In 1923 Robert Henri provided what remains standing to this day as the most beautiful definition of Art when he wrote “There are moments in our lives when we seem to see beyond the usual, these are the moments of our greatest wisdom and greatest happiness. We may call it a passage into another dimension than our ordinary. If one could but record the vision of these moments by some sort of sign! It was in this hope that the arts were invented. Signposts on the way to what may be, signposts towards greater knowledge”. Living a life animated with the Art spirit is a dynamic process of progression and acclimatization, balancing and integrating subjective inner feelings with objective outer facts. Art is a byproduct of this ongoing intercourse, and as Henri goes on to say “All manifestations of Art are but landmarks in the progress of the human spirit toward a thing sensed but far from being possessed, a trace, like a footprint which shows that one has walked bravely and in great happiness”. Although the Art Life seems to provide more questions than it does concrete answers, it grants something far more meaningful, admittance into a symbolic domain in which one can more fully live the questions for one’s self.
Photography is uniquely endowed among the arts, as no other medium requires such a beautiful duality between inner and outer. Camerawork demands direct engagement with pre-established physical properties, and the photographer is confronted with this reality every time that the camera is raised to the eye. The photographic Artist becomes fluent in the language of form, learning to disconnect from normal modes of seeing in order to explore the world not for what it is, but for what else it is, a mysterious playground of disembodied symbols. Extending visual antenna deeply into this realm reveals traces of something more, traces resonating with a valence that on occasion coalesce into a completed gestalt. Through these encounters, connections crystallize as personal meaning is deciphered and distilled from out of the chaos of this ostensibly impersonal world. Each finished artifact then stands as a signpost rising upward out of life’s fog, marking and delineating those sacred moments of “gem” like insight when the Artist felt the way into an answer
My decision to work exclusively in black and white began in the year 2012 without my conscious input. Up to that point I was attempting to make vibrant color photographs of beautiful and dramatic landscape scenes, but this pursuit seemed to be running its course and before long began to feel rather empty. I recognized that color photography seemed more effective at representing superficial beauty in the world, but felt an intuitive pull in a completely different direction. Unsure of what I was seeing, I dimly glimpsed the same thread that Robert Frank grasped when he said, “Black and white are the colors of photography. To me they symbolize the alternatives of hope and despair to which mankind is forever subjected”. By its very nature monochrome photography departed from reality in a way that seemed to reveal something deeper, something beyond, something of a more spiritual nature. Slowly the scaffolding of my Art life was being erected as photography transformed from a pastime into a practice, with the heart, eye and camera as the tools, and Bent Light Koans the artifacts or "traces" manifesting from the creative journey.
Jare Israel is a photographic Artist and poet working exclusively in Black and White. He believes that photography should be approached as a mindfulness practice, utilizing the camera as a tool to cultivate self discovery and spiritual growth. Photography entered into his life at the age of eighteen followed closely by a serious accident that resulted in a significant and longterm vision deficit in his right eye. Slowly learning to use this handicap to his benefit, he states “I close my left eye when composing, in doing so, the scene is stripped of all detail revealing the raw form beneath the surface”. He goes on to say “Specific subject matter is of little importance to me, whether it be the intricate grain of a twisted old tree high in the mountains, a rust encrustation on an iron beam in the heart of the city or even discarded trash, form is the conveyor of the message and the harbinger of insight”. When not practicing photography and poetry he works as a nurse and enjoys reading books on philosophy, creativity, and religion, as well as spending time with his fiancé Kristin and three dogs Captain, Belly Bear and Jasper.
