Author Archives: charr

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The word perception keeps coming up.  Is it because this art image is nothing at all what it seems?  It’s origins are from two different pictures, two different women, and not just what appears to be one?  Some would call it a composite.  I just call it a piece of art where I took from one image and another and another to combine things while paying attention to my minds eye.

The original image was shot some time ago.  It’s of two girls backstage at a fashion event.  Just a quick grab shot because I liked their hair and makeup.  I began working on it a couple of weeks ago, just fooling around, trying out some new techniques.  It’s how I teach myself– trial and error– and it’s the best way for me to learn.

I’ve stopped and started on this one several times now, waiting for the moment it told me it was done.  To get there I kept searching for and adding the next thing needed to move it towards completion.  Pictures do that.  They tell you what they need if you just listen and pay attention to your third eye it will happen.   The germination process.  Sometimes an artpiece just flows out like water at Niagara Falls.  sometimes it takes an entire season of waiting and noodling.  Either way its important to trust your instincts, trust the process.

I collect details, often with my cell phone.  Seems to me everyone does these days.  Just the other night I was out with friends having dinner and all four of us were doing something with our phones.  Texting, taking a picture, loading it to Facebook with a status update.  Sharing on instagram with every #hashtag you can imagine.  Maybe it’s the crowd I hang with but we are definitely phone obsessed.  And like I said, I collect details.  I find beautiful textures and details everywhere I go.  and I use them in my work all the time.  These beautiful little picture moments that add some visual interest to an image when I need that little something.

I was at a birthday party at a most fabulous mansion a few months ago.  The kind of mansion Hollywood would rent for a big budget movie.  The kind of mansion that comes equipped with it’s own grand piano.  The kind of mansion that has acreage and fishing and peacocks and you can cook on a spit near the olympic sized pool.   I found this big beautiful chandelier handing so quietly near the winding staircase.  Yes, I shot it with my cellphone.  And today, when I was working on a piece I found this photo again.  I’d turned it black and white.  I combined it with the other image and voila.  It’s a kind of Photo Zen Garden.  The invisible image underneath is what gives this black and white one the colorful effect.  I like it!

You wanna know something big?  I’ve been an artist since birth and I think I’m just now finally owning it.  Crazy!  What the heck has taken me so long?  What does it take for any of us to own up to truths we avoid or deny?  I’ve managed to have a very successful career as a photographer and creative so luckily I’ve always been on the right path for me.But lately there has been this rumbling and grumbling thing, quiet but forceful, going on inside me.  I’ve been mentoring and teaching others how to look at themselves– to ask the question “Who Am I?  What do I want?” as part of their personal career growth.  Perhaps by asking them I asked myself unwittingly and suddenly there was this shift and “opening”, for lack of a better word.  Last week during a meeting with a friend about my Immortalize Yourself project things suddenly became clear.

Let’s start here.  Besides my photography career I’m a crafter.  That just means I like to work with my hands and make things.  I make scarves, clocks, jewelry, I work with fabric, I sew, I paint, draw, design, and lots more.  I have for as long as I can remember tried to find ways to incorporate my imagery into functional and wearable art and sell them.   There have been times I’ve wandered into the retail realm wanting to sell my crafts,  functional art, design skills as a new career.  But primarily it’s the imagery that has always been the thing, the core, the bottom line.  I crafted simply to have a vehicle for my works.  That was an actual revelation for me.  I realized I wasn’t honoring my artistry in a full and meaningful way.  The thing I do more than anything else, do at every opportunity and take the greatest pleasure in needs to be front and center in my world and livelihood.

I’d be delighted if you really love my work and are now or become a bonafide fan.  And if you wandered here by accident that’s ok too.  You’ve come at a very interesting time.  I’m an artist and owning it for real for the first time in my life.  My medium is photography and I love what I do more than anything else in the world.  I would choose this again, unwaveringly.

I’ve been super prolific for the past couple of weeks.  Partly because I have an idea and a specific goal in mind and am super excited about it– more on that later as it develops.  So it’s really juiced me up and I’m in hyper drive making new work. These are two new pieces I did just this week.   I’m putting myself out there and people will think what they think, and some will share the good, the bad and the ugly opinions.  OK!

In the movie Amadeus the King says to Mozart that his extraordinary new musical piece has “too many notes”.  And of course Mozart argues that it has just as many as he requires, no more, no less.  So it is with any art, what’s done is done.  The artist steps away, the piece complete.  Voila.  The public cheers or jeers…

So, I’m also saying that it’s ALL subjective.  You don’t like herring?  You don’t like Abstract?  You don’t like violent films or dogs?  Move on, make another choice, do what’s true for you.  And don’t expect anyone else to agree.  They like Herring and dogs and slasher movies.  There’s always something for everyone.  Don’t bother defending your work to anyone.  You do what you do, why not simply honor that.

No matter what, simply have the courage of your own convictions and stand behind your own work and smile if they hate it, smile if they love it.  I may have learned this long ago but even now, with a new perspective and artistic shift, I’m experiencing it anew.  Interesting stuff.

I don’t always know where I’m going when I begin an art piece.  Really.  And I let the image talk to me.  When I choose the original image it’s an instinct.  Something in it inspires me, speaking in a silent voice.  This image originated from a session I did about two years ago and as I was searching my archives today came across it.  At the time we’d done some really fun pictures– and truth be told the images stand on their own as very cool.  Artsy, sexy, weird, spacey and I just love that kind of stuff.

A make-up artist created a head piece skull cap and I created the wire wrap.  I find it very futuristic and the directness of her gaze and body language is what made me choose this particular photo.  Also the clarity in her gorgeous eyes.  I also used one of the fractals I’ve made as pattern and detail.

For about two weeks now I’ve been massively inspired and when those juices are flowing you must ride it out.  So I’ve been knees deep in one art piece after another.  I love to “paint” pictures.  I can’t seem to get enough.  My minds eye sees splashes of color and texture, muddled skin, brush strokes.  So instead of doing what I’ve done most of my photography career– doing the simple, appropriate retouching– I’m going whole hog into what my brain and hands are craving.  Honoring truth, the kind of truth that sets each and every artist apart from the person next to them.  Not better, wiser, smarter or more beautiful or quirky or creative.  There is no measurable thing in making art, in my opinion anyway.  You think it up, you express it.  There is no correct medium to work in.  The perfect medium is the one that calls to you.  Digital painting has me firmly in it’s deliciously addictive grip.