Looking Inward Self Portrait Class - Narrative

Learning About Myself - Observation and Aspiration

I am willing, even eager, to come close to the camera, to use a macro lens and photograph details. And yet, I introduce blur or intentionally defocus the image, hiding in plain sight, hiding in the details, or hiding the details. Creating “art” while seeking personal authenticity.

Lost in detail, I find an engaging abstraction, my body as landscape - the rounded hills and valleys of my hairy chest, the wheat fields of my bearded cheek.

Larry Wolf (2020)

A distinctly white male body, unremarkable, intended to not attract attention, yet, somehow, to be noticed, privilege embodied.. Clean. Groomed. Respectable. Distinguished older gentleman. And.. disappearing.. into abstraction and into ordinaryness. 

I compartmentalize and hide the chaos and confusion that a wider view would show: piles of books, photographs, drawings, camera, tripod, electronics - symbolic and utilitarian objects - a vast sea of the many streams of thought and work. 

From that swirl of activity, I focus on the aging of this body. Though still very much alive, no longer in the radiance of youth, a different radiance is evident. 

Larry Wolf (2020)

Keeping fear, tears and heartbreak at a distance. The current pain of police killings of black citizens and the structural racism deep in our culture. The violent deaths of queer people, the erasure of relationships and gender identity. The raging pandemic with continuing deaths and societal mismanagement. The systemic dysfunction of our healthcare system paid to do more rather than to do better; to address individual crises rather than proactively ensure public health. The endless cycle of economic meltdowns that increase disparities. The relentless colonization of the planet and the rising tide of climate change. The lack of any real safety in people or organizations dedicated to compassion and healing.

I have lived decades in the utopian hope that it gets better, that now feels so false. I have abandoned the spiritual tradition of my ancestors and the meditative ones I chose. Now, to be open, questioning, curious, while creating. There are no answers, only the illusion of knowing.

My past contributions have felt both substantial and irrelevant given the large context of a violent society, the limits of my (and anyone's) knowledge, wisdom, power to act, and the essential unpredictability of the world.

The only certainty is that we will die, each of us, every one. … Personal losses, lovers, parents, teachers, sacred places. Parts of me, of my history, have died, and others survive. The parts that have been repaired, the parts that are still broken, and the parts that are yet to break.

I make peace in tiny pockets of sanity and beauty. I find healing in small repairs and replacements. I want a way forward to a remembered joyfulness of being. To embrace the pain, the fear, the tears, the storms, and to open to a deeper appreciation of warmth, compassion and nurturing. Buddhists call it luminous emptiness. What do I experience?

Black Out Tuesday

Looking Inward Self Portrait Class - 26 May 2020

Head and Neck

Images from the second week of work for the self portrait class.

Larry Wolf, Head and Neck w3p1 (2020)

Larry Wolf, Head and Neck w3p2 (2020)

Larry Wolf, Head and Neck w3p3 (2020)

Larry Wolf, Head and Neck w3p4 (2020)

Larry Wolf, Head and Neck w3p5 (2020)

Larry Wolf, Head and Neck w3p6 (2020)

Larry Wolf, Head and Neck w3p7 (2020)

Larry Wolf, Head and Neck w3p8 (2020)

Larry Wolf, Head and Neck w3p9 (2020)

Larry Wolf, Head and Neck w3p10 (2020)

Looking Inward Self Portrait Class - 19 May 2020

Chest and Belly

 

Soft pink flesh

Hairy plump scarred

Reveal

Grab

Aging male

Any old one

This old one

Alive 

Images

Larry Wolf, Chest and Belly w2p1 (2020)

Larry Wolf, Chest and Belly w2p2

Larry Wolf, Chest and Belly w2p3 (2020)

Larry Wolf, Chest and Belly w2p4 (2020)

Larry Wolf, Chest and Belly w2p5 (2020)

Larry Wolf, Chest and Belly w2p6 (2020)

Larry Wolf, Chest and Belly w2p7 (2020)

Larry Wolf, Chest and Belly w2p8 (2020)

Larry Wolf, Chest and Belly w2p9 (2020)

Larry Wolf, Chest and Belly w2p10 (2020)

Added Later

Larry Wolf, Chest and Belly addendum (2020)

Larry Wolf, Chest and Belly addendum (2020

References - Hands on Flesh

The work of two artists were bouncing around in my mind as I was working on the images: John Coplans and Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

John Coplans is famous for his portraits of his aging body, and the Bernini, this sculpture from the 1600s , is famous for the hand print, the imprint of the fingers in the flesh, which is in marble, quite an artistic accomplishment. The title of the Bernini is “rape”. It's a violent moment, cloaked in mythology, wrapped in beauty and polish. Coplans is that way too, very stylized, but making you see his aging body.  

John Coplans (1920-2003)

John Coplans, Self Portrait (Hands Spread on Knees) (1985)
Photo at tate.photo.uk

Coplans About the Photographs

I try to regard the body and mind as inseparable, a single field of human experience that encompasses the perceptual, the intellectual, and the pains and pleasures of memory. 

John Coplans

http://www.johncoplanstrust.org/about-the-photographs

Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680)

Gian Lorenzo Bernini, The Rape of Proserpina (1622)
(photo credit: Joaquim Alves Gaspar (2015))

The Class - May 12, 2020 through June 9, 2020

Lillstreet Art Center - Photography Department - Online Looking Inward: Self Portraiture

Instructor Shterna Goldbloom

Advisors

Larry Wolf, Advisors (2020)

Necessary Being

Necessary Being 

Aspirationally raw
Defiantly queer
Vulnerably human

 

Playful dance

Pandemic uncertainty 

Economic collapse

 

Much too joyful
Unknowable
Inseparable
Interdependent
Fearless
Sacred

 

Time and space
Covered
Shielded

 

Ignite with hot light
Incense and incantations
Flickering shadows
Destabilizing light

 

Naked
Sacrifice
Shattered
Mourned
Tentative
Quivering

-- Larry Wolf, 10 May 2020

[Index of Poems]

Honoring the Difficult - Open once again to love, intimacy and trust

Alice Walker - The Same River Twice - Honoring the Difficult (1996)

On the level where I most like to live, the level of contemplation, I realize that during these ten years I have been involved in a series of spiritual tests: a test of my love of and loyalty to my  mother, as I witnessed her decline over so many soul-whipped years, and worried constantly about my ability to protect her and provide for her needs, even as I felt myself to be in mortal danger. A test of my loyalty to myself, in my relationship with a partner, as I wrestled my way to the limits of my capacity for understanding, forgiveness and acceptance. A test of my belief in the creative integrity of others, during my involvement with the collective creating our film. A test of my faith in Nature and my love of the earth, which was, I now understand, what my illness was about.

Just as Muslims, Jews and Christians have crises of faith, when their God seems to have hurt them or abandoned them or never seems to be near, Pagans (people whose primary spiritual relationship is with Nature and the earth; people who have traditionally been oppressed or destroyed by patriarchal religions) have crises, too. This became obvious to me only this summer, when, after an absence of many years, I began seriously to garden again. Kneeling on the earth as I planted each small seed or set out each tiny plant, I was shocked to realize how many years had passed since I had done this. "This" being the prayer involved in planting that, I am convinced, was one of the first acts of supplication, of worship, in the world. When I asked myself why this absence from "service," from worship, the answer was: fear. Fear of tick bite, fear of disease, fear of debilitation. Fear. The benign Goddess/God I had assumed the earth to be had turned on me. My faith was battered by that betrayal. And yet, as with a lover, what can one really absolutely trust? Only that she or he will be themselves. And that, I see, is how I must love the earth and Nature and the Universe, my own Trinity. Trusting only that it will be however it is, and accepting that some parts of it may hurt. And so, with socks pulled high and sleeves pulled low to protect myself from tick bite and disease, I am back into the relationship with Nature that sustains my happiness and my faith. Back as well into sharing my work collectively with others. Open once again to love, intimacy and trust.

[pages 42-43]