drmstream[writing]

The rumor spread across cam­pus like the brush fires that sparked dur­ing dry fall after­noons at the mouth of Bloody Run: some­one had got a girl up the lane preg­nant. The Head­mas­ter knew. They were going to get expelled. At first we thought it was Sam. He had a ground floor sin­gle and he took […]

The pho­tog­ra­pher is hid­den behind the lens. We see our­self through him, pass through his iden­tity in pur­suit of our van­ity with hardly a thought. What does the pho­tog­ra­pher think? A few weeks ago I posted a sketch inspired by a iconic photo of the civil rights move­ment taken by an iconic pho­tog­ra­pher, Ernest With­ers. I […]

The pho­to­graphic record is a dis­tinctly mod­ern arti­fact. Before the portable cam­era, visual record emanated from the imag­i­na­tion, trans­lated by an artist’s hand. The pho­to­graph cap­tured visual images in a decep­tively accu­rate ren­der­ing, with detail that could be placed like a scrim over our eyes and keep images unmarred. Smart observers point to the inaccuracies […]

When I take a pho­to­graph, I’m look­ing for the light. Then, as I retouch it, I’m look­ing for the impres­sion. What I want to accom­plish is to recre­ate the sen­sa­tion when we look at some­thing quickly and are left with equal parts dis­tinct and indis­tinct per­cep­tion. The meld­ing of the two states cre­ates an impression […]

In my imag­i­na­tion, I am hang­ing this can­vas when I feel a frost on my cheek and the lin­ing of my lungs ices over. I am drawn head­first into the inky blue light of the river. The crisp snow abrades my raw hands. The bark of the tree fall scratches on my shirt. The cold […]

Expe­ri­ence presents a con­stant puz­zle: the fullest sense of expe­ri­ence is to be wholly in the world, immersed and accept­ing of the things that we encounter, sur­ren­dered to the moment. To share these moments requires tremen­dous art. You can’t force mean­ing, say to your­self that you’ll use this tech­nique or that tech­nique to mimic something […]

Love of beauty is Taste. The cre­ation of beauty is Art. Ralph Waldo Emer­son There’s a pur­pose to this great thing that the Inter­net has spawned beyond the cre­ation of com­merce engines, mar­ket­ing cam­paigns and wealth beyond our wildest imag­i­na­tion. The world has become too large, genius too widely dis­trib­uted, sto­ries too impor­tant and creativity […]

1857 lith­o­graph by Armand Gau­tier, show­ing per­son­i­fi­ca­tions of demen­tia, mega­lo­ma­nia, acute mania, melan­cho­lia, idiocy, hal­lu­ci­na­tion, erotic mania and paral­y­sis in the gar­dens of the Hos­pice de la Salpêtrière. In an attempt to cat­a­log mad­ness, the artist has cre­ated a zoo exhibit for lunacy. They are curi­ous objects, these women who have lost their mind with […]

Each place you go, don’t look for the thing that is dif­fer­ent. Look for the thing that is the same. That is your start­ing point, the anchor. I can share the expe­ri­ence. We aren’t alone. But we can’t find each other inside all the noise. We have to look out into the quiet, strip the […]

When you felt the red fire Of the forge, as it played, Did you feel, Too, my swordsman’s desire Run like blood on your blade And blue steel? A won­der­ful set of broad­sides from turn of the cen­tury Ire­land, illus­trated by the artist Jack B. Yeats. Each edi­tion was just 300 copies.  Art speaks to whomever will […]