there is never enough time

From And the Pursuit of Happiness by Maira Kalman

photo friday: contrasts, old and new

So I didn't really prepare that well for this week's photo Friday. I didn't have a computer with me on vacation, and so no time was spent sitting around downloading images and messing with them in PhotoShop (what I usually do when I have extra time on my hands). So for today's post I ended up using my scanner as a camera this evening and patching together a few contrasts. The first is pretty obvious--Ike's hand and my hand. The second is made up of two beautifully designed books—one old and one new: an elegantly letterpress printed edition of Charles Lamb's Roast Pig and Other Essays published by Peter Pauper Press (strangely there is no date of publication inside); the second is Michael Pollan's Food Rules illustrated by my much admired Maira Kalman and published by Penguin last year.

I made a few others contrast diptychs, but they were too weak to include (and too late for me to stay up and tinker!). 

Next week's theme was suggested by my dear friend Jenny. She loved the idea of Isaiah's "sad place" and thought we could use it for a photo Friday theme. I like the idea too. (You can read more about the "sad place" here.) So, for next week the theme is "the sad place"—and, as usual, you can interpret that any way you want.

photo friday: looking up

© Amber Schley Iragui 2012

© Amber Schley Iragui 2007

© Amber Schley Iragui 2012

© Amber Schley Iragui 2012

I am of the opinion that most artists should not open their mouths. Put more kindly, words are not their talent: I often find when I read about art, especially something that was written by the artist, the art itself loses some power. I had originally written about the photos I'm posting today, but then I deleted the post. It was so boring. Whatever mystery or beauty the photos hold was stripped by my mundane observations. There are exceptions, of course. William Blake and Maira Kalman come to mind. Or Allan Say, the author and illustrator of the beautiful children's book, Grandfather's Journey. 

Next week is Holy Week in the Orthodox Christian tradition, and in that vein I'd like to suggest the concept of bright sadness as the Photo Friday / Holy Friday theme. This phrase can be interpreted any way you'd like, and the photos certainly don't need to show Easter or Holy Week in any way. However, as a point of departure, here is what theologian Alexander Schmemann wrote about bright sadness:

{During Lent} a certain quiet sadness permeates the service: vestments are dark, the services are longer than usual and more monotonous, there is almost no movement,... nothing seems to “happen.” At regular intervals the priest comes out of the sanctuary and reads always the same short prayer, and the whole congregation punctuates every petition of that prayer with prostrations. Thus, for a long time we stand in this monotony—in this quiet sadness.

But then we begin to realize that this very length and monotony are needed if we are to experience the secret and at first unnoticeable “action” of the service in us. Little by little we begin to understand, or rather to feel, that this sadness is indeed “bright,” that a mysterious transformation is about to take place in us. It is as if we were reaching a place to which the noises and the fuss of life, of the street, of all that which usually fills our days and even nights, have no access—a place where they have no power...

Thus, as we experience this mysterious liberation, as we become “light and peaceful,” the monotony and the sadness of the service acquire a new significance, they are transfigured. An inner beauty illumines them like an early ray of the sun which, while it is still dark in the valley, begins to lighten up the top of the mountain.

—taken from Great Lent, published by SVS Press

 

she asks "why not?" of more than a coulibiac

Since TimesSelect articles are now free, we can get all the goodies they've been holding out on us. For example, Fr John sent me a link to Maira Kalman's illustrated column The Principals of Uncertainty today. It's aching, tender, dreamy. It inspires me to want to blog in the style of her column. I'm particularly fond of Part 5: the beautiful children and other things. I do hope I won't be sued if I put one of the images from the column up here--I love the line next to the coulibiac: "why not?" Indeed.

P.S. if the link above doesn't work, paste this in your browser: http://kalman.blogs.nytimes.com/