EDGING PAST CERTAINTIES
The process of change may be barely discernable, accumulating unhurriedly beneath the threshold of our observation. The subliminal can be insidious, building towards a moment of coarse revelation and regret. We are primed to alertness for traces of incursion or approach, our bodily sentries giving an autonomic qui vive? at the gates. The reply, when there is one, requires in response the exercise of both knowledge and intuition. Few can divert the process from the unfailing, reflexive question of -- what’s in this for me? The mind’s first responders are not selfless.
There is change we elect and that which is visited upon us. The former may be undertaken with steely determination, cheerful anticipation, or perhaps gingerly, with reservation and circumspection. Some see willful change as a strategy for growth, or as a ploy for avoidance, or perhaps as a quick fix for dire ennui of self. Others see it as the continual, faithful work of fine-tuning our release from human imperfection, or as an urgent necessity, if we ever are to close the untold experiential gaps remaining within the spotty parameters of our own existence.
While making these photographs I was mindful of the fluctuating relationship between familiarity and certainty. We often want that link to hold firm, as liberating as that can be. Yet shuffling the elements short-circuits expectations in favor of possibilities, whether the impetus arises from without or within. We proceed, weighing possibilities against probabilities, edging past certainties.
Gloria DeFilipps Brush
© 2011
Individual photographs © Gloria DeFilipps Brush 1994 and 1996.
The originals are archivally processed silver gelatin prints, hand-colored with pencils and dyes.
The negatives were made on Polaroid 665 film with a Cahrrette Corporation Scale Model Architectural Camera.
Introductory statement © Gloria DeFilipps Brush 2011
The photographs were made with partial assistance from a University of Minnesota McKnight Arts and Humanities Foundation Award.
