Ephemerality

or going for broke with a creative brain worm.

Last June I headed to Mongolia with a group of photographers to explore the Gobi desert (see last post). A couple days before leaving, while I was doing an inventory of my camera equipment I realized I didn’t want to shoot only landscapes. I wanted an IDEA. An ARTY IDEA. I wanted an ARTY IDEA in the dunes, something cool to look at, something to make me feel ARTSY.

Eureka - Fabric! White fabric billowing in the wind! I will wear it and turn my body into an unrecognizable sand creature that contorts in the wind and it will be ART!

After a slightly frantic trip to the fabric store wherein the extraordinarily gracious employee helped me find the cheapest sheer curtain fabric and encouraged my flight of fancy, I rushed home and started up my old 1980s sewing machine. It performed admirably, and after running literally dozens of metres of fabric through it, with only a rough idea of the outcome, I was rewarded with layers upon layers of a skirt with a hood… of sorts. Not exactly the amoeba-like animal I was envisioning, but no matter! Maybe it will be a ghost! And thus the ghost was born. Or expired. Or however ghosts are made.

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A year later, and the ghost did not let me go. She traveled with me through the sand dunes of Mongolia. She took a van trip to the Yukon. She hiked in the Rockies more than I care to remember (the ghost is not exactly light). She got drenched during monsoon level rains in Greenland and froze in a glacier cave in January. The ghost had become my muse; I wasn’t sure I could even shoot without her. It felt like cheating if I didn’t include her. What potential could a scene even have if there was no ghost?! I wrestled with that fabric in real life and in my brain, constantly thinking of new scenarios she could elevate. I went all in, accepting that I would probably just take photos of this ghost for the rest of my life - welcome to the reality of being ARTSY.

Last week, almost a year after the ghost made her first appearance, I received a very exciting email. LifeFramer had chosen one of my ghostly images, along with 19 other incredible photos, as a finalist in their “Colors” competition. Icefall had made the cut. In addition to Icefall being promoted on their social media, they asked for me to complete my LifeFramer portfolio so they could feature it in their Collections. I’ve spent the last eight days feverishly editing ghost images that have been sitting on my hard drives (procrastination of overwhelming projects will be a talk for another time, I’m sure), and creating ARTY WORDS to go with them. POETIC ARTSY WORDS. (Said with an eyebrow waggle)

And now I think my ghost, my ephemeral muse, has relinquished her hold. The project can be released into the ether, I am ready to be done. The finished poem caps off a year spent envisioning a spectre that enticed me to create. Perhaps she’ll return, perhaps not. Ghosts are funny that way.

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To view the whole collection and poem in all it’s ARTSY splendour click here.

As always, thank you for reading and following. We all have so many emails and publications in our inboxes; I appreciate you taking the time to read mine. If you are so inclined, feel free to pass along The Wilding to whomever you think might enjoy.

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Additionally, there is a fellow photographer and dear friend who helped me bring the Ephemerality project to fruition - Paul Zizka. Check out his newsletter, Fuelled by Creativity, to read more about his work.