Making Meaning

Today I want to write a little bit about the creative process and

Making Meaning

in your artistic work.

As I record my responses to the beauty I see in the world through the lens of my camera, I think a lot about the artistic process. When is the photograph I make just a photograph documenting what I saw and when is it art?

I don’t have a definitive answer for that. But I know that it is not enough for me any more just to create a “pretty picture” in my photographic work. I want the photos I make to carry or evoke emotion and meaning. Somehow I want to show you the wonder, joy, and awe I feel when I see beauty or when I create something that I think is beautiful.

When you’re transmuting lived experience into art, the impulse is to wait until you can wrap something up in a neat little box with a perfect bow. But that never actually happens; life does not come in neat little boxes with perfect bows. And more than that, there’s power in capturing the not-knowing and in sharing the not-knowing—sharing our fumblings through the mess of our lives, our attempts to make sense of our experiences and even make meaning of them.

   — Suleika Jaouad, On the Horizon

Here is an example of a simple project that began with a photo club prompt and grew into something quite meaningful to me. The way it unfolded felt quite accidental. But the end result had great significance and meaning to me.

Each month the photo club that I belong to has a topic. We are encouraged to make and submit photos that express the monthly topic somehow. This month one of the topic prompts was, “Jewelry.” I don’t have a lot of jewelry because wearing it bothers me. But I remembered that we still had my mother-in-law’s jewelry box downstairs.

I played around with photographing the jewelry box and pieces of jewelry from the box but none of the photos felt like they were saying anything. As I played around with photographing a single necklace from the box, an idea emerged. (Actually it began as one idea and slowly morphed into something quite different.)

I photographed a mirrored necklace…

Then I tried compositing a flower photo onto the necklace’s mirrored oval surface. It was pretty but my mind said, “So what?” In fact, I deleted the image after I made because it felt so mundane and meaningless to me. Then I remembered a photograph of my mother-in-law that Jon had told me his dad always carried with him. I made a photograph of the photograph.

Then I moved the photograph onto the necklace’s mirrored center…

It still felt pretty mundane. So I added some texture and toned down the green background color. There were words in the texture from an old love song

This photo felt like it had heart and meaning for me and it felt like it told a story, one of love and a time long ago.

And that’s why I like to make photos from someone else’s prompt. It takes me creative places I wouldn’t have visited. The process is not a straight line from idea to final execution. Rather it is a meandering path with a few dead-ends and a final result that is much greater than the sum of its parts.

How is what you create a way of making meaning in your own life?

May you walk in beauty.