Sunday morning is my favorite time of the week. I spend the morning looking at what everyone else is doing and feel inspired by their works. I love this Internet connection to so many remarkable people. Yesterday Marklin wrote a comment about writing “Love Letters” to the artists who inspire us. It has really got me thinking on the subject and my list would be eternally long. There are so many artists, long dead, that I wish I could have a conversation with. One of my passions is to look at the history of photography and find so many inspirations that have moved it along. I think the single most powerful tool we can gain, as an artist, is to educate ourselves on the history of what we do. How others have approached it and solved issues they faced in their own unique ways. I know Mapplethorpe was an avid collector of other photographers and images. I see his works being influenced by so many different ideas and concepts. I feel this in my own work as well. I never seem to settle on a particular style or concept, it is ever evolving, ever changing, and ever so challenging. Yet there is something uniquely me that comes though. I look outside my own medium and feel inspiration from painting, music, and architecture. But mostly I am inspired and feel lucky to be alive today in this time. To live in a remote place like Montana and to have so many awesome friends who are currently working and creating that I can now talk to directly. People who influence and inspire me to greater ideas and concepts. Thanks to all who follow this project and support me along the way. Today is dedicated to you.
Spring is beginning to break here in Montana and this morning the studio is filled with the most remarkable light. It glows with a warmth that fills my heart and touches me to bottom of my creative soul. This remarkable light only lasts a couple of weeks until the trees begin to leaf and shade the back windows. Today’s pic is of this extraordinary spring light from last year. This is one of my all time favorite images.
>I think I should be writing you a Love Letter" Terry! The rawness with which you reveal yourself as an individual through this blog continually inspires me to reflective thought. I do not yet have the courage to put pen to paper like you so honestly and sincerely make happen. My love letter to you Terry is this:
My friend Terry,
You continue to inspire me to go to deep places in my soul and tap into my sexuality, my identity. I need you in my life to help me find balance and self-acceptance while developing the courage to reveal my identities. When I speak with you in your studio it seems so much easier to reveal myself because your understanding and gentle probing allow that to happen. I live vicariously through your revelations and images in this blog, continually making connections to my life and desiring so greatly to be me – to accept me and name me and reveal me even more transparently through your images. Thank you for being the amazing mentor you are with the compassion, insight, sensuality, and zest for life with which you enrich my life.
Always,
>Thank you so much Terry,
I am honored to know you. Your work inspires me in so many ways. You take the high road in your art. I do not find your work erotic, that would be the easy answer. Yours is so much more complicated to explain. The sensuality is undeniable,but there is a depth and uncompromising grace, fluidity,and movement to your work. That is very rare.
I believe photographers are thieves of time. Guardians of a moment before it is lost, so to speak. You somehow manage to make me look beyond the nude male, you make me look for the soul in each photo. So in a way this is a Love Letter to you as well. You are almost a stranger to me. Yet you are part of the brotherhood that was formed by men who only wanted to know other artists . I am proud to call you a brother in art, and proud to call you a friend. Keep doing what you are doing.
Yours Marklin