Icarus Also Flew

on work

"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do."
                                                                                                                          -Steve Jobs (1955-2011)

on silence

"But then again I think that if we had more silence, if we were more silent, perhaps we might be able to understand something." -Fellini

after Icarus

Twenty-five years ago, today, my friend and colleague, Chris Williams stayed home "sick" from school and climbed onto his roof to photograph the Space Shuttle Challenger's takeoff. This launch seemed different to him than the rest, and he started photographing it. This is his image of the accident's aftermath. I was 7100 KM away, on the other side of the world and wouldn't hear the tragic news until the next day. I still can't fully articulate or decipher the myriad holds that this event has on me. On a symbolic level there's the destructive collision of our greatest hopes and promise of the collaborative human spirit against our same failings and limitations. Those days, when the figurative towers of Babel fall, always make me weep. Nonetheless, I want to pause to remember and honor those 7 that shared Icarus' pursuit and tragically, in an uncomfortably literal way, his fate. I want to underscore and remember them not for their death, but for their brave incarnation of that dream many of us still carry.  

I'm tempted to close with one of my favorite poems, Falling and Flying, a line of which inspires this blog's name, but instead I close with this one. It was penned decades earlier and it's opening and closing lines were quoted by President Reagan in his eulogy for the Challenger crew:

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,

I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air....

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace.

Where never lark or even eagle flew —

And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

                                -John Gillespie Magee, Jr. 

                                 18 August 1941                                                    

 

an apology, and why we love music

First of all, I would like to apologize for the lengthy silence. My day-job has been keeping very busy, and I haven't had much time to post here. Worry not, I've also been shooting a lot of art with some fantastic collaborators that I hope to show on here sometime soon.

In the meantime, I'd like to share this manifesto I received from Jake Armerding, a brilliant musician, former client, gifted writer, and master of more instruments than I can identify (which admittedly isn't that many). I want to share it first of all because it is True and Beautiful, and secondly because while it is specifically about music, many of the reasons he cites for loving music are ones I resonate with in my own art making. Given that this blog is, among other things, an exploration of the artistic process, it seems right to share it here. 

I love music because it can't be conquered.  No one will ever get to the end of music, solve it or master it, although it can be dumbed down. 

I love music because it is only occasionally black and white.  It deigns to be black and white only because it represents all colors, and black and white technically qualify as colors.  Music has no more desire to be black or white than it does chartreuse.

I love music because no one should make it because they feel required to.  I don't mean musicians don't have a responsibility to make it; rather, I mean anyone who isn't making it because they love to, probably shouldn't be.  Music is there to be made, or not, just as you please.  It is the opposite of bills, jogging, taxes, health insurance and laundry.

I love music because it's such an easy way to get happy.

Music is good for you.  What some people do to music can be bad for you, but music itself is good and does not require moderation.  It is good for weekdays, the weekend, holidays, Sundays, cloudy days, sunny days, fast days, slow days, work or play, alone or with friends, home or traveling, relaxed or serious, weddings and funerals and Tuesdays, year-round.  And it is especially good for boredom.

I love music because it is free and unregulated, and anyone can make it.

I love music because it is never offended by incompetence.  It's very patient with my pitiful efforts. 

I love music because it's like food:  after you've made it, you can enjoy it.  Also like food, music can be complex or simple and still be delicious.  It’s also better than food: once you've made it, it can’t be used up.

I love music because no one can spoil it.  It can be insulted and abused, adulterated and prostituted, but music is never harmed for good.  It still exists in its pure form, ready and willing for somebody more humble to visit.

I love music because it is not of this earth.  It has its own dimension.  We hear ourselves in music, but we also hear something else, something we can't quite wrap our minds around.  It is beyond us.

I love music because it is better than I am.  It is more beautiful, cleverer, stronger, truer and more creative, and I have to respect that.

But most of all, I love how music makes no sense.  Life is terrible when it is made up only of things that make sense.  In this way, music is both an escape from real life and a glimpse of what life is really all about.  Music is impractical and pointless and absolutely vital to existence.  The ultimate observer of this was, of course, Oscar Wilde, that master of the bon mot, who in the introduction to his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray declared, "All art is quite useless." 

Music would never make the traditional list of basic human needs:  food, shelter, clothing.  But just see how long you could get along without it.

It is republished, with permission, from his newsletter, which is hands down the most well-written newsletter I've ever read. You can subscribe here. And check out his music here. 

 

longing to return...

I'm gearing up for my annual ritual of photographing the Chicago Air and Water Show, and as beautiful jets menacingly rehearse overhead I'm reminded of this quote attributed to Leonardo DaVinci:

"For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return."

on beauty...

Applying for grants is a deceivingly complex and time-consuming process. I spent a lot of time this past week preparing a couple. Nonetheless, I'm very excited about the projects we'll be undertaking. It is probably premature to talk about the work, but these lines I just came across are beautiful, and central to it. 

"For beauty is nothing
 but the beginning of terror we can just barely endure,
 and we admire it so because it calmly disdains to destroy us. 
 Every angel is terrible." 

-Rainer Maria Rilke

"...an embodiment of hope"

Whatever it expresses -
even destruction and ruin -
the artistic image
is by definition an embodiment of hope,
it is inspired by faith.
Artistic creation
is by definition a denial of death.
Therefore it is optimistic,
even if in an ultimate sense the artist is tragic.
And so there can never be
optimistic artists and pessimistic artists.
there can only be talent and mediocrity. 

- Andrey Tarkovsky

on suffering and art

All artists are prepared to suffer for their work but why are so few prepared to learn to draw? -Banksy

photography as collective worship

From that moment onwards, our loathsome society rushed, like Narcissus, to contemplate its trivial image on a metallic plate. A form of lunacy, an extraordinary fanaticism took hold of these new sun-worshippers. - Charles Baudelaire

on wealth

"There is no Wealth but Life" John Ruskin