I’m going to recycle a piece I wrote some years ago. I just re-read it for the first time in a long time. It sure is special…

Feeding Imaginary Goats

I am not sure that asking me to write about art is a good idea. Asking me to ruminate upon the nature of things is like turning the goats loose on your lawn. Before you know it, they’ve eaten the trees.

This article began life as a musing upon the art of seeing, but then started leering stubbornly towards a treatise of the creative process. Creation is life. Growth is life manifested. Creation feeds off the
self-perpetuating enigma of growth, thoroughly, like a goat.

As a photographer I am engaged in the practice of capturing instants of light. I see things that others do not. Like a man who believes in ghosts or UFO’s, I feel compelled to record evidence of that which I see for a purpose I am unsure how to define. I gather proof that the mystery exists, but make no attempt to solve it. Perhaps a solution might enable the corruption of some unknowable beauty.

Looking at things with our eyes and processing the visual information is something most of us do all day long. Seeing is more of an event characterized by the sudden realization that we have proof of the divine nature of vision right before us. Like a rainbow, the lazy man’s lobster of enlightenment, a vision of magnitude has the power to stop a person in their tracks and feel both empty and full all at once.

Photography has a universal appeal in that it affords anyone the opportunity to exploit a technology with a feeling of confidence. We imagine that we now have a device that is fully in our control, and that we have the power to use this tool to record evidence of things we have seen. Can we truly? How often does a photograph stop a person in their tracks and cause them to marvel?

Skill is an ego trip for people who do things. Those content to simply be, have no need of skill. In order to learn photography one must obtain skill. In order to see, however, one must learn to be. The pitfall of pure skill is to achieve pure nothing. One must have a goal which justifies the acquisition of skill. It is the belief in the beauty of all things truly seen that provides my rationale for acquiring the skill of photography.

As a badge, as a shield, or as a talisman, the camera may be carried religiously. For those who care enough to see, it should be carried as a divining rod. Used properly, the camera is an instrument through which meaningful energy can pass through undiminished. A camera cannot see, however, and it is important to believe that we do not need the camera to see.

I have become obsessed with the act of creation. I make photographs and electronic music professionally, and I dabble in an evolving set of creative endeavors from performance to writing. I stir the pot. I program chaos into my life for the sole purpose of stimulating new shoots to nibble on, for there is nothing quite so tasty as a budding green concept.

In order to feed an unyielding appetite for new growth I am cultivating an increasingly wide variety of creative flora with the belief that diversifying my diet will yield a fuller, more rewarding understanding of the nature of my surroundings. In other words, I feed imaginary goats.

Stubbornly, the symbolism won’t be ignored. Pragmatically, hungrily, the goats return to munching.

Tags: Art, creativity, goats, Photography, vision