paisleypiper's Diaryland Diary
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what i feel
Prisms reveal what we cannot see, only feel.
This weekend Quinn and I affixed plastic reinforcement strips on 2000 individual sheets of paper. We have 8000 more sheets to go. It is hard to imagine the vastness of a project that has 10,000 pages of dividers.
When I used to work in early childhood, I became incredibly skilled at talking about the brain and brain development. I became skilled at taking aspirations, dissecting them into pieces and working with committees on those pieces. It was my job to make certain that all of the pieces of the spectrum would one day be as natural as light coming in the window on a sunny afternoon.
Of course we did not discuss my work in these terms. We discussed inputs, throughputs, outputs, outcomes � and as my dear friend T. says � shotputs. A little humor about the United Way outcomes model, but you didn�t hear it from me.
I think that is when I first began thinking about prisms. Quinn and I have a prism hanging in our leaded glass window in the living room. On sunny afternoons, the prism sends a few dashes of rainbow around the room. The dog chases the rainbows around. When he reaches them, he wonders where they went. He does this quite a bit and never seems to tire of his ritual, always ready to continue pursuing what alludes him. And I never seem to tire of the prism, hanging in the window. I�ve never thought, can we just take down that blasted prism, already?
I think it is because prisms have this power to reveal the spectrum of color that is harmonized in natural light that I am unable to see. But I can feel the difference between sunlight and the lamp on my desk. Prisms reveal what I cannot see, only feel.
Saturday, I had a wonderful guitar lesson. Patient Guy, my guitar instructor extraordinaire, and I got going on a few a blues numbers and had a good time with �What Shall with We Do with the Drunken Sailor.� I can get syncopation and swing, but moving between a part that is syncopated or composed with swing feet and a part that has standard quarter notes has been proving a challenge for me. I blow a fuse in the easy part, where I should be resting. The Saturday before last, Patient Guy, got a little impatient with me. I kept hearing �too soon� or �too late� �hold that count� over and over. But not this past Saturday. The blues piece that contained several hammer-ons, slides, and pull-offs; had parts in swing feet, syncopated, and standard; a few blues/rock guitar riffs � the kind that careers are based on � I played all the way through on Saturday. It is kind of like taking a final and I passed. This thrills me. And when I took Quinn to get new strings for her guitar, I purchased my book for the next level. But this week, I have to figure out what to do with the drunken sailor.
With my guitar playing, I am feeling as though the few skills I have learned are starting to come together.
Today I spent the day, with exception of visiting my friend M. for the afternoon, in the darkroom making silver gelatin prints. I have not been able to switch comfortably to digital formats for photography. Today, I kept thinking about this. Why do I like to print black and white? Why do I go to the trouble to make silver gelatin prints? (Sure, I print RC on weekday evenings or to see whether I like a particular image�. ) It has to do with mystique and mystery. I like the chemistry, the magic of watching the image appear, the tactile quality of the soft paper.
In the summer I have great difficulty getting water to be 68 degrees. Even in the basement, the coldest it gets is 71 degrees. In the winter, I have difficulty keeping the chemistry at 68 degrees. I have become inventive about how to solve these logistical problems. I think I am a bit like a retired man with his outdoors or on his tractor. I go down to the basement and I futz around with the darkroom, solving logistical problems.
My darkroom is small, but it is an empire. I have music and I usually secure Quinn on the second floor because I practice my singing while I print. Today I listened to a compilation tape I made in 1992 that is particularly fun, my delux �best of� that I put together of Joni Mitchell, some Kate Bush and some Jane Siberry. It is a happy little place and I have all measure of innovation going on in my small little room.
I print because I like it. In company with writing, translating Middle English poetry, and playing the classical guitar, I get into a rhythm when I print that just flows across hours. Before I know it, I am scrambling around, it is late�.I took the time to really learn it as a craft many years ago and it is second nature to me, so it is easy. Many people are investigating digital, switching to digital imaging. There is only one shop left in our city where I can even purchase supplies for my darkroom, and even they have stopped carrying fiber-based paper�.
The man who owns the store I call the Duke of Photography. He has a large portrait of himself, taken about 25 years ago, posing in a purple shirt with a gangster hat and an old-time six-shooter. For ten years he scared me. But I would go to his shop because I thought I could learn something from him � he is the type of person with an opinion about everything � and he takes his time with every client to make certain his client has the right thing. That was back when it was the rage to develop and print photographs at home. But now his stock is shifting, he is becoming even more commercial, and we completely disagree on the best paper. Even the Duke is starting to lose faith in the mystique of the silver gelatin print. Oriental is not the same as it was six years ago, he told me, when he informed me that he would never carry my paper again.
At least we agree on film.
I like to read and write Middle English, even though there are plenty of excellent translations that capture things beyond my knowledge and skill and, in the phraseology of my professor, �brings them to bare� on the text. But still I love the Middle English, Old English, Saxon. I have to convince a professor to let me put off my project translating and making an electronic version of ancient Norse myths which I was supposed to do this fall� It is part of this attraction I have for things that carry with them a certain mystique. Books and processes that connect me to times long, long past.
I thought about this a lot while I printing today, talked about with Quinn while I was teaching her change the nylon strings on her guitar, and talked about it with my friend M. this afternoon. I am interested in things that are ancient but not because I want simpler times. Not because I want to go back and be a woman in the 1340�s. But because I am uncomfortable in our culture where so many aspects of our lives are segmented. Our work, our intellectual activity, our spirituality, our entertainment� It seems as though the more our culture becomes professionalized --gets stretched--the shallower and the more immediate it becomes. I don�t mind a process � it gives me time to think. I like to get to know my images from the time when the sheet of white photographic paper is blank, to the time that the shadows set in and the picture emerges from nothing but potential.
Some random thoughts about mystery and prisms on a Sunday night�.
12:52 a.m. - 2002-08-19
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