When I went to France in 1977 I did not take a camera. I wanted to experience things without the framing by a lens. Focused on being a painter I thought a camera would interfere. Three years later when I went back for a summer I brought a camera and took photos of all the things that had stuck in my mind–the mountain, Mont Sainte-Victoire, the Chateau Noir, a camping trip, and my roommates. A friend recently reminded me of a hitchhiked car ride. She spoke much better French than I did. Our ride was with an angry man who hated the Arabs and spewed spit on his windshield as he vented. He dropped us off far from our destination. I remember the look of the trees and she remembers the angry words. I think about how sometimes foreign traveling without speaking the language allows you to experience a place in more childlike ways. You cannot adopt another person’s attitudes–you have to trust the visuals and your instincts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I work in the studio I try to work in that childlike way– working with my visual instinctive language. I don\u2019t worry about the rules, but follow my nose, pursuing the energy and charting the tactile clues. It’s like working in a different language, one that resides below the radar that a camera can capture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now I live my life through my camera. I take photos of the wildflowers on my walks, progress in the garden, forms in process, and the pots as I imagine than to be used: the bud before the blossom, the fallen petals after the bloom. If I wonder when something happened I scroll through my photo archive to date the event. I love the freedom of a digital camera. I can take multiples of an idea. I can shoot really bad images just as markers to later work from. I am an artist in my own home trying to see it as a traveler in a foreign place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the past we listened to photographs. They heard our voice speak. Alive, active. What had been distance was memory.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Dusk came, Pushed us forward,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0emptying the laboratory\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0each night undisturbed by Erasure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.catherinewhite.com\/roughideas\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/11-summer-summit-21-1024x653.jpg\")
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