Creation

[vaneramos]

Something magical is happening. These meetings with a creative partner have started oiling all the rusty gears, even identified unknown mechanisms in my creative process. I'm getting to know me, and liking this person better. Not that I ever really disliked him, just didn't always know how to work with him. Realizing that privacy is part of the bundle, I hesitate to discuss specifics here. I need acknowledgment, too, bust must watch carefully to strike a balance.

The morning pages have started producing more than the usual complaints and navel-gazing. The imagination has reared its shimmering dragon head.

What would you do with unlimited time alone on a planet? Let's say you're immortal. I might build cities to populate with imaginary people. But how could one person develop enough skills to do such a thing? Let's say I have access to an unlimited information resource, as if our species had vanished but left behind the Web.

Even in a million years, I doubt that I could build one city. Christians talk about mankind being made in God's image, but when you start thinking honestly you realize our minds could have nothing in common with whatever force constructed the universe. Actually, it doesn't take intelligence, it takes a few profound, complex, simple processes evolving over a Very Long Time. Creationists must rely on an underdeveloped sense of wonder and imagination.

Thirteen billion years is a long time and there are so many things happening at once. Remember that incident near the end of Amélie?

Meanwhile, on a bench in Villette Square, Félix Lerbier learns there are more links in his brain than atoms in the universe.

Is that true? If it is, how could any consciousness outside my own begin to contemplate what's going on inside?

No wonder it's overwhelming whenever you aspire to the role of a creator. This is what artists and writers do, whether or not they're conscious of it. It can give you insomnia and indigestion. Somehow you must find the trick to fool yourself into just doing it, never mind that the world you invent will be puny and flawed.

Fortunately I'm surrounded by beauty enough to inflame me, so the tasks do not daunt. Not today, at least. Maybe this time around I am liking winter.

Comments

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

Holy crap.

That first one is so perfect it looks like you built it as a miniature just to photograph it, and the focus on the second is so sharp I could cut myself.

Beautiful, Van, just gorgeous.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Cat.

Heh, holy crap is one of my favourite expressions, practically the only obscenity I use.

Sometimes it's luck. Yesterday was only the second time since April I almost missed taking my camera outside for a daily photo. Finally bundled myself out the door around 10:30. That house is just across the corner and two doors down. It has never seemed worth photographing. Last night it just happened to be standing in front of the moon.

Cheers,
The Purple Cider

[bixie.livejournal.com]

the second one is breathtaking!

which prompts me to ask (I was thinking today of doing so anyway) what kind of camera you use/own. I am thinking of photo- and/or food-blogging more seriously in 2009, for which I really need a better digital camera. (I have an excellent manual camera if I ever get back to film photography, and a decent point and shoot digital for snapshots and day to day stuff).

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

It is a Canon Powershot A620. It is not bad, but there are some things I dislike about it. The ISO (analgous to ASA) only ranges up to 400 (I would prefer at least 1000 for faster speed in low light), and the f-stop range is only from 2.8 (4.1 when using zoom or macro) up to 8.0. Higher f-stop values, in other words smaller apertures, are necessary for getting good depth of field in certain circumstances. Keep this in mind when shopping for a new camera.

Creating

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for your words (and your photographs!) I'm always fascinated to read others' thoughts about creativity. (Does everyone who is artistic, such as knitters and other fiber artists, think about this much as much as I do?) Dorothy Sayers said in "The Mind of Maker" that we are most like our Creator when we ourselves are creating. So, in the act of creating, I think we really are made in God's image. (Tom, MSKR '08)

Re: Creating

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Tom, thanks for your comment, and thanks for dropping in!

[inishglora.livejournal.com]

OMG, that second photo... I too want to know what kind of camera you use! That's exactly the kind of photography I need to be doing.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

It's a Canon Powershot A620. Check my reply to the other inquiry, because I have some reservations about the camera. It's hard to get good enough depth of field for macro photography like this.

[inishglora.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the camera caveat. I meant to say a bit more, before my computer started to crash, namely that I find this kind of close-up photography appealing because I spend so much time thinking about the big picture. It's nice to do the opposite, the way a stretch feels good. Almost everything I do is done with some long-term goal in mind, whether that's planning tomorrow's meal or sowing native wildflower seeds in empty fields and lots in hopes of perpetuating indigenous species.

Maybe that's a form of creativity in and of itself.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Please ignore the other comment. I was signed into an entirely private journal.

Anyway, as I meant to say, I have been using my relationship with nature as a substitute for religion. Creativity extends well beyond the bounds of art, music and literature, and can guide the way we live our lives.

I've been a native plant enthusiast since my teens, so your guerrilla gardening habit really appeals to me!

[twillhead.livejournal.com]

Gorgeous photos, especially the first one! I mean, like, I-want-to-frame-it-and-hang-it-on-my-wall-in-a-highly-trafficked-area-of-the-house kind of gorgeous!

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Thanks you, Bruce, kind words!

[threestarblue.livejournal.com]

jeeepers you're neat. can i add you.?

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

jeeepers you're neat.

Haha, on certain balmy, sunny afternoons in November, yes.

can i add you.?

Certainly, you are welcome.