Weekly Photo Challenge: Life Imitates Art

When I saw the theme for this week’s photo challenge I thought, my life did not imitate art this week.  Instead, this is what my life looked like:

ISO 500 4.3mm f/2.7 1/60

That’s me in my office, where I create my work, only work this week consisted of hours worth of attempting to get my new laptop set up and my photo files transferred so that I could “do” my art.  It was incredibly frustrating.  It involved a lot of moving parts and thinking through what my new workflow is going to look like. I had trouble sleeping.  But when I created the image above in Lightroom and then Photoshop, the worst was behind me, I hope.

So then I was thinking again about the challenge, and thought that I saw my past week reflected in this painting:

Nighthawks by Edward Hopper 1942

I’m there at the counter, my back is to you.  It’s a busy world around me somewhere and it’s busy inside my own head, yet somehow there is such a desolate stillness to what I am doing.  That’s what I see in this painting this week and in my photograph above.

But if you are feeling a bit down for me, don’t, through this process I found a few new things this week.  First, the photographer Gail Albert Halaban, who has a whole series based on Edward Hopper. I also took a break and went to see an art exhibit by Judith Shaw called Body of Work.  I found it very moving.  It was also nice to know that all her work and hours put toward this exhibit had yielded something so beautiful, it was encouraging to me as I went back to my own work.

And that’s the thing about art, that life is reflected in it, your life, whatever is in your mind at that moment will be reflected in the art you are looking at or creating.  It’s an interesting process don’t you think?  Do you have a favorite work of art that looks a bit different to you depending on the day?  Feel free to leave your thoughts on the matter or your take on my week in the comments below.

Happy Creating,

Cheers!