New York Harbor

* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.

Writer Stanley Elkin suggested that all books retell the Old Testament story of Job.  Similarly one feels that behind most music there is a struggle with pain.  By the time we are adults, the songs we know by heart are often those that acknowledge grief or celebrate release, and the performers we respect are the ones who sing from need – people like Etta James, of whom it was said that she “always hit the notes with the right amount of hurt and hope.”

A photographer’s subject is his or her score, the given notes on a page.  The way the photographer hits these notes – shows the subject – determines whether we will be newly reconciled with it.          

Robert Adams in Art Can Help

Comments are welcome!