Brushstrokes and Shutter Clicks

A journey of experimentation in painting and photography becomes a dance between colors and shadows, brushstrokes and shutter clicks. 

In the realm of my photography, each new technique is a portal to uncharted territories promising a visual adventure that transcends the familiar.  A click of the camera becomes a brushstroke on the canvas of my visual narrative, weaving together my unique story.

Mastering new lighting situations, experimenting with unconventional angles, intentionally blurring images with hand movement, creating double images in the camera or delving into the world of photoshop, the process of discovery is my constant companion.

Joy lies in the unpredictability of the outcome, the serendipitous moments when a blend of techniques gives rise to a photograph that echoes the essence of my artistic soul. It's about pushing boundaries, embracing the unknown, and allowing creativity to flourish. 

As a painter and photographer, the synergy between the two crafts fuels a perpetual cycle of inspiration. For years I have experimented as painter and photographer, using my talents to bring artistry to images I make on canvas and with a camera. Decades of dedication to both disciplines only serve to enhance the thrill of creative adventure. The well of creativity seems deep, and does not diminish. 

And now I am jumping into the world of artificial intelligence, or AI. I have only just begun, but immediately find the results astonishing. I understand computer work is all only numbers and code and will not replace what I accomplish by hand. Yet, as I say this, I am cognizant that I have only been using digital cameras now for about twenty years. When a picture is taken and recorded on a chip, it is all numbers.  Then it can be read by computers which translate information into actual images that can be printed. 

AI creation with touch-up editing in photoshop

Ultimately, my thrill of discovery in photography is a celebration of my artistic spirit's boundless curiosity. It's the joy of finding beauty in unexpected places, capturing fleeting moments that resonate with emotion, and continuously evolving my artistic journey. The same is true of my ever evolving artwork in paints. Since moving to Mexico my subject matter has changed dramatically⏤from exuberant landscapes, I have gone to gritty spectral images of skeletons. Though now I have gone back to still life and portraits. But it can change at any time. I am not so much painting for the public anymore It is for my soul. 

"Victory of War" oil on linen

AI creation with touch-up editing in photoshop

Excitement of discovery is my lifelong companion.

Light and Dark

Shopping is not at the top of my list of pleasures. Nowhere close. The other day Amy and I came out of a department store at sunset and the sky was ablaze with fiery light in a spectacular way I seldom see. I was elated for the sight yet remorseful I had been inside. A miracle sky and my camera was not at hand. The mall parking lot view was not great but I took a picture with my phone. 
On the way home, I ruminated as if I had gone fishing and the “big one” got away. 
Buying pants and a shirt with Amy was fun and then getting her leggings that fit. But that could be done anytime. A striking sunset is rare.

The drama between earth and sky is always greatest at sunrise or sunset. Clouds are necessary to make the best poetry. They dance on fire, proclaiming the dawning day or the approaching night. I am not an early riser. Sunsets are what I watch. Santa Fe, New Mexico has great unobstructed skies with clear light and just the right conditions for plenty of dramatic sunsets and sunrises. I have studied them for decades and made many paintings and shot myriad photos.

When my daughter Naomi died at age nineteen, the drama of light and dark became more poignant for me. 

When we want to hold this beauty we realize it is fleeting and ephemeral.

It is true for all of life. 

Another blog about sunsets: Drama

A Gorgeous Summer Evening

Couple, admiring the sunset.

I am a sunset aficionado. I have painted them often and taken scores of photographs. They are fleeting and when the conditions are right, it is nature at its most dramatic. I can sense a good sunset before it happens. 

Tonight as I made dinner a thunderstorm struck and I thought if there was light on the horizon later, a good sunset would occur.

It was cloudy and stormy with scattered rain drops as I got in my car and drove to my friend's house. She had surgery on her foot recently and hobbles around the confines of her small home. After awhile, as we were relaxing, she pointed outside and said, “Oh, look at the sky!” The clouds blanketed the top but near the horizon a fiery golden glow emitted. We checked the time and realized we had about twenty minutes. She grabbed her crutches and put the protective boot on her foot and away we went. I drove to a little park at a location in town that looks out over the city. A small crowd had already gathered to mingle and watch. 

My excitement was palpable as I grabbed my camera. She said it was okay for me to run ahead to a good vantage point. The sun was sinking below the horizon as a brilliant glow stretched across the lower part of the sky. Dark clouds accented the space above.

Santa Fe sunset

As I regrouped with my friend, she spoke to a stranger nearby and said, “It is so good to live here and have this!” The other person grinned and said, “Yes, and you even came out on crutches to see.”

And that is what a gorgeous summer evening and the promise of a great show of light does.

"Heartfire", 48 x 36 inches, oil on linen by Steven Boone

We Could Have Spoke Differently

A talented writer invited me to a memoir writing workshop she attends once a week. My friend is my counterpart in spirit. I went for the first time. We drove together and after a few minutes, I pulled up to a stately, landmark hotel in Santa Fe, called La Posada. At the entrance, a valet took my keys and we went inside. The class meets at 9AM. We found our way to a sunny lounge with comfortable furniture and seated ourselves among the other writers—all older women except for a solitary man.
The tutor who runs the class is an animated lady, and offers her service for free. She is an artist as well as writer—like me. Robust and nicely dressed with styled grey hair, she stood the whole time, papers in hand, giving us quick projects and tidbits of information. Occasionally, someone would read what they had wrote.
At one point the group was asked to write about a conversation in life that occurred where something was said, and in hindsight, we see we could have spoke differently. What would we have said?
My friend and I, together on a couch, thought a moment and began writing, not looking at each other. After our ten minutes were concluded, I had written about a time 17 years ago I can hardly forget. Here it is:

Naomi sat next to me as I drove home with her from her doctor's appointment. “Oh Dad, “she blurted out, “I am afraid. Sometimes during class I have the thought that I am going to die!”

Fear flooded my normally intrepid mind. I was 47 years old. “But darling, everyone have thoughts like that sometimes.”

I knew her case was not like everyone else. Naomi had bone cancer that started in her hip. It had metastasized to her lungs, and the doctors shook their heads when they determined the extent of the disease. In fact, they had given her little chance of survival. I could not bear the thought of my 18 year old dying. “Look Naomi, if even one person has survived, then you will too! When those thoughts come, just let them go.” I was grasping for words while reacting to my own fear, unable to process losing her.

It has been fifteen years since Naomi died, and almost up until the day she died, I was unable to visualize or consider her death. Early on, she had come to peace with it and embraced her fate with tenderness and love.

I can see now how I might have reacted differently as she shared her fear with me. When she had told me her frightening thoughts, I could have asked what she thought of death. I might have confessed that I too was afraid. The father that she depended upon for strength, was weak at the knees in the face of our formidable enemy. We needed each other and a greater power to pull us through. How could I tell her, and admit my perplexity and weakness?

I imagine she might have said, “Oh well, we will get through this together. God is with us no matter what!” In fact, later, during a time in her hospital room when I had been pacing the floor, she stopped me and said, “Dad, keep your chin up and take deep breaths!” She was always the cheerleader.

The day in the car when she had confided in me, I had tried being the cheerleader, summoning faith for victory, but truth could have set both of us free.

Naomi wrote continuously in her diaries from the time she was 12. She died at the age of nineteen. Here are two entries from the time of her illness:
Hardship is something that will make us stronger. I don't know if I have complete evidence of this, but I think that in every situation there is good in it.
Show up and be lovingly present, no matter what it looks like out there or inside yourself. Always speak the truth of your heart.
I wrote a book about Naomi and I. It is called A Heart Traced In Sand

A Mystery

I must admit to being a bit startled when I found myself sitting in a theater and the audience all carried programs with a simple cover—only a single image—one that I had made and then forgotten.

My wife and I were given complimentary tickets for an intimate performance of a little-known play: Miss Jairus, A Mystery in Four Tableuax by Michelde Ghelderode (3 April 1898, Ixelles – 1962, Brussels). The play opens with a scene of a distraught father outside the room where his 16 year-old daughter is on the verge of death. Immediately, I came under a spell . . . because at one time I was in the same situation when my own daughter Naomi fell ill and died—and now here I was watching my own life being acted out. 

As the moments unfolded, I began to see that the hand of fate had put me in the audience, with one of my images on the cover of the program.

 The grand scheme had begun earlier, when David Olson, director of Theaterwork had begun preparations for production of a mystical play and while he was in an eclectic resale shop in Santa Fe, had spotted a piece of artwork that had resonated with him. He thought it was apropos for the play he was directing, so he bought it and then tracked me down for permission to use it for the cover of his program. When he spoke with me, at first I did not know what image he was describing; “A woman dressed in cloth, walking with the moon behind her head.” He brought the painting to my gallery and I immediately recognized it as a piece from my past, and the "moon" was actually a halo. In the brochure, and on an easel in the lobby, the piece is now called, “Moon Halo”.

Here is brief description of the play, taken from The Harvard Crimson, by Joel Cohen, October 19, 1964:
De Ghelderode sets Miss Jairus, in the house of a merchant in medieval Bruges. As the merchant Jairus and three old hags who are professional mourners keep a drunken vigil over his dead daughter, the daughter's fiancé suddenly brings in a sorcerer who has been confounding the local clerics and physicians. The fiancé, Jacquelin, cannot stand to lose Miss Jairus and demands that the sorcerer awake her.

When the sorcerer does, Blandine objects to being awakened; she no longer knows her mother, father, or fiancé. Neither truly alive nor truly dead, she begins the long, sleepless wait for another death.

The ringing of distant bells, the coming of Death, as Lazarus, the whining and howling of mourners and a premonitory dog are all techniques of mystery and horror de Ghelderode has used in other plays. They combine in Miss Jairus with a plot-skeleton which is parable. In the final act, on Easter, as Miss Jairus dies, the townsfolk commemorate the Holy Day by taking the sorcerer to a hill outside the town and crucifying him.

In short, I feel that a conjurer acted behind the scenes to put me in this play, and we witnessed this stunning performance on the eve of Fathers Day.

Juxtapose

"Quantum Of Solace" Kolkatta, India

Here is a word that is not often used but ubiquitously seen: juxtapose. It means to place together and contrast two or more separate phenomenon. Juxtapositions are everywhere, e.g. the position of the sun relative to the horizon, the temperature inside as different from outside, a fat person standing next to a skinny one, or an old person holding a newborn child. In the arts, juxtaposing brings drama to work. A bright landscape painting is made more thrilling with dark shadows, music is deeper with climactic surges mixed with interludes of softer passages, and theater is fuller when humor and sadness both enter the stage.

"Tango Passion",  Mixed-media

Juxtaposition can be embarrassing and detrimental as well. We see this in current political campaigns, where one candidate proclaims himself as good and points to the other nominee in contrast, as bad. Class prejudice is built upon juxtaposing of extremes of wealth and poverty.

I use juxtaposition in my art and photography to bring drama and surprise to the work. While I was traveling and making my street photography, I often sought stark juxtapositions, such as setting my camera up and focusing on interesting walls so that people walking in front of me became blurred while passing by. In the photo I am showing here, an innocent oriental child, dressed in her native attire, stands in contrast to a violent western poster proclaiming an action movie. The dissimilarity adds to the intrigue and drama of the picture.

In my tango images, drama comes from juxtaposing stark light with the tension of male and female interaction that is intimate and ritualistic.

Juxtaposition gives us reference and allows our imaginations to soar.