Looking out my window, what can I see? Nothing.
I wanted to shoot a photo of the fog, but the camera WILL NOT shoot. It won’t take a photo of nothing. It’s refusing: “What do I focus on? There’s nothing.” So you can see the slight bit of lake snow at the bottom. Something. The camera is okay now.
It seems that in this era of photos – there are a lot of “somethings” to take pictures of – since most phones are now cameras and everyone is shooting.
But what about the nothing? How to appreciate that?
Definitely my art stands out most clearly against nothing:
But when I go to DC and look for the is the physical backdrop of nothing – that I won’t get. And then there is the mental, emotional backdrop each viewer will bring. Guaranteed those will not be free of “somethings”, some memories, associations, recent interactions.
In fact, it is those somethings that will all be in play when the art is seen. Ideally, the art might affect those somethings in the viewer’s mind – maybe soothe, maybe remind, maybe … who knows what? The farthest reach is to for them is to look at the art (something) and get nothing – by that, I mean, that space where all the other stuff can fall away. Shall I call it: a moment of New Hampshire fog? … by grace of the art.