1.
Oostende — photographs by Gery from Gent Street Photo
From the Community
Reading
’s recent post (👇🏽) and seeing his photos of Oostende brought back interesteing memories. Back in the summer of 2017, we went on a month-long road trip around Europe in a camper van conversion (it was, essentially, a Ford Transit with a foam slab mattress and a window cut out). It took us to some interesting places, one of which was Oostende.Oostende is a seaside town that has its own airport (I thought: 'ok.'), a pier-side arcade (it was fun, I won a magnet from playing hoops. It still hangs on our fridge), and a long, wide highstreet lined with an assortment of shops that made you feel permanently between a shopping mall in Milton Keynes, and Harry Potter's Diagon Alley. There was a Tanoy system that blared out club music at 11am throughout the town - there was no festival (or many people for that matter).
It felt like the town was built to specific requirements, but to whose requirements I'm not sure. It also leaves you wondering when 'The Circus' is coming, and if you should maybe move along before it arrives.
It was weird, but I truly enjoyed my entire stay there. There was something about the oddness of the place that has you pay attention to your surroundings, reflect on your experience, and then let go because there's really nothing you can do about it.
When I saw Gery’s photo, I knew straightaway where it was. Reading 'Oostende' in the caption was simply an affirmation. I had the feeling that I had taken the exact same photos. I pulled up the photo that had been thinking of (👇🏽) - and it's quite literally not the same photo. And yet it is - there's a shared experience of a place called Oostende that's captured in the photo. So much so, that it felt to me like the same photo.
Gery sums this up nicely in his original post:
"The subject of your picture is important. But it’s also important your subject isn’t just an object. You miss half of what you are trying to preserve if you focus solely on the hard reality. IMHO it’s important to take your time to be in the moment you’re trying to capture. A picture should contain what you see, what you hear, what you feel on your skin, what’s going through your mind and what’s vibing through your bones. It should encompass the complete romance of the reality you’re trying to freeze in time."
2.
You don’t need to know who you are to become an artist — a letter from Nick Cave
From the Internet
Dear Kellie, You don’t need to know who you are to become an artist. Art moulds us into the shape it wants us to be and the thing that serves it best. As a songwriter, I have come to understand that the more I try to make art that somehow reflects what I perceive myself to be, or the identity I wish to project upon the world, the more my art resists. Art doesn’t like being told what to do. It doesn’t like me getting in the way. When I attempt to impose my will upon it, the work becomes diminished and art takes its better ideas elsewhere. Art is a divine and mysterious force that runs through all of us. It is a thing of supreme spiritual potential that only comes into its true and full being if we abandon all those cherished ideas about who we think we are or are not. Art is entirely indifferent to our self-annihilating excuses, special case pleas and circumstantial grievances. We must cease to concern ourselves with our unique suffering – whether we are happy or sad, fortunate or unfortunate, good or bad – and give up our neurotic and debilitating journeys of self-discovery. Art of true value requires, like a jealous and possessive god, nothing less than our complete obedience. It insists that we retract our ego, our sense of self, the cosmetics of identity and let it do its thing. We are in service to art, not the other way around. Kellie, if you want to create, sit down, lower your head in deference to the task ahead and get to work. But get out of art’s way! Art will, in time, show you who you are. One day you will be labouring away, lost in the flow, a glorious and unfathomable thing unfolding before your eyes, and art will suddenly and outrageously turn to you and, like a master pleased with his vassal, say, ‘Look. Look who you are. _You are an artist_.’ Love, Nick
So the legendary Nick Cave runs a wonderful newsletter in which he responds to fans asking him a variety of questions. I particularly loved this response to Kellie, who appeared to be struggling with the question of "who we are" - and what is it that we're meant to be doing here (as an artist or otherwise).
3.
On Sketching and Essence — a quote from Pete Bossley
From the Substack Community
“I found that the sketches became more than a way of recording the details of the world. They began to search for something more. They began to suggest an essence rather than the detail of a subject - to try to discover different and even new ways of expressing such an essence.”
— Pete Bossley
And maybe there isn't anything we need to do. Maybe there are just experiences to be present to. Perhaps we'll record those experiences, and share them with others. Perhaps creativity is just the process of being alive in the world and sharing our living with each other as fellow journeyers in this time and space. Perhaps, it is enough to be human.
🍓 STRAWBERRIES AND SOLSTICE 🍓
Belated greetings for the solstice, and enjoy the rest of summer and strawberries :).
Wow, Nick Cave's letter hit home! Amazing.
thanks for having me, much appreciated!