related with Strand’s work more as a peer, someone charting the same path as hers, both venturing to the depths of a subject to find and abstract, to simplify, its essence. Much like with many artists today, Strand’s career suffered at the hands of politics. But that is because he ventured further into the art of photos beyond their capacity to document. To see a bit more through the lens.
Time Spent Elsewhere
Dabbawalla
Cut the courgettes — wash them by all means if you want, but don't bother to peel them — into 5mm / one-eighth of an inch rings, and then finely dice them. Put them into a pan with the lemon zest and oil, stir to coat, then cook on a gentle heat for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until they've slightly softened.
Stir in the turmeric and pour in the stock and lemon juice and then drop in the rice. And for the stock here, as usual I make up some bouillon concentrate with water; you could use vegetable stock if you prefer, but I love the mellow goldenness you get from chicken.
Cook, uncovered, for 10-20 minutes, or just until the courgettes and rice are tender. Taste for seasoning.
Leave to cool slightly before serving so that you eat the soup warm rather than hot.
(Recipe)
Ways of Seeing
...For eyes peering deeply into the horizon Searching for their destination can but see, Spring colours erupting in sidewalk blooms That are closer to the dirt and marching feet, Hidden in plain view and forever not in sight...
My friend Krishna’s poem from a zine we made together, one of my favourite parts of the project. And in a manner of poetic coincidence, he wrote this exactly a 100 years to the time when O’Keeffe abstracts reached the desk of Alfred Stieglitz. The appeal of colours and shape is the same through all ages.