Recently I began working on a collaborative project to roll out a new all submissions based print/online publication. The idea came as a working solution for a small creative community in Denver out of the Bloom Church to encourage creative participation while looking for healthy appreciation for the arts in a Christian church setting. What came from this exercise is something we are calling Verbal\Visual.
The idea is that each quarter — marked by the seasons changing — will have a corresponding theme for submitters to creatively think through their process and push the often numbing experience of “idea block.” Another pushing aspect of Verbal\Visual is the inclusion. We are actively asking and prodding creative writers to submit pieces. How do you encompass the broadness of mediums that we acknowledge as art? You just curate. Much like an art museum might work through the process, I wanted that experience.
The first theme for Verbal\Visual is water. I love this as an introductory issue. Water has embodied so many powerful emotions and experiences for people. Quickly, what comes to mind are memories of baptism, watching scenes of devastation on the news, reading about the crippling effects of drought on populations, water births, trips to the family lake house, summer camp. Each of these experiences are different, but water is a part of these stories. Water has huge applications in all aspects of lives from sustaining life to manufacturing lifeless metal components to moving machines.
I have started to unpack some of the visual power of water in my own photographic process. Below, you will find some of the images that I have made in response to this call for work pertaining to water.
For the first images in this series I wanted to work through the feeling of water as the metaphor. What does it look like to feel like you are drowning in your own stress or emotions?