Vases and More

And then there are vases.

Most vases are recurring obligations disguised as home accessories. You buy one because it looks beautiful, then bring it home and realize you’ve also purchased a weekly reminder that there are no flowers in it. It stands there with its hands on its hips while you walk past carrying groceries, trying not to make eye contact.

So I’m careful with vases. If it can’t survive empty, I don’t want the pressure. A vase should have enough shape, material and presence to function as sculpture first. Flowers can visit. They shouldn’t be required to complete the sentence.

—Colin King, When One Thing Is Enough

There’s a lot to say about this picture.

I came across this vase in a thrift shop, but it was still pricey at $19.99. When I looked it up using Google Lens, it appeared to be a vintage Murano glass Jack-in-the-pulpit vase, worth quite a bit more than twenty bucks. I’m not really concerned with how much money something is worth (I am not a re-seller of things). And I’m not a collector of colored glass objects of art. I just buy what I like. This tall vase kind of had me stumped. I knew I liked the shape and the colors, but was not at all certain I could figure out a way to use it in a photograph for my current project. My florilegium project is, at its heart, a celebration of flowers, not the vessels and vases that hold them. Nevertheless, the vases definitely give interest to the florilegium photographs and are important supporting cast members. But no way is this vase not going to steal the show.

In order to make a decent effort at this photo, I knew I would need long-stemmed flowers, which meant another trip to the flower farm to cut flowers of the needed height (measured up to my knee). This is hot, sweaty work since the temperatures hover around 90 degrees every day in August here in Virginia. My husband was a good sport and carried the bucket along as I clipped zinnias from the field last evening.

I got up early this morning and headed out to my studio garage to see if I could figure this out. Since it was so early, I had to turn on the small task lamp at my workbench so I could swap lenses and clip stems and such. I hung my orange cardboard on the wall and covered the old wooden table with white paper. I usually work with natural light only, but I happened to notice that the light from the task lamp was shining onto my scene, creating lively shadows. It was a very interesting look, almost as though I was using flash. And I liked it. I played with the zinnias—all in the vase, one flower leaning against the vase, flowers piled at the base, and so on. I was surprised by how much fun this was. There it is again, that healing action, PLAY.

Since this work was happening shortly after dawn, I had to turn the ISO up pretty high, and I wondered if the flowers and the vase would be in focus. Would there be too much grain or a lot of noise? It looked like the image might be worth the extra work of setting up the tripod. I sighed and grumbled, but I did the necessary work. Then I was able to lower the ISO to 100 and get a nice clean image.

It might sound as though I made or took or captured this image. But that’s not how it felt. It felt as though I was receiving it. By being open to the idea of playing with what could happen, even at dawn, still in my pajamas (before I brushed my teeth or took my shower), the picture was given to me. This is low-stakes work. I’m not working to make a photograph for a client; there is no commission. I’m not selling anything or tied to any specific result. I just wanted to see what would happen. And at most, I’d be out $20 for a lovely sculptural vase. This is what I love about being an amateur. I do this work because I love it.

When I Feel Like Hiding

Many times I use this space to process my feelings and to repeat things to myself that I am working on. That’s happening here today.

From the Milk & Cookies post, why the kindest people self-isolate - I’m quoting the parts that spoke to me, but if this is your issue, you know it, and reading the entire post is worthwhile.

this is one reason self-isolation can appear in people who are deeply caring. it is not always driven by dislike of people or a preference for being alone. sometimes the person has become accustomed to entering relationships as the regulator rather than simply another participant.

the distinction is crucial because withdrawal can look like independence when it is actually relief.

someone who spends years being “easy” can begin to experience intimacy as work.

receiving requires revealing a need. asking somebody to show up creates the possibility that they will not. expressing hurt risks being considered difficult. disagreeing introduces the chance that harmony will disappear. staying self-contained solves these problems remarkably efficiently, although the solution becomes expensive because closeness requires some of the vulnerability that self-containment is designed to avoid.

an uneasy kind of loneliness can follow.

a practical place to begin is noticing which interactions leave you exhausted and asking what you were doing internally during them. were you listening while also monitoring how interesting you seemed? were you having dinner while making sure nobody regretted coming? were you disagreeing honestly or trying to make the disagreement painless enough that it barely remained a disagreement?

the next experiment is allowing small amounts of interpersonal inconvenience. choose the restaurant once or tell a trusted friend when something bothered you before the feeling has been polished into harmlessness. ask for a favour that somebody is completely free to refuse.

the relationships worth keeping become easier to identify too. recent work on self-silencing found that perceived security strongly influenced whether people felt able to express themselves, with supportive relationships potentially altering patterns of silence learned elsewhere. a healthy relationship therefore does more than appreciate kindness. it makes room for the person being kind to occasionally be inconvenient.

How I Like To Make Pictures

I love the physicality of photography.

You can throw your whole body into a relationship with the natural world

and come out sweaty, dirty, scratched, stung, with frizzy hair . . .

and realize that you’ve never felt happier.

Anemone

I was excited to see the first anemone bloom in my own flower garden. I didn’t want to cut the flower and “take” the picture, so I experimented with ways to receive the picture in its natural environment. In the early evening, I tried placing a large piece of white paper behind the plant as a background. This gave some really interesting shadows as the last of the day’s sunlight came from the front, directly onto the bloom. The next day, early in the morning, I placed my black cardboard background behind the plant. The light in the morning is softer so there were no shadows on the background. But the flower had less “pop” and the image seemed a little flat, so I converted the picture to black and white to give more contrast. This result was lovely and kind of romantic in an understated way.

I think the color version of the anemone may well find its way into my florilegium project. We’ll see . . .