Is the sky falling?

"Life, thought the naked man, was a hell, with rare moments recalling some ancient paradise."

-Italo Calvino

Shapes and patterns, colors and contrasts, line and composition, hard edge and bleed out, which one to choose at any given moment that will make the image powerful or good fire starter for the little red stove sizzling in the corner.  "Photography is ariel acrobatics of the art world."  I told my dear friend and fellow photographer as we sat looking over our last wedding we photographed together.  When you are looking for art in modern moving life, capturing the second or tenth of a second or a moment that says a life time, you have to have the reflexes of the juggler, the humor of the clown, and the judgement of  the tight rope walker.  This......... isn't the "second" though, this is the flowing memory and the feeling of the moment combined in a meditation.  It is slow and ancient compared to photography; an old man watching the Olympic swimmers.  Henri Cartier-Bresson writes about the differences between painting/drawing and photography, for he was both a photographer and painter, his words are beautiful and souring as he speaks of "the artist spirit" verses "the artist's medium".  There are things I can capture with a paint brush that I can't capture with a camera and vise-versa with photographs.  "Painting is self-discovery," Jackson Pollock said. "Every good artist paints what he is."  Today's thought patterns towards art, I am speaking of the over all mass of civilization, tents to take of the view proposed by the "Dada" artists of the twenties and thirties.  Everything is art and in the same token nothing is art, this thought leaves the every day man in a comfortable place were he can say "art is what I like to be art".  For the uneducated majority what they like and call art is what is recognizable and doesn't make them feel insecure by not being able to understand the why behind the meaning that the artist is trying to convey.  We are a civilization of fast food, fast meanings, and fast fixes.  

What I am giving you, above, is nether a fix, an answer or a problem.  It is a question, a question that leads into more questions.  It isn't relativism and it isn't altruism, it maybe both and maybe nether and I don't care.  My friend and art mentor suggested that it be called "Our Father is Watching", I thought it was a good title.  I think you would know what he means by this if you have walked the streets of Manila in the Philippines, or even watch the five o'clock news with out looking at it as the new HBO block buster!