Dipping A Brush in My Soul

Duke Ellington once said, “I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.” To me, that’s a pretty powerful statement of the channeling of hope, frustration, love, anger, and fear into an artistic endeavor. Be it performed on an instrument or painted on a canvas, art serves as a window to our souls.

On a recent Saturday morning, I ventured into McDonalds for breakfast. It was raining hard outside, and the restaurant was filled with very noisy customers. At a booth off to one side, I noticed an older man with papers spread out across a table. He was writing in a notebook in longhand. One of several books beside him was titled The Screenwriter’s Handbook.

Here among the pancakes and Egg McMuffins was a guy writing a screenplay in a spiral-bound notebook. Many questions came to mind... what was he writing about, why was he writing in this cacophony of distraction, why was he writing in longhand instead of on a computer, and most importantly, would his work ever see the big screen? Truthfully, the odds are against it. Regardless, I couldn’t help but be inspired.

This past Saturday, I photographed a “Meet Authors and Artists” event in my town of Gray. Two local businesses hosted cartoonists, painters, a photographer, and a number of authors. Save the cartoonist, who worked on Spiderman comicbooks, most of these artists had no chance of making a career from their art. But they shared their work with the world. And once again, I was inspired.

It was Henry Ward Beecher who in 1887 said, “Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.” Likewise, I feel that the stolen moments I have captured through my lens are both scenes of the unique way I see the world and also windows into my own soul.I don’t know how many of my images will be seen by the world. I don’t know that I will ever reach a point where I can pay all the bills with my art. And I don’t know that this is a worthy goal in the grand scheme of life. But like the Duke, I hope every day to turn the energy of the emotions of my life into an art of my own.