All Categories - Photography by John Holliger

Cottonwoods, thoughts from Robert Adams, Along Some Rivers

5/27/2019

Quotations from Along some Rivers, by Robert Adams.

Cottonwoods can seem human—they seem to rejoice and they seem to suffer. But they also seem to know a stillness that we can[t experience.
The example of trees does suggest a harmony for which it seems right to dream. Lakota refer to the cottonwood as the dreaming tree, a place of visions.
Willa Cather wrote in the Song of the Lark, which is set on the Colorado plains, that cottonwoods are “wind-loving trees…whose roots are always seeking water and whose leaves are always talking about it, making the sound of rain.”
Edward Thomas: “Trees and us—imperfect friends.” Cottonwoods have been our friends for a long while. The Arapaho believed, for instance3, that the stars came from cottonwoods, from the glistening sap at the joints of the twigs. The Hidatsa believed that the shade from cottonwoods was healing. Everything about the tree, in fact, struck Native Americans as beneficent.

A little about Minor White,editor of Aperture magazine for 25 years

3/9/2019

Minor White’s basic commitment was to a way of life, not to photography per se…

He was basically a contemplative. Everybody knows that, but very few people in photography seem to understand what that really means.

It means that there are more important matters in his life than making pictures, and more important goals in photography, as he understood it, than making good ones.

Photography was not only not necessary to him. It was in fact something of an encumbrance. “Working among esoteric or spiritual lives, you come to the realization that your medium can’t keep up with you, you can go beyond it and a decision has to be made—or you have to keep your eyes open and see what decisions are being made for you.”

In his decision to stay with photography White was not unlike the bodhisattva, who chooses to stay and help his fellow creatures. “I realized that photography was my mouthpiece, this was the way I talked. Photography meant writing about it, editing it, teaching and making it.

It was a service thing now—a totally different attitude.

Only recently have photographers started coming out of the darkroom in any numbers and many of them are still blinking. In his teaching methods, he shows, rather than told, what he had in mind.
“Poets, actors, musicians, artists, unlike photographers, would have no trouble with what he was saying but then that was precisely why he had to keep trying to say it to photographers.

Poetry and Photography

3/9/2019

Poetry should be great and unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one’s soul, and does not startle it or amaze it with itself but with its subject. John Keats, Letter, February 3, 1818

A new exhibit December 1st: The Many Paths of our Lives"

11/28/2018

The Many Paths of Life
A Fine Art Exhibit
Imprints on Cotton, Created by John Holliger
“There is no path that goes all the way.” 没有一条路可以走。(Méiyǒu yītiáo lù kěyǐ zǒu.)
Han Shan, a Zen monk (627-649), uttered this simple thought many times in his short life.
David Whyte, from Wales, now living on Bainbridge Island near Seattle carries us along:
                                                                   No Path
“There is no path that goes all the way.
Not that it stops us looking for the full continuation.
The one line in the poem we can start and follow straight to the end.
The fixed belief we can hold facing a stranger
that saves us the trouble of a real conversation…
But still, there is no path that goes all the way,
one conversation leads to another,
One breath to the next until there’s no breath at all…
And then wouldn’t your life have to start all over again
for you to know even a little of who you had been?”

Antonio Machado (1875 – 1939) probably never met Han or David,
but here is one of his best-known poems:
                                                        Traveler, your footprints
“Caminante, no hay camino,    “Traveler, there is no road;
se hace camino al andar.         you make your own path as you walk.
Al andar se hace el camino,    As you walk, you make your own road,
y al volver la vista atrás          and when you look back
se ve la senda que nunca       you see the path
se ha de volver a pisar.          you will never travel again.
Caminante, no hay camino   Traveler, there is no road;
sino estelas en la mar.”         only a ship's wake on the sea.”

Most Recently, Parker Palmer, a Philadelphia Quaker (born 1939) looking back many decades noticed how confused and lost he was in his 20’s. In his 30’s one mentor came into his life for a while, then moved on once. Parker had learned what his mentor had to give him.
Another mentor appeared and ask him different questions but so right in that moment. Again this mentor deepened Parker’s sense of who he was becoming. With this new clarity the mentor invited Parker into a new direction, a new path. One after another they arrived and left. And then there were no more. He realized his leading was to become a mentor for other young men who were as lost and confused as he had been.
David Whyte gives us the pivotal question.   Where do I start?
“Start with
The ground you know,
The pale ground
Beneath your feet…
Start with the first
Thing
Close in
The step
You don’t want to take.
Don’t take the second step
Or the third,
Start with the first thing
Close in,
The step you don’t want to take”

Our paths, like mentors, can guide us so far, and then disappear.
Santiago by David Whyte
“The road seen,
then not seen,
the hillside hiding
then revealing
the way you should take…”

You will be drawn to one work of art in this exhibit.
What path or memory is evoked as you contemplate this work?

Fascinations

11/5/2018

Fascinations

How they do change over a lifetime
and yet so deep within
our fascinations are us.
My fascinations with the tiny
Have led me into new worlds of beauty and wonder.
And languages I did not know;
Palmer Amarantha, Nutledge, Basidiolichen,


My First Fascination
A child’s bare feet walking on the wet sand

I scan through this clear water for a Lucky Stone,
Floating and rolling along at my feet,
Ancient, ageless remnants of the ear bone of the white fish,
A stone of remembrance of another life of Erie,
Inscribed with a large “L.”
Reaching over to catch this floating wonder
I become connected to the ancient life that lived and lives
Here
My home.

Returning,
I enter a body of life
Far larger and other than me
To which, I belong.

Finding two lucky stones in one morning
Brought me such joy and contentment,
I do belong
To the enduring life of this Great Lake.

Looking north across the Lake
her horizon disappears
Dropping out of sight as the Earth curves round
Gifting me with wonder.

Oh, the unseen beauty and mysteries of
This Great Lake,
“Erie,”
An extinct word for Iroquoian peoples
Who lived and walked the wet sands
Centuries before.

My beginning to a life of fascination,
And all I did was stand still
In the wet sand where moving waters
Were giving up their strength on the sand
Then falling back
Returning to their home,
Erie.

All I did was stand still
Gazing at the far side of home,
Then turning back
To the here of this wet sand.

Do you long to stand still
at home
on this Earth?

Do you yearn for the wandering,
Floating freedom
0f the Lucky Stone?


©2018 John Holliger

My Spiritual Companion, Edward Weston

11/1/2018

My Spiritual Companion, Edward Weston

I can almost feel the breath of Edward Weston,
as if we are both leaning over his wet print in the final tray of fixer.
We are in his darkroom. Then he turns over the wet print and
we both gasp.
The contrast between the black soil and the white tomato plants across that expansive rising hill is dramatic,
crisp,
clear.
No wonder our breath exclaims surprise and delight.
In the early 20th century prints are made directly from the negative.
They are the same size as the negative; 6 x 12, 8 x 14.
So many negatives are awful, littering the floor for years.
10,000 I like to say.
Until something changes inside Weston,
and he wakes up one of the finest fine art photographers.

I thought I was “somethun,’” when I was ordained. All that seminary training.
But no.
It didn’t “stick,” it didn’t matter until after 10 years.
That was when something moved a mile in my sleep.
I woke up, a priest.

On the far side of 10,000 clicks of the shutter
and 10,000 deletes,
one morning along a stream at dawn,
I am the stream.
Together, we flow to the sea.

Everyone in that small Weston gallery is 12 inches from the prints of Edward Weston, so close we are not aware of anyone else in the room.
We are leaning with Weston over the wet trays of prints in the darkroom.
Photography is
intimate,
intrusive,
disarming,
so close and personal
our breath can seem like one breath.

Weston’s presence is there,
in each creation, and
we can only gaze by coming close, 12 inches away.
Weston’s negatives could be 6 by 12 inches, and so were his prints. The negative is not a technical achievement of perfection after all those duds are tossed.

He is now on the far side of technique.
The print is not created from a cookbook of recipes,
water temperatures or chemical formulas.
but there is also that other day.
He is now well beyond what any cookbook could teach him.
Walking out,
he knows what he is searching for…
his own
hidden
interior stream,
his own voice.

What he learns in that moment is what he felt, seconds before the book goes flying.
Those seconds hold a hard truth; one word: stop.
You are no longer expressing your own voice
Walk out. Walk until you find again,
your own
hidden stream,
your own voice.
Follow wherever it leads.
Do not look back.
All you’ll see is an ocean wake,
a receding wave.

Wall art? Forget it.
Weston’s work is held in our lap,
then we raise the tomato hill
up close,
12 inches close,
And we marvel at the beauty of the Earth.
We see something more we had missed in all those other times we gazed on his work.
No, this is nothing like documentary photography.
Edward Weston (b. 1886) is one of the first fine art photographers
who intuitively experiences the intimacy,
two people leaning so close,
his breath and your breath are one.

Three Lake Huron, Tawas Point, Images and Three Haiku's

10/29/2018

Broken Rocks

Curling lines in sand
Leaping waters
Sliding up then back,
New curving lines among
Broken rocks,
Here

To the vanishing horizon.

The Cover

The cover of indigo and magenta
Warm the waters beneath.
Are the waters stirring to find their favorite sleep position?
Or is this one of those other nights?

Opening Clouds

Opening clouds
Create a threshold.
Will you turn away with your fears, or
Will you enter
Bringing your fears with you?

A Threshold Not of Our Making

10/5/2018

From thoughtfully crafted words,
Within hand-thrown pottery,
A presence
reaches out
to you,
a gentle breeze
opening a space within.

Sometimes
a silent whisper,
“stop.”

You put down your brush,
Your needle,
Your stylus.

You do not know the source of this sotto voce
from the deep within,
your creating image before you,
your rough poem,
The first lines of your cross-cut stitching,

Presences open a space within you,
A new horizon
A faint deer path
Leading to a threshold.

The decision is yours.

You have lived an illusion;
You can control your attentiveness
Where you want to go.


But now
wide-eyed,
You did not create this open space
This new horizon
The almost visible deer path
Leading to a threshold
You could never have imagined in your world of dreams.

The decision is yours.

When I lay a chaos of prints before me,
an awareness goes its own way,
to certain prints and not others.

They speak to each other,
where they belong
to tell the story.

Your part in making the story is humbling,
As is the telling of your story,

Like this one.

When the potter sits down at a potter’s wheel
for the first time,
age twenty,
a space silently opens within.

A decision about this unexpected horizon
Is before him.

The young man,
Knows immediately this is what he wants to do
for the rest of his life,

Before he knows anything about
Skillfully throwing a pot.

When I stand with
my legs interwoven with the legs of the tripod,
my legs and feet root themselves in the earth,
my upper body weaves and tilts,
angles and dances freely in an open space
I have not opened.

Our energy follows where our attention leads the way.

When making a path in a gallery,
an exhibit,
a museum,
in solitude,

take note,

the sensations and impulses.

Our awareness goes its own way to reveal the faint path.

Be attentive to way opening,

this space you did not create

will change everything.

What will you do?

   John Holliger©2018

Why are you Slowing Down?

9/30/2018

Why Are You Slowing Down?
A presence,
a livingness, reach out for our attentiveness
from thoughtfully crafted words,
hand-thrown pottery,
a painting that has had may resting places, sometimes lasting months, before the way opens again.

Why are you slowing down?

When looking at a work of art,
including yourself,
a work of art has many resting places.
Two forms of presence are woven together;
your own presence
and the livingness of the work of art.
Both,
as one,
may softly long for your attentiveness.
Both presences often open a space within you,
a space inviting a decisive change of direction.

Why are you… slowing… down?

We imagine we control our attentiveness,
but our awareness has a life of its own.

Where has your attentiveness gone, on its own?

When I lay a series of prints on the floor before me,
my awareness often goes
on its own
to certain prints and not others.
When the potter sat down at a potter’s wheel for the first time,
age twenty,
a space opened within.
The young man,
now in that space,
realizes this is what he wants to do
for the rest of his life.

When I stand behind the tripod
my legs interwoven with the legs of the tripod,
my legs and feet rooting themselves into the earth,
my upper body weaves and tilts,
angles and dances freely in an open space,
I have not opened.

Why am I slowing down?

Our energy goes where our attention goes.
When making a path in a gallery,
an exhibit,
a museum,
in my solitude,
I take note of my thoughts and sensations,
impulses and nudging feelings.
My awareness goes its own way to open space within me.

I am slowing down
To be attentive to Way opening within,
to note the new, open space that will change the direction of my life,
if I consider
what this newly open space means.

This is why
I am slowing down.
                                                                                        John Holliger

Why are you slowing down?

9/29/2018

A presence,
a livingness, reach out for our attentiveness
from thoughtfully crafted words,
hand-thrown pottery,
a painting that has had may resting places, sometimes lasting months, before the way opens again.

When looking at a work of art,
including yourself,
a work of art has many resting places.
Two forms of presence are woven together;
your own presence
and the livingness of the work of art.
Both,
as one,
may softly long for your attentiveness.
Both presences often open a space within you,
a space invites a decisive change of direction.

We imagine we control our attentiveness,
but our awareness has a life of its own.

Where has your attentiveness gone, on its own?

When I lay a series of prints on the floor before me,
my awareness often goes
on its own
to certain prints and not others.
When the potter sat down at a potter’s wheel for the first time,
age twenty,
a space opened within.
The young man,
now in that space,
realizes this is what he wants to do
for the rest of his life.

When I stand behind the tripod
my legs interwoven with the legs of the tripod,
my legs and feet rooting themselves into the earth,
my upper body weaves and tilts,
angles and dances freely in an open space,
I have not opened.

Our energy goes where our attention goes.
When making a path in a gallery,
an exhibit,
a museum,
in your solitude,
take note of your thoughts and sensations,
impulses and nudging feelings.
Our awareness goes its own way to open space within us.
Why am I slowing down?
To be attentive to Way opening within,
to note the space that will change the direction of my life,
if I consider
what this newly open space means.
John Holliger