Today on my daily walk I noticed a Jacaranda tree that had come into its first leaf and immediately pulled my phone out to capture this hint of Spring. I walked on with that image now safely packed away in my handbag amongst all the other paraphernalia.
Where did this obsession to document fleeting moments of beauty originate?
Is it a bi-product of our love affair with social media or does it run more deeply through our human psyche?
Often I will find my mind shift into seeing ordinary scenes or objects as subjects of immense beauty and meaning, sometimes it is when I have had a couple of glasses of wine (not recommended as the only way), other times it is when my heart has been opened up either out of joy or grief (also a somewhat painful process at times). All of sudden everything around me stops looking mundane and starts looking precious and fleeting. And in those moments I am drawn to capture them. To spend time with them. To interpret them.
Is this obsession with documentation a meaningless grab at holding a moment on a memory stick, or are we tapping into a primal desire for permanence or at the very least relationship?
After several years of art school, going through the motions, I vividly recall after an evening painting class, a moment when it all came to a screeching halt. Suddenly it had no meaning for me anymore. What was the point of locking myself in a room painting pictures when life was out there to be lived. To be breathed, to be touched. I was relieved when on a trip to Paris the Louvre was closed and I was excused from the duties of an Arts Graduate and could sit in a café and look out and sketch.
Always, I was taken back to a desire to capture.
And ultimately what this gesture offers me is a moment to relate. To see. To truly see another person, place or object. Because each year spring comes just as quickly as it goes and if we don’t look up we miss that sacred moment.
Soil to Stars 