Earlier this afternoon, I got a late text for a drink and conversation.
I reluctantly turned the offer down as I was smack in the middle of a deep Cape Cod edit from my March trip. At least that was the excuse I used tonight?
As an aside, have you noticed that, in my often conflicted world and work, given a choice between love and light…light seems to mostly win?
I’m an idealist about love but a realist about light. Damn. I need to explore this more.
Click. Tick.
Anyway, what kept me home and deep in thought tonight, as I , slowly but thoughtfully, made my way through about 12,000+ iPhone photos from March, was what role Cape Cod played in my artist life?
Do I have Cape Cod to thank, for ultimately becoming a career artist and photographer?
Or do I have photography to thank for gifting me this geological wonderland of sea, sand, and surf, to endlessly express my autobiographical self in photography?
Nature or nurture?
Maybe a bit of both? I don’t honestly know?
What I do know, with certainty, is that, for each of us in life, our sense of “home”, whatever that is for you and where that may be, is a medicine chest of homeopathic healing. Ahhhh.
And creatively, speaking from a photographer’s perspective, “home” is where, quite often, the photographic treasure and pleasure lives and grows, in unbelievable quantities.
If art truly grows out of the heart, and it does, then the heart and home are photographic equivalents.
I, along with my siblings, had quite a privileged life. We did. We really did. We had, thankfully and humbly, so much.
My dad and mom worked tirelessly to try to give up their best, at every turn. And they did. Thank you, dad and mom.
I often wonder what it is like for those that didn’t have a “home” like me, Pammy, and Kenny?
While, at least tonight, I look at these photos from my March Cape Cod visit, it’s so easy and effortless, emotionally, to lean into the recollections and remembrance of childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood.
I really believe that the real reason my photographs of Cape Cod are, often, so powerful and memorable, is because it is a place that I’m deeply and emotionally connected and attracted to.
I had a home. I have a home. It is Cape Cod.
In the arms of her breathtaking beauty and bounty, I am safe, protected, anchored, inspired, and, most of all…at home.
Click
Jack
