Original Inspiration:
“Artists are not entertainers; they are explorers of our collective interior. They venture into the turbulence of being so that we may recognize ourselves anew. They transform fragility to form, silence to sign, darkness into light. To support them is to share their courage to believe that creation, like knowledge, requires risk, patience, and depth. It is to affirm that culture is not consumption but communion, that beauty is not comfort but transfiguration. Today, when almost everything can be owned, monetized, or consumed, culture remains among the few things that live only when offered. So let us invest not only money but trust, attention, and love in those who create today.”
-Cristiano Leone
I came across part of this speech this morning while scrolling, and it resonated with me. So I went to work on another image. I wanted to stay in that space.
Along the Way
I kept going back and forth, over and over. I wanted more clarity, but each time I revealed more of the original image I reverted back to obscuring.
And I ask myself, what is the significance of this back and forth? I don’t usually experience this, at least to this extent, when creating. Maybe today, revealing makes everything a little too real. Perhaps I’m holding fear that the realness will remove the possibility that’s hoped for most. But it also could reveal that very possibility in full form, which keeps me oscillating.
At the Beginning
It was too complicated to start. There were too many elements involved that ended up only being distractions.
Running the image through iColorama made this clear to me – I wanted more simplicity.
Now I could start stripping away the things that didn’t serve—removing all the unnecessary complications. Now I had a clear direction that felt right.
In the End
I see so much beauty here—beauty in the final image but also in the experience of creating. Beauty in exploring and transforming, with patience and depth, to use Cristiano’s words.
