All through last night, despite a pleasant evening and dropping right off to sleep, I found myself tossing and turning, worried that I would not find any poems this April to share during the National Poetry Writing Month challenge.
Insistent Bliss
It latches on like an infant. I cannot help but cradle it, this desire, my best intent to discover insight or wit,
to write a line that sings the blues, the purples, greens, resplendent golds, and fire-spun red or pink-sparked hues that flash, ink-drawn, as night unfolds;
and, sometimes, even wisdom comes, surprises me, like shafts of light that break through scenic tumbled clouds and pierce my heart with wild delight;
this comes despite coronal flare of fear, to comfort and repair.
Leslie Schultz
This morning, I found I did find something that took me by surprise and that I wanted to share. Will that hold true each April morning? The truth is, I have no idea. Inspiration is mysterious. All I know for sure is that I plan to knock on its door each morning, not sure if it will open or, if it does, what will be on the other side. If there is nothing? Then I will share that.
Thank you for joining me in this uncertain but interesting journey through the days ahead! We’ll see what we get.
If you would like to read other poems composed in the moment this month, do check out the mother ship, the NaPoWriMo website, where there are links to the personal websites of hundreds of participating poets. If you’d like to try your hand at a poem, the NaPoWriMo site offers daily prompts. And if you are taking up the month-long challenge this year (and plan to publish your poems in real time), then consider registering your website with them.
The newest issue of Mezzo Cammin is up! I am so happy to have two sonnets included in this issue, which also includes exciting work by a number of formalist poets, including my friend, Sally Nacker. This issue’s feature poet, Jane Satterfield, contributes a group of seven poems astonishing in their range of subject, formal deftness, and emotional depth.
As a prelude to the pleasures of National Poetry Month, I can imagine nothing more enjoyable than dipping into this new offering by Mezzo Cammin.
Leslie and Julia in 2007, at Village on the Cannon, below some of the photographs I made.
During these odd grey and isolated days, as the count-down begins for my textcentric posts each day in April to celebrate National Poetry Month, I have been thinking of poetry’s sister art, photography, and the ways I have tried to “write with light.”
This March, I have been looking out of the window more often. Also deep into closets and filing cabinet drawers, clearing and sorting accumulated paper. I’m having some surprising and delightful discoveries of forgotten moments; finding forgotten enthusisams that can be relived; and also experiencing moments of saying “Huh? Now why did I think this was so valuable?” Maybe you are doing this, too? With the mind more still it is easier to assess what really needs keeping. And it is easier to see the way life has moved us in new directions.
Take, for example, my love affair with photography. It started when I was a child pouring over the photograph albums kept up by my mother. I began taking photographs with a point-and-shoot camera in high school, and after seeing a life-changing exhibition of work by master Henri Cartier Bresson, I began to try to think in pictures, so balance the moment in terms of light and shadow, background and foreground, sharp and soft focus. When I was a junior in college, a young woman in my dorm, Jean, gave me a tutorial in one of the University’s student dark rooms. (If I can locate it in the now-mouldering stacks of mimeographed paper I have yet to sort, I plan to share here a poem I wrote about that day.) When the following summer I traveled to Wolf, Wyoming to work on a ranch (as a waitress on a dude ranch, I hasten to add!) I took a few images that still help me recall my early passion for photography. (Some of these I published last year, on Shakespeare’s birthday.)
I never became adept at F-stops or with baths of developer and fixative. Still, I kept pointing and shooting. I worked with professional photographers to secure the images needed to illustrate the profiles I wrote over thirteen years for a now-defunct publication for a prominent foundation. When Julia was born, the pace of photo snapping accelerated. In the years that Tim worked for fallen film giant, Kodak, I got my first digital camera, which was freeing. (From there, I discovered the digital SLR, followed most recently by the ubiquitous iPhone camera.)
When my father died, in December 2003, my grief created a turning point through photography, when I undertook a ninety-day study of an amaryllis against the backdrop of a friend’s painting. This spiritual and artistic exercise taught me as much about lifespan as it did about light and shadow.
Then, two much more brave and experienced artists helped me to move to a new level.
In 2005, a friend, Patsy Dew, and I, decided to collaborate. Some of you might recall Kalafield Images’ posters of locally sourced images, our five years of shared presence at the Northfield Arts Guild’s annual Art Fair during Defeat of Jesse James Days (2005-2009), our cards in local shops. Patsy is a bold and consummate artist in many disciplines, a Northfield Living Treasure. Her companionship emboldened me to share my work through sales and exhibitions. Patsy is still very active as a photographer. For a real visual treat, check her website.
Meanwhile, my sister, Karla, inspired me not only with her (VAST) technical expertise but with the exquisite images she captured in the wilds around Atlanta, Georgia where she lives and anywhere she travels. (A search on “Karla Schultz” here will yield many posts that showcase her images of light, landscape, flora, and fauna. One of her pictures of me appears below.) Her encouragement, gifts of equipment, and especially advice on software and camera care were invaluable. Most valuable of all has been the periodic opportunities to go with her on what we call “photo safaris.” I continue to learn from her work and her example.
A trip to Paris in March 2009, gave me new confidence. I brought back images that eventually led to an invitation for a solo show in Minnetonka, the subject of the “Part II” on this subject I plan to post soon.
Even as I have left printing, framing, and exhibiting behind, sharing images here instead and focusing more and more on poetry, prose, and essay, I still recall the thrill of seeing a photograph I had made printed large and hung like a window on an inside public wall. And so I thought I would share some of the highlights here, combining images of a variety of exhibitions.
SEBASTIAN JOE’S (2009)
An early foray was at a coffee shop in the Linden Hills area of Minneapolis, near Lake Harriet, where we lived prior to moving to Northfield. I recall my heart pounding as I inquired about showing my work, my astonishment at the easy “Oh, sure” that resulted. Once the date was set, Tim, my trusted artistic friend, Bonnie Jean Flom, and I drove with the framed photographs, wire and wire cutters, putty (to secure pictures to the wall.) I had already gone up to measure the walls and check light conditions so I knew what I wanted to print, and how to group them. Here was the artist statement
As a poet and photographer, words and images are fluid – not quite interchangeable, but closely related – with arresting visual images giving rise to poems and poems coloring how I view the world through my camera lens.
Photography helps me see everything around me with
more tenderness, noticing beauty where I might otherwise overlook it. I’ve
learned that each moment is distinct and unrepeatable. In a split second the
light changes, the subject changes, I change. These photographs were taken in
various locations (Northfield, Minnesota;
Minneapolis, Minnesota;
Atlanta, Georgia;
and Paris, France). I hope they give you
pleasure right here and now.
“Beautiful Woman Kanji” (Blois, France)“Girl Singing” (Outdoor Market, Paris, France)“Quest” (Paris, France)“Wren House” (Northfield, Minnesota)“Gingko” (Northfield, Minnesota)“Leslie at Sebastian Joe’s” (Photo by Karla Schultz)
NORTHFIELD ARTS GUILD GALLERIES (2006-2012)
The Northfield Arts Guild has been a place of welcome for this budding visual artist. I first started showing photography in the yearly Members Show. In 2009, I was invited to show work in a satellite gallery they maintained in our local Allina Medical Clinic.
“Security Food” (Bayfield, Wisconsin)“Song of Childhood” (Lonsdale, Minnesota)“Blossom” (Northfield, Minnesota)
I was also thrilled to be included in a show of thirteen artists, curated by Patsy Dew and Meg Ojala in 2011, called “Northfield Ties.”
“Northfield Ties” (2011)“Dry Well” (Savannah, Georgia)“Palm Rose” (Northfield, Minnesota)“Leaf on Kelp” (Darling Marine Center, University of Maine)“Luna Moth” (Willett House, Darling Marine Center, University of Maine)“Gold Heart” (Northfield, Minnesota)
And in another show in 2012, “Small Works,” included two of my black and white images.
“Laundry Day” (Northfield, Minnesota)“Wedding Dress” (Taylor’s Falls, Minnesota)
Also thanks to the NAG, I connected with an arts consultant who worked with hospitals and clinics. Through her, I was able to sell some photographs that are (I understand) in various collections. There are two here in Northfield. Here is my favorite.
“Garden of Quiet Listening” (Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota)
THE CROSSINGS AT CARNEGIE (ZUMBROTA, MINNESOTA) (2010)
In January 2010, Marie Marvin invited me to show work in the art center she created in Zumbrota, Minneosota. The exhibit, and the lively opening, was a heady and heartfelt evening.
Kieran Aus and Julia Braulick at The Crossings Gallery Opening (Zumbrota, Minnesota)“Helianthus” (St. Peter, Minnesota)“Luminous Tulips” (Northfield, Minnesota)“Guess Who?” (Northfield, Minnesota)“Urban Trees” (Outside the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia)“Missing You” (Lonsdale, Minnesota)“Fame” (Northfield, Minnesota)“Flow” (Como Conservatory, St. Paul, Minnesota)“Prow” (Bayfield, Wisconsin)“Chrome Yellow” (Northfield, Minnesota)“Refresh Yourself” (Orlando, Florida)“Ice Heart” (Northfield, Minnesota)“Wren House in Winter” (Northfield, Minnesota)“Democracy: Call and Response” (Stone Mountain, Georgia)
The Crossings has also been important to me through its annual Poet-Artist Collaboration which invited visual artists to interpret selected poems, then brought everyone together for a reading and exhibit and general celebration. Now that The Crossings art center has closed, I was cheered to hear that the event lives on under the aegis of the Red Wing Arts.
As my attention has moved away from exhibiting photographs (aside from here on the Winona Media site!) I thought about the sheer bulk and poundage of those images that had their moment in the sun. Many of these framed prints are still in our house, but one house can only shelter so many. Some have been sold over the years, and many given away. It is really rather pleasurable to encounter work around down, in the homes of friends or in a few public spaces like the Allina Clinic. I think of it as the grownup version of the thrill children have when they see their art work displayed on the refrigerator door of a neighbor.
Thank you to everyone who has cheered me on in my love of trying to take pictures, and especially those of you who have come to the various gallery openings over the years. On these grey and secluded days of narrow orbit, I am cheered by seeing again the shapes and color in these images. I hope that they have give you a moment of respite, too.
If you have read this far, thank you for joining me in scrolling down Memory Lane!
Pontem perpetui mansurum in saecula mundi fecit divina nobilis arte Lacer—
(Loosely translated: “I, Lacer, with my divinely inspired noble art, built this bridge to last forever through the ages of the world.”)
This inscription by the architect of the Alcántara Bridge in modern-day Spain combines the heart-cry of engineers and artists alike. In the case of Gaius Julius Lacer, the reverberation of his cry has lasted longer than most, since the reign of the Emperor Trajan into the modern day. His bridge, his voice, and even his bones, entombed in the small votive temple he included to serve as his crypt, still stand. The bridge still carries traffic over the Tagus River.
Yet modern-day builders, whether of stone or word or image, might hesitate, in our age of rapid change, to echo Lacer’s bold assertion, at least out loud.
A decade ago, I embarked on a year-long photographic study of a nearby bridge that was due to be replaced. A landmark for all of living memory in our area, the Waterford Bridge, just north of Northfield, garnered a “0.0” safety rating after the collapse of the I-35 Bridge over the Mississippi River in 2007. I learned in late summer of 2009 that it was due to be closed to service in September, essentially on its 100th birthday. When I went to look at it I saw holes that permitted clear views of the Cannon River beneath. I also saw that someone had left a cupcake on the bridge’s railing–perhaps to say “Happy Birthday” and “Farewell” in one bite?–and I knew that I was going to document the retirement of the old bridge and the birth nearby of its replacement.
For a decade now, I have wondered if this exploration would someday result in a poem. Not so far, but who knows? National Poetry Month is just ahead, and I again plan to participate in the marathon challenge of writing and posting a new poem every day. Meanwhile, in sorting through materials in my office this week, I recalled this project and thought I would share parts of it here.
So, I began photographing this bridge near my home on the day it closed, on its 100th birthday. Of the more than 1,000 images I took over a twelve-month period, this one–of someone’s birthday cupcake gift to the bridge–was the first photograph I took.
When I was offered the chance, a year later, to propose an idea for a show to the curator at Minnetonka Center for the Arts, I was advised to build the concept around a strong theme. This bridge series lent itself naturally to that call.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Waterford Bridge 2009-2010
Bridges are universal concrete metaphors for linking one realm to another, a crossing over to new awareness. As utilitarian elements of the built environment, bridges unite human ingenuity, structural engineering, and history with the topography and weather than anchors a sense of place.
With this series of photographs my aim is to celebrate the recent transition of the Waterford Bridge in Dakota County. Opened in 1909, this landmark supported both horse-drawn and motorized traffic over the Cannon River for 100 years. Fallen into disrepair, with a safety rating of 0.0, the old iron structure was replaced in 2010 by a concrete bridge of modern design for carrying cars, trucks, and farm machinery. After spanning a century of rapid change, the Waterford Bridge now carries only foot traffic, but it continues to be a symbol of a small but proud community. Its physical placement – on the boundary of agricultural, conservation, and developed land – mirrors the metaphorical quality that all bridges hold.
What surprised me was the
graphic beauty I found in the interweaving of this human-built object within a
natural landscape. As I photographed the bridge and its surroundings over a
period of a year, I saw a dramatic acceleration – a tipping point like an
avalanche – of the changes that were slowly taking place all along. These
images explore the discrete graphic elements, from rust and spider webs to
trees and graffiti, that evoke one specific structure while revealing the
ability of time to render everything ephemeral.
Photography for me is visual poetry. Like poetry, this writing with
light shares the same compression of image, the same ability to capture a tiny
slice of the world which suggests the whole even as it focuses on select
compelling detail. I am not interested in exposure as a revelation of an
underlying ugliness preserved in the amber of technical perfection. Rather the
opposite: photography forces me to look closely at the world, encourages me to
see the sometimes stark or atonal beauty I would otherwise miss.
Leslie Schultz is a photographer and poet who lives in Northfield, Minnesota.
My goal for the exhibition was to tell the story of the bridge, and of my year of observing it, in ten images. What is here is a kind of director’s cut–the ten chosen images in order, and a few that didn’t make the final cut.
ORIGINAL TEN
ADDITIONAL FAVORITES
Me, in the Murphy Room at Minnetonka Center for the Arts, at the Exhibit Opening (Photo: Timothy Braulick)Me, during floodwaters, standing on the new bridge with the old bridge in the distance (Photo: Timothy Braulick)
