Imagery as a catalyst for preparing for change and transition
DATE OF ENTRY: 1-21-25
This can be a bit nebulous. Even I struggle sometimes with determining just how to talk about how my imagery and how it can serve as a more tangible metaphor for change and transition.
So, I’ll just state what I sense from my imagery and we can start to consider it from there.
For one thing, the photographic process is an amazing mind-on and hands-on exercise for slowing down and noticing a decision-making process. I’ll get more into this in “What’s Photography Got to do With It?”
I take expressionist imagery. It straddles the line between reality and fantasy…most of the time. Sometimes It needs to be complete fantasy.
I make this type of imagery because it makes me feel and sense things. Perhaps because my office work had me feeling dead inside for so long?
So, what the images can provide metaphorically is a visual reference of what “liminality” looks like.
Liminality refers to being “in-between” places physically or cognitively via states of mind or decision making.
In order to navigate genuine change, you need to enter the space in between where or what you currently are and what and where your future self might become.
This requirement is part of the formal definition for the role of liminality in life.
When I recently came across my Apple Note about liminality, I had forgotten all about it…and the importance I had sensed in teaching liminality as a life-giving approach when I had first considered it as a leading theme some time ago.
But liminality is back in the dialogue and will have a lead role in Art-Think-Make discussions.
Anyway, the images are “in-between” states of reality or perspective. It might seem a bit forced but we are very bad at handling intangible, thought-based change so we need a strutting point that makes the process a bit more tangible.
We need a simpler way for seeing the process. Images (visual references) always help in these situations.
END OF ENTRY
