J. M. Golding: falling through the lens

In the stillness of observation, J.M. Golding finds her inspiration, weaving frames together as if attempting to capture some subtle force that exists in the gaps between realms—some truth her blind eye can't quite capture.

What are you presently inspired by?

A sense of connection with nature, light and shadow, openness to what lies beneath the surface of things, the emotional resonance of a moment, in addition to the traditional inspirations like galleries, museums, and conversations about art.

Is there something you are currently working on, or are excited about starting?

In addition to Before there were words (featured above), I’m working on several ongoing series.

Where you are, uses landscape to explore integration of closeness and distance. Using in camera double exposure I focus close and far away, fusing (overlapping) them to create an image that could not have been anticipated by either one alone.

Capturing solid and ethereal, sharp and blurred, literal and metaphoricall, the images appear both real and imagined.

Transitional landscapes, is a series created using plastic (“toy”) cameras and overlapping exposures. Joining square frames of film, normally separate, to form panoramic images that would not have been possible otherwise due the lapse in time captured in each frame.

The series of exposures portrays transitions in time from one moment to the next, creating a connection between past and present, alluding to a future.

Although the time and distance traversed are in many ways small, the transitions across them create surprising changes in what is visible.

Quiet explorations, an almost accidental series, was inspired by an illness which interfered with my usual long rambles in the hills.

I began to walk at a park instead.

Although I don’t often photograph animals, I found myself drawn to the egrets who lived there. In contrast to the flocks of ducks and geese inhabiting the area, egrets were nearly always by themselves.

As I observed them in the quiet early mornings, I found myself thinking about the many forms solitude can take. In these images, the egrets seem at times contemplative, questing, isolated, basking, intently purposeful, lost in dreams, and sometimes in a state of harmony and balance.

What led you to art?

I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t drawn to making art. As a young child, I liked to draw and paint, but the thing I wanted most was a camera. I was tremendously excited to receive one as a gift for my 7th birthday, a plastic Kodak Brownie Fiesta. I still have that camera today, and occasionally use it, although its film format is nearly extinct.

At age 11, I took a darkroom class at summer camp, and was fascinated to discover the joys of seeing pictures on the film as I removed it from the developing tank, and later, watching the image appear, as if by magic, in the print tray.

Nearly 25 years ago, I found my way to the liberating notion that no two people make the same art, which for me implied that it was more important to make my own art, wherever that path took me, than to fulfill a set of possibly arbitrary criteria for “good” art. Around the same time, my access to full-fledged landscapes became limited by the birth of my first child, and I experienced an expansion in my capacity to see creatively as I found ways to make photographs literally in my own backyard.

In more recent years, photographing with increasingly simpler cameras has taught me to let go of controlling the process, to allow my unconscious to lead, to join with the process of creation rather than trying to direct it, and to appreciate the gifts that result, regardless of my conscious intention at the moment of releasing the shutter.

Words to live by . . . a favorite quote or motto?

I like to think of making photographs as a process of “falling through the lens,” a phrase I encountered at a workshop many years ago. Falling through the lens (or the pinhole) means allowing myself to be drawn to or moved by what I see; to experience its emotional and symbolic significance for me in that moment, even if that content isn’t readily accessible verbally; to become absorbed in the process of making a photograph—a silent interaction with the scene before me.

J. M. Golding is one of the talented artists you'll see at uBe Art and the juried exhibiton, From Where I Stand. November 6 thru December 6.