Does Your Darkness Speak?
When I dream, I dream of death. But when I’m living my normal, everyday life, it is filled with so much joy. Sometimes I think that I crave darkness because I have so little of it in my life. Maybe my dreams are filled with darkness to balance everything out. From running away from monsters to murderers breaking in to natural disasters and far more gruesome events, my dreams are absolutely riddled with death. But the most interesting thing about it, to me, is that beyond the darkness there is hope. It is sometimes so small and so hard to see, but I always wake up with a sense of beauty and hope.
That is what I would love for my photographs to evoke: darkness and beauty combined.
I was driving one day through a dirt road in a forest with my husband and aunt. She said she thought she saw animal bones, so on our way back through we stopped to look. Sure enough, there was an elk spine on the ground. We took it with us in our car and, after we got a ways on the road home, we realized that it was absolutely covered in maggots…and so was our car. So we rode home the rest of the way, immediately throwing the spine in our front yard when we arrived, and (as anyone would do) started vacuuming the maggots up out of the car. I yelled at everyone not to kill them and to be gentle, and we let them out when we emptied the vacuum. It was a very gross mess of a situation, but we were all laughing so hard we couldn’t breathe.
A neighbor had knocked on our door to ask if we were aware we had a spine in our yard. I tried to explain why I put it there, but she simply backed away slowly and I haven’t heard from her since. Fast forward to one year later. The spine was still sitting in my yard. Dogs passing by had moved it around several times but it never went too far. I decided it was finally time to utilize it. I had been hesitant because I honor death so much. I did not want to do anything that wouldn’t live up to the life it had once been a part of. But suddenly one day I decided I had to do something, and so I did.
We are all made of bones, fragile and strong all at once. We are all made of dust.
12 thoughts on “Does Your Darkness Speak?”
My creativity comes from my emotions… And recently from my love for epic tales of magic and mystery.
This image reminds me very much of my image “Healing Powers”: https://www.facebook.com/MargheritaIntronaPhotography/photos/a.165320056962586.1073741828.165302450297680/319889724838951/?type=3&theater
You can read the blog post about it here: http://www.margheritaintrona.com/#!Healing-Powers/c20iz/4B278547-9005-4792-9BE5-6226230D6225
Strangely enough, out of all the images in my portfolio, it is the one image very much inspired by you. Firstly because of the location – I was inspired by your sewer series and tried to create something similar by using a blank wall, which is very different to most of my work. Secondly, because of the tones of the image – which is very different to most of my work and style. Thirdly, because of the theme – death. I do not usually focus on this as a theme, but it was inspired by my emotions of sadness at the death of my father.
I created this image on my father’s birthday and was so overcome with sadness… and yet it felt healing to express that in an image and I felt at peace and close to my father while doing it as the prop (shark jaw) belonged to my father.
Thank you dear Brooke for the inspiration for this. Thank you for sharing your story and image with us…
Love & Light
xx
my creavitiy comes from within…a gift given to me from above….the ideas, the ways…the methods…are a huge collaboration with the spirit and humans here on earth. Some of my fellow creatives have been my greatest inspirations to push harder…deep within to make unique things different than another. I like taking something that has been done…and re-working it in a new way. I always have. I get fulfillment from that! I like things to be and look different from each other. I have to be so careful in photography (the art side)…cause everything starts to look the same…and it could go one of two ways:
1. i don’t create because it has already been done and i’m bored.
2. i create despite all obstacles.
at any given time… 1 or 2 pops up 🙂 i love seasons of despair just as much as the fun times! If i didn’t feel this intensely…i feel i can relate more to others. <3
love you dearly!
counting the days til the convention!
Jen
Love this image!
Your creativity and soul connectivity mesmerizes me. Thanks for sharing your passion.
My own darkness.
https://500px.com/photo/117523687/vampire-tea-party-by-jkjaergaardj?from=user_library
I have no idea re the genesis of my inspiration….all I know is that an image will pop up in my visual mind, and so begins another creation.
Love this, I actually love the story even more! Lately I’m trying to mine my insecurities to find inspiration for my work. It’s a hard nerve wracking process. 🙂
Wow, you got a ton of wonderful art work entered on this! I am so glad you did this, it is very inspiring to see all of these interpretations of a story, I just loved it!
Thank you so much for doing this! 🙂
Now this comment is supposed to be here! 😉
I remember hear the spine story on YouTube, I thought was really funny. And was so glad it happened to you and not me! 😉
You found a lovely use for the spine. 🙂
WELL RATS!!! This comment was supposed to be posted on “WEEK 83: COLLABORATION WEEK 3” but I messed up and stuck it in the wrong comment box. 🙁
so that is what the above post is referring to.
It has been a long day, and this mess up proves I need to go to bed! 🙂
Okay, Now it posted the spine comment in the wrong spot! This is driving me nuts! And I give up, you will have to sort this mess out!
Good night! 🙂
Your photographs certainly evoke darkness and beauty combined for me. I don’t think I know where my creativity comes from, it’s a very good question and one that definitely needs further thought. Thank you for asking it.