Synchronicity and the Art of Photos
Synchronicity: — noun, an apparently meaningful coincidence in time of two or more similar or identical events that are causally unrelated. Coined by Carl Jung from synchronic + -ity.
I received a picture via email from a friend back East who attended UW-Stout with me. The picture was of his caller ID and the name showing was Jasper Johns. We both had several art history classes together and had seen many of Johns works in our study of 20th century artists. The email was “CCed” to several other people we went to Stout with and we all had a good laugh and were impressed that our friend had made such influential friends since he moved back East. That night as I was watching CSI Las Vegas, I discovered the new character on the show is named Debenkorn, another 20th century painter I had not thought about for the last 25 years. Synchronicity?
Since these two random events happened on the same day, I thought it was well worth doing some web research into these two artists to see what the cosmos were trying to tell me. Was there some inspiration to be found there for future photographic work, or was it simply happenstance and just a friendly nudge to take a look at some artwork long forgotten? Oddly enough, Jasper Johns is still alive and living in the New York City area, so it may have been him on the phone. My friend should have answered. Maybe Mr. Johns saw my friend’s las... Read More
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