For our first assignment for the Mind’s Eye Photography class, we needed to come up with an “Artist's Statement” to define the self-chosen project that we would be working on for the ten weeks of the class. My Artist’s Statement has been refined and revised several times, but the core of the project remains the same:
I intend to explore the related themes of thresholds and transitions-the places and times where people, things and events are in flux-neither “here” nor “there”. I will be attempting to metaphorically visualize the transitions and thresholds that mark the liminal spaces of daily life. I had never written such a statement and I had to think about it for some time. The stumbling block was the descriptive term “artist”. I have a difficult time embracing that term to describe myself, or thinking about my photographs as artistic. As I mentioned in my previous post, I have tended to understand my photographic skills as mostly technical in nature. This is not false modesty on my part-it just has not been a way that I have ever imagined myself.
This is shifting a bit-there has been a loosening up of the categories and an expansion of the vocabulary I find myself using- terms that are more generous and affirming of myself and of others. I am now willing to admit that I feel that I can perhaps embrace that self-descriptive term of artist someday, as there are moments when I am able to photograph something that turns out to be more than I imagined when I released the shutter, such as the photograph above of the start of a High School Cross Country Championship meet in 2019. This is my favorite photo (so far) that is related to my theme, and it will most likely end up in my final portfolio of ten images. Do pay close attention (click on the image to view it larger) to the time displayed on the wristwatch of the second runner…
It certainly feels as if I am living out my statement with this entire project, and I invite you to consider meditating on the many Thresholds you encounter every day. This is an excerpt from the wonderful book The Soul’s Slow Ripening, by Christine Valters Paintner, who is the Abbess of the Abbey of the Arts. Christine and her husband John live in Galway, Ireland, and offer retreats and classes-both online and in person. I have taken several of their classes and I can’t recommend them enough. Here’s what John writes about the everyday practice of noticing thresholds:
The Practice of Thresholds In the days ahead, become aware of all the times you cross a threshold. This might be moving from one space to another-entering through a doorway, transitioning from one activity to the next, or tending the thresholds of the day, especially at dawn and dusk. Pause at each and offer a short blessing, simply becoming aware of the possibilities alive in the moment. See if the threshold helps call forth the “thinness” of this moment, making the voice of the divine more accessible....It is about a shift in awareness as you seek to embrace a new vision. Wander out to edge places-the threshold of shoreline, where forests begin, or borders between towns-and ponder those thresholds within you. Bless each threshold you cross, that you might remember to hold loosely all that you think you know. We are forever crossing thresholds in our lives, both the literal kind when moving through doorways, leaving a building, or passing into another room, and the metaphorical thresholds, when time becomes a transition space of waiting and tending. We hope for news about a friend struggling with illness; we long for clarity about our own deepest dreams. In the monastic tradition, statio is the practice of stopping one thing before beginning another. It is the acknowledgment that in the space of transition and threshold is a sacred dimension, a holy pause full of possibility. This place between is a place of stillness, where we let go of what came before and prepare ourselves to enter fully into what comes next. When we pause between activities or spaces or moments in our days, we open ourselves to the possibility of discovering a new kind of presence to the darkness of in-between times.When we rush from one thing to another, we skim over the surface of life, losing the sacred attentiveness that brings forth revelations in the most ordinary of moments. Statio calls us to a sense of reverence for slowness, for mindfulness, and for the fertile dark spaces between our goals where we can pause and center ourselves, and listen. We can open up a space within for God to work. We can become fully conscious of what we are about to do rather than mindlessly completing another task.
If you undertake this simple exercise of noticing thresholds, I would love to hear about the experience, so please post a comment!