searchingtoseedesert textures (revisited)
Posted on October 6, 2013
I posted these in black and white a while back, and promised to post in colour too, so here they are, slightly re-arranged. I like them collated together as little snippets in this way.
© images and content Emily Hughes and searchingtosee, 2013
horizon
Posted on October 2, 2013
The line between the sea and the sky is
the end, and then the beginning of something
new. A promise
to Future’s wings which
fan the fire of juvenile desire
and go! Flee! Don’t turn back your eyes
must face forwards now and new things will be yours
to mould in your cupped hands like a smooth,
ripe mango. Many a journey lingers in your
laughter and foamy fingers cling to your stern,
but don’t look back on your wistful daydream
it stays there still on the shore and looks on,
upon the horizon.
Sure and sheer it cuts
a straight line clear as the deftness of your serious eyes
which gently tug the sky back to the earth
and yes, a neat line is a satisfying thing nestling
in the smudges of drab grey space which surround us.
Some things can be wonky and charming like
teeth, or fringes.
But not a horizon.
© images and content Emily Hughes and searchingtosee, 2013
find me
Posted on September 16, 2013
find me unravelling the forest floor
find me hugging the crest of a sandy shore
find me wrapped in a gauze of Spring, when Autumn comes
that’s where you’ll find me
© images and content Emily Hughes and searchingtosee, 2013
These wilder things
Posted on September 7, 2013
And I will waste my heart on fear no more
I will find a secret bell and make it ring
And let the rest be washed up on the shore
They can’t be tamed, these wilder things
No they can’t be tamed, these wilder things
From “These Wilder Things” (album of the same name) by Ruth Moody
***
It was like these wilder things grew wilder
and more serious
sparkling in their electric world
relaxed in their sun-drenched skin
inhabiting that sweet groove
which skates between joy and recklessness
polished granite
a surface to flip, skim and fly
a tarnished penny
carelessly tossed aside
They felt safe to tumble freely in their imaginations
shrugging off the scrapes and the bruises
(I envied them that)
laughing and shrieking with abandon
they found solace conspiring in clandestine business
bowed heads sharing furtive words
A pavement is a stage for drama
dodging yawning caverns
molten lava traps
they rustle and pop around me noisily like static
enticing me to act in their superstitious fantasy
but I am already seated for the show
Like vines they grew
plasticine limbs stretching longer
bones denser
and their toes tiptoe cautiously
around the confines of our adult lives
sparrows snatching at stray breadcrumbs
but all words to them are pingy, elastic
just like them
so they play and stretch and tease
until their world becomes a little bigger
a little wider
a little taller
to accommodate them
But there were also dreams which were darker than before
and they found to their surprise that it was possible to hate, as well as love;
to feel shame as well as pride,
these wilder things
***
© images and content Emily Hughes and searchingtosee, 2013
The Canyon
Posted on September 3, 2013
I wasn’t going to post any pictures from the Grand Canyon, as they weren’t really very good, but then I got some black and white prints back from the rolleiflex, and I realised they had captured something I wasn’t able to capture in digital.
This one best sums up the awe and the austerity of the landscape, I think.
© images and content Emily Hughes and searchingtosee, 2013
Presence
Posted on August 31, 2013
A portrait of my daughter, age 5.
© images and content Emily Hughes and searchingtosee, 2013
desert textures
Posted on August 26, 2013
This is a small collection of macro shots I made in Arizona. They nearly made it in colour (and they are seductive in colour), but somehow the black and white seemed more focused, less distracting in this format.
© images and content Emily Hughes and searchingtosee, 2013
Flight
Posted on August 17, 2013
Another collage I’ve been working on. I wanted it to have a feel of movement and energy, but also be subtle, and gentle.
It’s always difficult to know when to leave something alone, though!
© images and content Emily Hughes and searchingtosee, 2013
Be faithful Go
Posted on August 17, 2013
I urge you to check out the latest response to the photograph as it continues on its journey from Summer Lee of summerleeart.com
The Photograph greeted me as a neatly packaged risk.
Unlike the poets and artists of different times and geographies whose work could bring about imprisonment or worse, my work takes very little risk. And yet art reminds me relentlessly that faith is rudiment to creation, even at the level of imaginary stakes, the mostly self-imposed type. What is at stake?
The Photograph’s owner has released this fragile art piece into several unknown hands. One of the writers who held it before me is someone I have not met in person, but whose writings I have read for over a year now, who faithfully reads my writings and offers me resonant references to literature and theory. We have a textual connection in virtual space, but the shared physicality of the Photograph closes our geographical impossibility into a more intimate interstice. As such, the more hands the Photograph passes through, the more…
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