Coca Cola Santa Claus, by Haddon Sundblom (via) |
In which Tamara ponders the writer's life and the world around her.
December 26, 2012
December 5, 2012
'Meditation XVII' by John Donne
Labels:
poetry
In a dark mood, and so a poem.
Excerpt from "Meditation XVIII"
by John Donne
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Four Horsemen of Apocalypse, by Viktor Vasnetsov (1887) (via) |
Excerpt from "Meditation XVIII"
by John Donne
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
December 4, 2012
The Techniques of Art
Labels:
art with a capital A
Since beginning the Project 365, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about art in the broader sense, art with a capital A, and how techniques from one medium translates to another.
Composition. Writing is a linear meeting you have to encounter through time, through a line of words. In that way, it is a performance piece. Therefore, it has to have a beginning, middle, and end (thirds again) or some structure that gives the reader an aesthetic pleasure.
Oct. 1, 2012. An Afghan refugee girl stands next to her
family's sheep
in a field next to a slum area on the outskirts of Islamabad (via Time Lightbox) |
Since beginning the Project 365, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about art in the broader sense, art with a capital A, and how techniques from one medium translates to another.
Take this photo, for example. It’s one of Time Lightbox’s best photos of
the week for Sept 28 - Oct 5. What makes this photo so amazing? Why is it any different from any girl
standing in front of a herd of her family’s animals?
Well, first and foremost because she’s wearing red. The eye loves red. It is the most alluring and seductive of
colors, and it screams, “Pay attention to me!”
But I don’t think it’s simply the red by itself. It’s the contrast of the red against the natural
colors of the background and also the contrast between the everyday job of
tending goats with this beautiful red of her garment. She is dressed to the nines, as if someone is
wearing a beautiful evening gown to muck out the stables.
It’s not only the red.
This is a beautiful and mysterious girl.
The way she looks at the photographer with this unreadable and cryptic expression. She’s thoughtful and penetrating. And her hands. She holds them in thought, picking at her
fingers.
The late afternoon light coming full onto the scene gives it
a glow that it wouldn’t otherwise have.
This is one of my favorite kinds of light ~ first thing in the morning
or late in the afternoon. It imbues
everything with honey gold undertones.
What is it about this light that appeals to me especially? I’m not sure.
The equal balance of light and dark, how it brings out undertones and
makes colors richer.
The pastoral setting, too, brings something special to
picture. They’re goats, for heaven’s
sake. Not cows - expected and normal in
America. No, goats. This lends it a bit of exoticism. And these
are not puny ordinary goats ~ these are huge and rich in color and vibrance.
But this pastoral setting is marred by what seem to be
plastic garbage bags, which means this has to be near a dump, where the winds
have blown the bags away and they’ve become caught in the grass. So the rural pastoral nature is contrasted so
strongly to decay and garbage, and there’s this beautiful girl, this
Cinderella.
Composition plays a part as well. The eye loves thirds. Yet this photo is set up in such away that it
doesn’t portray the ideal proportions.
No. Instead, it makes you uncomfortable. By choosing to place the girl almost in the
center, it puts you off balance. Right
in the center would be boring, but the human wants things proportional, so just
off center gives it a bit of tension, just as edge anxiety ~ the figure right
next to the edge ~ would make people nervous.
That’s horizontally. Vertically,
it is nicely proportioned into thirds, which somewhat counteracts the
horizontal tension.
Then there is the depth of field. We get such a sense of distance here. The
tight focus on the girl to the fuzzy mountains in the background gives us room
to breath.
All this makes me think about how these techniques translate
into writing. The red color. We want something astonishing. I say astonishing, not shocking, because (as
the recent FB meme pointed out) shocking is boring. Shocking means you haven’t given it enough
thought or development. Astonishing means you’ve put so much of yourself and
your art into it, it transports the reader.
All the other elements also translate into fiction
writing. Contrast. You have to set things up and then have a
payoff in writing. If you don’t, the reader
will not believe you. This is where
contrast comes in. You have use like
elements and contrasting elements judiciously.
In literary fiction especially, you have to do the unexpected and
contrast it with the everyday.
Composition. Writing is a linear meeting you have to encounter through time, through a line of words. In that way, it is a performance piece. Therefore, it has to have a beginning, middle, and end (thirds again) or some structure that gives the reader an aesthetic pleasure.
You have to have a sense of depth. There has to be setting and backstory and
depth of character, even if they don’t immediately show up on the page. The writer has to know.
I better stop. I could do this
all day. It’s so fascinating. All the different creative acts feed into
each other.
December 3, 2012
Essays and Anger
Labels:
the writing life
(via) |
I finished an essay this weekend and sent it off to a
contest. It felt great!
As I said the other day, a lot of what I’m writing now is
preparation for writing a memoir. Which,
as I said, scares the dickens out of me, but then I’m excited too.
I also find that I’m angry.
Very angry, sometimes. I have a
long history of suppressing anger and having it turn in on myself in pretty
unhealthy ways.
This in and of itself is pretty scary. I’ve had nightmares where I go on a murderous
rampage because I can’t control my anger.
I of course would never do this, but it’s a testament to how much fear I
have surrounding anger.
What’s really funny is that everyone around me, to the man or
woman, would say I’m this sweet passive person. Well, my husband might have
something to say about me being pig-headed, but that’s different.
So I’m trying to find healthy expressions of my anger in any
way I can. I need to start running
again. I’ve even got a bunch of very
zen-like plants.
But what’s going to happen when I start writing the memoir
for real? Blow my lid?
Nah. I believe I have
the fortitude to work through it and hopefully emerge whole and much more
healthy. Hence the purpose for it in the first place.
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