The Thousand Words Project
I’ve started a new personal project that I’m so excited about! The basic idea is that I choose 100 photos of my own work, print them out, choose one 2-3 times per week, write three pages in a stream-of-conscious style examining everything about it from its technical aspects to its deeper symbolism. Next, I choose 10 words that embody the sort of theme of what I discovered in my writing. (Sometimes this is a direct quote from the writing, sometimes something completely new.) I paste the photo and write my 10 words beneath it in a soft leatherette journal. At the end of the year, I will have a notebook with my best and most favorite work along with 1000 words.
It started as a way for me to do more writing, to slow down and examine and gather my favorite work, and to really take time with one photo at a time and discover its strengths, weaknesses, and any deeper meaning I might find from it. I’ve only been doing this project for 2 months, but already, I am amazed at how completely fluid and exploratory it has been. My images seem to flow from one to the next with unintentional harmony. The words create a conversation about my current state of mind, my hopes, fears, dreams, deepest loves. I try not to do it everyday (I actually have to try, because it really is addictive), because I want my mind to sort of reset and many times I even forget the photo I’ve chosen just before. But inevitably, I find my photos speak to each other in some way or another. I have found myself in my work in a more meaningful way than I have before. In the way that my favorite books take on new life with each reading, or how I can look at a painting I’ve seen 100 times before and suddenly some part of it hits me to the core, I have found that my photos when looked at as art, have more to say about me than I ever imagined.
I’ve just started this project, but already I can tell it will be more than I ever hoped it would be. (And I really had high hopes for this project.) I love shooting projects, but to slow down and really look at what I’ve done has been even better, and I find it even inspires new work and helps me take my creative energy in a more focused direction. Even better, I’ve collected a community of like-minded artists who are finding their own groove as they start this project, making it their own in the most wonderful ways. It’s incredible to watch as we all find ourselves together.
Here are my first few photos with their accompanying words.
Into the jumbled softness and violence of the tumultuous skies.
Light doesn’t change the sky, just how I see it.
Body earthbound; heart reflecting light, reaching heavenward, revealing infinite space.
It was hope, faith, the promise of some future beauty.
almost, almost, almost, almost, almost, almost, almost, almost, almost
Almost.
The imperfect, present lens lays bare light I couldn’t see.
That invisible thread, still unstretched, untested. How long? How long?
Time slows, the tether goes slack, I see her, now.
Shapes of one life, connected by ripples of waning memory.
And all that is left are the trails of light.
All we have now is the shadowy memory of touch.
We grasped what was nearest and just covered our heads.
Moments of sharp clarity in soft, beautiful circles of confusion.