Reflections

This week was very exciting for me to win two blue ribbons in the Delmarva on View exhibit at the Lewes Public Library. And customary to my spiritual life, I feel compelled to pause for a moment and reflect with gratitude, examine my attitudes, and ponder the direction of my life. Just for a moment, though, because then I’m going back to revel in the excitement and accolades!

I woke up on Wednesday thinking about next month’s Members’ Show at the Newark Arts Alliance, debating whether or not I would be entering a photograph. I was juried into 3 shows there already this year, which I consider to be marks in the successful column of my art business ledger because previously I wasn’t showing anywhere. None of those works sold, though, yet. I was admittedly feeling a bit defeated and had decided to not frame anything to take to NAA. Upon that decision, a little self-doubt crept in: “Maybe you aren’t really that good.” and “People aren’t really responding to your work, so why even show it?” and there was the “It’s okay to take a break, regroup, and try again next year.”

By then, I was out of bed and had gotten coffee to jump online for a couple minutes before going to work. (“Yeah, huge success you are with a paying day job.”) Awaiting in my inbox was notification that I had placed in the Delmarva on View exhibit. (“What?!”) I was so beyond excited, I quickly posted on here and Facebook the news. And then it was time for work. Postponing the rest of my happy dance, I had more time to think about my photography in general.

In my head I kept hearing the wise voice of my Art Biz Coach, Alyson, telling me I just need to keep showing and getting my work in front of people and talking about it. I can build sales and a following from there, but it can take 3-5 years to have anything substantial. After all, I started from the ground up. And then I remembered my definition of success: “Don’t give up!” and “I am talented with a unique point of view.” and there was the “Be grateful for every little win along the way leading up to the big ones.” I do know that I have a gift and that I’m fortunate enough to have the resources to share it with people like I do. I’m grateful I got this reminder from the judges saying I placed first and awarded best in show in the professional category.

It is very gratifying to receive this recognition. At the reception, I was talking with my parents about professional versus amateur categories on display. The winner circle noted the division, but the remaining 130 works hanging did not. Honestly, some of them I was unable to tell from a photographic stand point. Others, it was quite clear from the framing choices alone! I’m still impressed by the talent culled from all levels, though. Which then led to the discussion of why I entered the professional category if my art business is not my primary source of income. As I was completing the submission paperwork I asked myself the very same question, so it was easy to explain:

I am an Artist. I take my work very, but not too, seriously. I have spent countless hours working on composition and framing, teaching myself how to use a dSLR and Photoshop. I use this blog and an iPhone photo journal to explore topics and develop my own unique, creative point of view. I self-published a book. I show in exhibits. I have a business license and pay my taxes. I use business cards. I am a professional and I am successful.

It is really the attitude and approach I have that makes it so. Well, and that I self identify as a professional. There is no universal definition, no application process or metrics to reach for qualification. It was my decision. In interviewing with the press at the opening reception I was asked who I worked for. My initial reaction was confusion because I didn’t think I needed a studio or other conventional trappings of a pro. I answered: “Myself. I’m independent.” I am confident and comfortable with the direction and growth of my art, my photography.

I see this all as very defining moment for me because it clarified my reflections on myself, my photography, and my business goals. It’s a great confidence booster and as I see it, part of the universe pointing me along further along the path of my dreams! Stylistically that means I will be continuing to work in a square format and perfecting my B&W conversions, along with the color works.

2
REFLECTIONS © 2012 NATE METZ

Damn Good Advice: SIXTEEN

There is nothing very overt about the provocative nature of my photographs. Often, they are beautiful moments of color, line, form, and texture. I do find, though, as I continue to submit work and meet other artists and converse with gallery folk that my work isn’t Photography with a capital P. It’s unexpected in some ways because it’s not how most people would use a camera. For example, these tidal lines are rather unassuming perhaps, but I see a delicacy worthy of framing. But, no, you say, it’s pedestrian at best– lacks varying qualities of color, depth of field, and these five other technical aspects of a Photograph.

wcape37DSC_1539
Tide Lines © 2014 NATE METZ

This is my brand, my photography. I’m not overly intricate or technical in my approach, although my perfectionism may ask me to lean that way at times. I challenge your classic and traditional view of photography, and that’s my style of provocation. I do not accept any established definition of what art should be. I own my expression fully. These prints are for sale because they are worth money and would look great hanging on your wall or even a 4×6 on your desk. If you already know me, then this diatribe is not news. If you’re new to Nate World, now you know!

Needless to say, I do already embrace this Damn Good Advice and follow it unconsciously. Being a cultural provocateur is an archetype repeated throughout many areas of my life. It isn’t easy and I don’t know that I would pick it out for myself if I had a deck to choose from because it is an ongoing challenge. It requires great strength and courage to think freely and remain centered so that I can continue to honor the pure place of my creativity. I’m glad seasoned creators like Lois can ask younger generations to continue to push boundaries and reinvent the art world.

cone03DSC_1576
An Unexpected Surprise © 2014 NATE METZ

RED X marks the holiday SPIRIT

Go search the skies, the landscapes, our inner minds for the markings and indications of something meaningful, answers, life and you shall be making a trek. Lifelong perhaps? You can be a wise man and you may also enjoy a nap in a manager surrounded by animals. I like to enjoy frankincense, myrrh, and gold myself!

But as we draw near the winter solstice, I want to share what the holiday means to me. It is the Christmas season, and that is the name of the national holiday that businesses close for whether you celebrate the Christian holiday or not. Christmas is about the winter solstice: the longest period of darkness (night) in the year. And on the next day, the promise of LIGHT returns and days become longer again. The holiday symbolically represents the return of life when the seasonal tides shift gears in the upswing yet again. It is about renewed hope and honoring the continuing cycle of life.

The color red is the color of the root charka. Red symbolizes life, vitality, strength and the physical plane. It also represents heat and fire. Our spiritual evolution (of the current earth walk) begins at the root charka when we are in utero. It is also the base of kundalini energy later if we develop spiritually in that way. It can be a very vibrant energy and certainly placed around us in the holiday season it is meant to counteract the cold winter, the long nights when mother nature lay dormant.

But where are my presents? Abstaining from gift-giving as a moral superiority and anti-capitalistic/anti-materialistic high road is laughable at best. Giving a gift, no matter how small, is the only way to receive. It is the law of attraction at it’s best. Give love, prosperity, hope, joy, and any multitude of blessings this holiday season. If that package comes in the form of a new coat, gadget, or otherwise, that’s fantastic! It is always best to give freely with the best of intentions. And this holiday season when nature gifts us with the return of more light, we too can give. Anyone speaking to the contrary has missed the reason for the season.

My take on the holiday is more abstract: red and crosses.

RED X © 2013 NATE METZ

Damn Good Advice: FIFTEEN

There is something honorable and humble about recognizing the origin of creativity as separate from the ego and conscious thoughts. I am surprised that Lois was able to draw this conclusion after so subtly establishing his own expertise in advertising. Most creative geniuses are masters of craft and worship their own greatness. The Great Idea does indeed exist independently of our 3D world and we are able to tap into the creative realms, channel the ideas, use our minds and hands to mold them into tangibles, and make art. It is quite mythical, yes, Lois, and magical I’d even say.

I also support the notion that creative people are more in touch with reality and are able to generate dialogues about any given subject. We are also more in tune with ourselves– our minds, hearts, and souls. We are a step ahead, prompting you to discuss and ponder. Great artists have a voice to guide a viewer through our work. Our function ahead of the curve is merely that, to show a way through and by. Art must be viewed. It is a spiritual experience to view art because it connects people, ideas, places, and more art to become something meta and great.

Creative Channel © 2013 NATE METZ
Creative Channel © 2013 NATE METZ

I am blessed and grateful for how I see and capture the world in photographs. I capture beauty in both pedestrian and worldly abstract botanicals and street life. It is with a great spirit of discovery that I share my camera lens with all of you. I spoke of it during my gallery talk at the Summer Streets opening reception. It is very rewarding to go on a walkabout with my camera, see beauty everywhere I go, and capture the fleeting moments of changing light and reflections. It is spiritually nourishing to know whatever I do capture will make beautiful photographs unexpected and enchanting.

My abstract and minimalist work is often retorted with the low blow that “I could do that…” But, you don’t and you haven’t. That’s the intrinsic value in my work. It’s what you pay for: the guide, the artist, a channel and medium to creativity that shows you the beautiful things that you don’t stop to ponder and enjoy. I show you just how much beauty surrounds us that you were previously too busy to enjoy. So pick up a copy of my book, browse my galleries, like me on Facebook and continue to immerse yourself in my findings. I love to show you what I see, how I see it, when I see it, begging you to ask why you see it. My creative abilities are a gift for us all and part of the spiritual chain that links us together in this blessed life.

The Network © 2013 NATE METZ
Creative Channel © 2013 NATE METZ

DAMN GOOD ADVICE: Fourteen

“Wouldn’t it be great if we could predict the future?”

“Can you imagine how much power, fame, and wealth you could amass if you knew before everyone else what the key product would be?”

“Can’t you find comfort, safety, and reassurance in knowing what you create would be well-received?”

It’s all the talk of trends. I have not yet been exposed to photography trends, although I am sure if I were to read photography publications more devoutly my inner dialogue would be inundated with the jabber of the next best thing. I find it preposterous to pay X amount of dollars to whatever institution to tell me the direction of the market and how my work should follow *if* I want to be recognized, significant, or displayed in a gallery. I much prefer to blaze my own trail so to speak. I agree with Lois’ sentiment: “the fact that others are moving in a certain direction is always proof positive…that a new direction is the only direction.” To follow it one step further, I believe that if I am going to create artwork and photography that I market as original, Nate Metz work then it should come from my mind unadulterated by marketing savvy professionals. I have to maintain an integrity to my work, my point of view, and who I am as an artist. I believe in my work. My work sells. The first part of making great art is that I believe in the creation. I am not an artist who creates in line with the trend for the sake of selling art. Can you argue that it is harder this way? You may, but I think it is easier to please myself before trying to please the rest of the world. I am unable to kowtow and pay lip service to any trend if I first did not believe it myself. Here are some trends that I do embrace:

1) digital photography i/o film

2) the green movement

3) world peace

4) a global spiritual awakening

At one time, though, I paid money to learn how to forecast trends and in turn was paid to follow them. I flipped through hundreds of glossy magazines to stay aware of what was going on and where we were going. These experiences working with trends came while working in the fashion industry. Trends are a big part of the industry for the big conglomerates who want to appear as though they have their finger on the pulse of fashion. It is a lot like a popular high school click as they pick who or what’s in and out. During those 6 years, I found trends to be a lot of fluff. I read vague generalizations about how in two years, it’ll be all about comfort, chic style lines, femininity, and futuristic. And as different trend houses preached the coming days it is obvious that different designers followed the advice and amazingly in two years most everyone was right on point. Not. It was just a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Here are some images of a “future” collection I had created based on some trend research.

In retrospect, it is much easier to identify trends in a creative field. Just add up the number of people who did what over x amount of time. But, if you subscribe to the future-casting world of trends, then you are trapped because you have to go in the direction you bought into back then. Your world very easily becomes a convoluted Back to the Future mess. So follow the advice, follow your big ideas, make them reality, and everyone who follows in your footsteps will by default be on the trend they seek.

Damn Good Advice – THIRTEEN

I can say that I am guilty of it: google. I’ll be in the midst of a brainstorming session and I start to google my ideas. Sometimes I’m checking to see if it’s been done before and take a litmus on my originality. Sometimes I’m having trouble connecting some ideas and look to see what other people think on the subject. And, other times, I cannot articulate my thoughts so I mind map on google images and help myself see. Lastly, I google myself (name, art, business) to check on my SEO and visibility.

So if you’re not tinkering on a computer, as George Lois so vaguely puts it, where do you find the big idea? He doesn’t offer up any suggestions. Rereading his tagline, I see he is merely pointing out that one should not expect a computer to do the work. One must still put forth the effort to procure the big idea. As the illustration on the page says: “DUH!” I’m not sure that this is really great advice though for any creative individual. We already know this fact: ideas come from within ourselves.

When I meditate, dream, or set forth the intention to solve a creative problem, develop a big idea, or embark on a new creative project, it always comes from within my being. It is spiritual. Sometimes I feel it in my heart. Sometimes I think in new ways that challenges my beliefs. And, other times, the big idea explodes with such a tremendous force that the fountainhead remains shadowed by the idea itself. I do not question my intuition when it leads me to a great idea. Because I trust the process of my artwork and photography, the big idea blooms like a flower. It just happens. And then with a series of computer tricks, contents, and forms my computer delivers it to the world to share all of it’s glory.

Flower Mind © 2013 NATE METZ
Flower Mind © 2013 NATE METZ

Damn Good Advice – TWELVE

This post is a two-parter. The supreme court was presented with a case this week challenge benefits for gay couples. It’s part of a larger political struggle for equal rights for gays and gay marriage. Social media was inundated with red “equals” signs in support of gay rights. As a gay man and philosopher I do have some very strong opinions about the subject. But, that will not be the discussion here. Lois’ advice hits me strong. What is the point in having these strong opinions if I can’t articulate them? How could I ever expect to enter a discussion or dialogue with anyone on the subject? When I added this symbol as my profile picture of Facebook, I couldn’t say why I felt the need to post it. Even now, a few days later, I can’t clearly state my exact opinion. Again, I default to a symbol to demonstrate:

equal rights

So what about THE ART? I know you’re asking it. Gay marriage is rather off-topic for the blog. Here’s why: the inner turmoil to find words to describe my feelings, to describe the red equals symbol, and the befuddled desire to express emotion is the same pattern of confusion I find when I show new work. The nerves and anxiety still throw me even though I know inside why the work is important, why it’s good, and why I want to share it. My work, though, does not incorporate universal symbols shared through social media. It’s up to me to articulate passionately and succinctly my ideas. I’m gearing up for my first exhibit in June and it is nigh time I start gathering my thoughts on the key images.

Note: I so greatly appreciate how I only look at one entry at a time from the book. And, each time I open it to write my next reflection the advice is so on-point with my art career. If I haven’t yet said it, I do recommend George Lois’ Damn Good Advice as a touchstone for your own personal reflections.

DAMN GOOD ADVICE – TEN

It’s not very often that text, copy, or any sort of word makes a statement in my photography. Alphanumerics tend to be incidentals.

Behind the work is a different story, though. My favorite brainstorming is mind-mapping: connecting words and phrases in a correlative spiderweb of an idea. Most recently, my idea is translucency. While looking at my photographs in that body of work, the word comes to mind in a subtle way. This use of words is different that the advertising described by George Lois.

The idea that really stands out to me in reflecting on Lois’ first commandment in relation to my own work is the interplay between words and images as a form of communication. Even if my photographs do not include words, when we view them we think in words. There is a translation that occurs when viewing art. Because to say, write, or otherwise express our reaction and feelings about one of my photographs we use words. Furthermore, anytime I submit a body of work I am asked to include an artist statement: words that describe the visual image. At first, I dread writing down the words that would appear to seal the fate of the associated photographs. As I work through my writing process, I try very hard to maintain a sense of open-endedness. My interpretation in the artist statement is never designed to me the final comment.

So yes, the word does indeed come first.

WORD © 2013 NATE METZ
WORD © 2013 NATE METZ

CHALLENGE: 5

Sleigh Trails © 2012 NATE METZ
Sleigh-trails on Christmas Day © 2012 NATE METZ

It was a much better way to start out the new year on the photo challenge front. The theme, 5, left me faced with several obvious choices: dice, watches/clocks, hands/feet/fingers/toes, money. I opted for a grouping because it lent more freedom creatively as to how 5 would show up. I was not having much luck finding five of anything in a natural setup without my physically placing 5 items together. Remember I’m not a huge fan of studio work and forcing a shot under controlled settings. In the last few days before the deadline I resigned to sit this round out because I wanted to submit a photograph that fits my aesthetic and my voice. After posting Linear Sunrise, I glanced back through all of my shots and realized that a different frame had five contrails. And as I reflected more on my audience I did tell a white lie and say I took the photograph Christmas Day instead of Christmas Eve because it fit the story better:

Santa’s sleigh left 5 contrails criss-crossing the sky on Christmas!

I received some nice, positive feedback that I had an unexpected approach and that the backstory information was fun. I know this photograph is a success because I managed to keep my point of view and add some fluff that would appeal to a specific audience that would help them to understand my work.

14th Place
Apple iPhone 4
1/539 sec, f2, ISO 80
Post-Processing– PS actions: crop, levels adjustment, hue shift +15, saturation +3, lightness +3, resize, USM, export

My constant comparison of my work to others in the challenges does appear to be unhealthy to you readers of that I am sure! It only appears that way because I’m not sure what else to talk about in these challenge entries. A huge part of the content for my art blog for a challenge entry is the competition, the judging, the comparing. I’m also really just putting myself out there (here) as I define my artistic voice and learn how to present my work. I have an exhibit coming up this summer and this forum has been instrumental in me learning to speak intelligently about my work and my process.

Thanks for reading!

TRANSLUCENT

TRANSLUCENT STUDY © 2012 NATE METZ

Here we are at the end of my translucent study! In addition to these last three images in the series posted above, I entered 2 photo challenges (trees and beauty). And over the past few weeks I have shared parts of the study (1, 2, 3, 4).

While shooting this fall, I really didn’t want to shoot cliched images. In light of feedback on the images selected for AWAKE that they were “just pretty” and many could not stand alone in a frame on a wall in a gallery or museum, I sort of went up against myself and my voice. The challenge was for me to take pictures that carried the spiritual connotations without a lengthy philosophical explanation AND that were technically proficient AND that were aesthetically attractive. I did not meet my own criteria on all of these images, but I posted them anyway! One of the greatest life lessons learned is imperfection. Allowing slightly out of focus images and untouched images to be posted next to my favorites is one way I practice my spirituality through art.

I faced the cliches strongest during voting periods of the two photo challenges. I found that people were taking and posting images that were touristy or pedestrian. This critique is not meant to be condescending or to place my view in a superior ranking. The majority of the popular images were indeed very beautiful, some even professional in technical photographic skill. Yet, I still see a lack in artistic expression in that forum. Considering the host site is very clearly a hobbyist/enthusiast site I don’t know why I still analyze this feature so heavily. I am finding these differences more and more as I compare my work to other photographers’. It is as simple as my self-referencial title: artist. I see myself as an artist and not a photographer even though a dSLR is my primary art-making apparatus. My intuition and guidance indicates that I am so sensitive now to these differences because my artistic voice is still forming and I will be able to clearly delineate my style and my approach to my art.

As for what I do like from the Translucent study, these images speak strongest for me:

Translucent Study - Frame 6 © 2012 NATE METZ
SIX

Translucent Study 19 © 2012 NATE METZ
NINETEEN

Translucent Study 29 © 2012 NATE METZ
TWENTY NINE