Actions & Meditations

Photography is an action. Drawing is a meditation. Writing is both.

Hello, friends —

Austin Kleon recently shared a quote in his newsletter that really resonated with me. It’s from photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson who turned to drawing later in life and wrote about the difference:

“Photography, for me, is a spontaneous impulse, the result of a constant awareness, which captures both a moment and eternity. Drawing, by contrast, expands on what our consciousness has taken from the moment. Photography is an action, drawing is a meditation.”

- Henri Cartier-Bresson

Every fall, I’m obsessed with taking pictures. I love having the reference images to use when I’m drawing and painting. After traipsing around in the leaves and snapping photos, I’ve been slowly blobbing paint onto this earthy brown paper in what feels like a meditation. It’s still a work in progress.

I had grand plans of embracing the fact that I’ve made zero new work worth sharing with you over the past couple weeks. I planned to tell you how everything is in progress… lurking in the doorway… marinating in messy sketches and disjointed phone notes. But I ended up slowly painting and using my photos to make a poetry comic instead. It was the best way I could think of conveying this feeling of being between seasons. In Wisconsin it’s been a beautiful fall peppered with unseasonably warm days and a late-feeling explosion of color. The leaves are falling quickly now. The sudden tumble into darker days is jarring. I’m not ready. I never am.

Writing this poem felt like a combination of actions and mediations. The first draft hit quickly, then I revised and whittled down the words as I chose photos. I took sections out, moved them around. The photos helped me find the rhythm in the words. Action. Meditation. Action. Meditation. And eventually, a finished piece.

Thanks for reading

Thanks for sticking with me as this newsletter changes shape. I missed writing to you the past couple weeks. It feels right to give some of my projects more space, and I appreciate your lovely replies to my last newsletter. Writing to you means a lot, and I will keep showing up with whatever creative bits and bobs I have to offer.

xoxo,
Sheri