I’m into words…very into words. I study them, I distinguish them, I revel in them. But the truth is, I use too many words. When I talk, I say too many words. When I write, I write too many words. Sometimes even, when I think, I find myself thinking in too many words. I work too hard to choose words carefully, to express ideas precisely and comprehensively to other people, and occasionally to myself. In talking to my friend Whitney over dinner last night (you’ve actually seen her before, in Easter Island, Day Two), I told her that I use so many words probably because I am philosophical about things. That’s wasn’t an excuse, but rather me trying to rationalize, to understand. I wondered aloud (using words, of course) whether a person could philosophize without words—whether one could use pictures, perhaps, to express beliefs and values and meanings behind things.
Then walking around Marfa today (as I am writing this, that is), I realized that when I look at things, I actually see them and take in their attitude and their setting, often deeply, long before I even think about putting words to the scene. And the overall images and details that stay with me, because they make a lasting impressing, or because I take a picture of them, maybe do represent my essential point of view: what I truly believe is elemental or consequential or illuminating.
So, I’m going to give it a try. What follows is what I feel means things and explains things and reveals things and asks questions about things. My camera is my pen, and the pixels are the words, at least for today.
semelinvita 