ESPADA PRISM

ESPADA PRISM,
© Bill Brockmeier,
all rights reserved by the artist

The San Antonio Spanish Missions are an incredible collection of history, architecture, and living faith.  While the three Missions closest to downtown San Antonio are, by far, the most visited of the five, the two southern-most Missions are remarkable in their own distinct ways and certainly worthy of investing considerable time.

The farthest south— "Mission Espada" (Misión San Francisco de la Espada) is actually outside of Loop/IH-410 and on the very periphery of the San Antonio metropolitan area.  Of the five Missions, this one is probably the smallest in size, but it makes up for its diminutive real estate with intimacy, intensity, and authenticity.

True spiritual relationship is founded upon intimacy, and the ambience of Espada is nothing if not intimate (no pretensions allowed here).  The solace and solitude that can be encountered there is almost palpable.  After entering the much-discussed portal, find your seat, enter the quiet, and wait.  The One to Whom this building was dedicated is, Himself, still waiting to visit His peace upon you.

The morning that I captured this image (ESPADA PRISM), the sunlight streamed through the tall arched window, spilling into the dim interior of Espada.  As the light tumbled through the glass, it fell upon the rugged wood benches, reflecting softly from the satin patina— polished by the generations of parishioners that have sat there.

A cross, clearly formed by the framework of the window's glazing is echoed in the small cross on the wall that signifies the "Sixth Station." A coarse woven cloth lies at the bottom of the window, reminiscent of the garment that was stripped from Jesus before He was hung on the cross. Overhead, beams of wood seem solemn and heavy with weight, as the beam that Jesus carried to His place of execution was physically heavy upon His shoulders, and ultimately, as the weight of the world's sin was heavy upon Him on the cross, and He cried out: "Lord! Lord! Why have you forsaken me?"

Brought down to earth, the beam of light finally rests upon the kneeling rails, illuminating their vividly-hued woven coverings.  The colors seem to be the very spectrum itself, the various wavelengths of light broken apart and spread out from the original white light. I reflected upon the diversity and distinction of individual Believers, refracted, as it were, as individual "colors" from the pure, white Light of the Holy Spirit Himself.

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Note: this is another of Bill's very limited editions on large-scale canvas (20 copies only) from his San Antonio Missions series of photographs

On Espada Prism

   – © Bill Brockmeier

Light.
Living,
   in Truth
   and Beauty—
      unapproachable.

Streaming down,
 the Beam's divided,
   separated,
   cut asunder
 by beams
   vertical,
   horizontal.


Spear point,
 piercing upward,
 separates
      blood from water,
      marrow from bone,
      spirit from flesh.

Horizon,
 cutting outward,
 divides
   hell from heaven,
   death from life,
   dark from light,
   night from day—
The First Day.


The Light cries
 and bleeds,
 weeping great drops of blood,
   dripping down,
   streaming down
 upon the children.

Bloody drops separate,
 cut by bloody hearts
   into tongues of Light,
 resting on the Children.

Light,
 now more finely divided,
   becomes the promise-bow.

WE HAVE THIS TREASURE

This photograph was composed at San Antonio's historic Mission Concepcion.  Although the most complete and original of the five missions, Concepcion may be the least visited. In my extensive series of photographs of the missions I have found Concepcion the most difficult to photograph– not because because it lacks any beauty, but rather, because it possesses some inscrutable, ineffable qualities that are problematic to capture.

WE HAVE THIS TREASURE,
© Bill Brockmeier, 2012
all rights reserved, also known as: 
THIS LITTLE LIGHT

This particular cropping of the image was distilled from a larger view of the sanctuary which included other elements of the sacred space. This limitation of the overall scene tends to extract the viewer of the photograph from the original location and brings more of a thoughtful, abstract quality to the image. The overall effect of this image is to cause the viewer to raise their vision upward, from the little light below to the more celestial bluish light that illuminates the upper portion of the image. The objects in the image become unconnected to the floor upon which the viewer would be standing and this moves the viewer's thoughts from down here below to up above.

While the depth of the original and complete image was very much locked within the original location, the depth of the cropped image is definitely moved beyond the simple physical reality of the original space. This second crop, although derived from exactly the same image as the first becomes an entirely different photograph.

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This photograph is available in a Very Limited Edition of only 8 copies, printed and mounted archivally on special canvas. The full, framed size is 20 by 72 inches.    Call now to reserve yours— 210-241-6132.

WE HAVE THIS TREASURE
© Bill Brockmeier, 2012

Eternal Light, celestial blue,
 abides above, unchanged and true.
Yet bending down He pierces through
 a dungeon dome of darkened hue.

Plunging earthward, down He dives
 intent on saving, changing lives
Downward, dawn-ward, on He drives
 'til in their gloom His dawn arrives.

He now reforms His glory light
 to fit and forge it, hid from sight.
New incandescence, warm and bright,
 emits a ray and scatters night.

THE INVITATION: a Diptych

Open Portal (Damascus Road) and
                Open Window (Jacobs Dream)

This dual photograph came about in a rather circuitous manner, which I will not go into here, but can be found in a previous post. The initial recording of the photograph was mostly unremarkable. I do remember, however, being impressed by the artificial "canyon-like" space between the two limestone walls of Mission San Jose's sanctuary and convento. The walls are fairly close together, built of limestone blocks, and the roof is simply the sky above– reminiscent of "The Window," a unique slot canyon in Big Bend National Park.

I first composed a vertical panoramic shot toward the west, and later realigned from the same location to compose another vertical shot to the east. At the time, there was no attempt to connect one image with the other.
 The sky overhead was mostly a high, thin layer of nearly homogeneous cloud cover, with some blue showing through directly above. The thin layer allowed some direct sunlight to reach the surface of the earth, so shadows were clearly cast, but they were somewhat diffused and softened by the cloud cover.

OPEN PORTAL
© Bill Brockmeier,
All rights reserved.

OPEN WINDOW
© Bill Brockmeier,
All rights reserved.

The completed images are certainly complementary. These are bookends, or maybe parenthetical symbols. They are strikingly symmetric in composition and geometry, yet assuredly asymmetric in subject, tone, and feeling. When they are properly viewed together, the view to the west (OPEN PORTAL) is on the left, with the view to the east (OPEN WINDOW) on the right.

The view directly up into the sky displays strong geometric symmetry between the two images. The precision of the symmetry is all that more amazing when I realize that I had made no such attempt at symmetry when I composed them separately. The symmetry of the compositions continues downward from the large lit space at the top, to the middle and somewhat smaller open spaces, and finally to the smallest bits of sky below that. These three open views to the sky in each image are likewise separated in the compositions by corresponding spans of rock.

The colors revealed in the sky in the two images, however, are asymmetrically flipped: OPEN PORTAL shows the bit of blue at the top, while OPEN WINDOW registers the blue toward the bottom. This bit of asymmetry causes the eye's interest to circulate in a clockwise pattern when viewing from one image to the other. And while the shadows on the ground in OPEN PORTAL continue to sweep upward in a continuous arc with the tops of the walls overhead, the situation is distinctly different in OPEN WINDOW. Here, the primitive wooden beam/ladder is quite out of place with the arc formed by the windows and the opening overhead. The beam, instead, seems to be trying to emulate the direction of the arc in the other image.

Beyond the purely geometric aspect of the dual composition, there is a richer and more significant parallel between these images. The image toward the east I have called OPEN WINDOW for obvious reasons. I have subtitled it JACOB'S DREAM. The primitive, undecorated subject takes one back to the dawn of history– maybe even pre-history. The crudeness of the hand-hewn beam adds to the primeval atmosphere. Mystery abounds in this image: the disparate shapes of the stacked windows, the unknown purpose of the beam, and why is it stacked there?

I have come to see that this image reminds me of the story of Jacob's fleeing from his brother Esau in Canaan. On his way to a place he'd never been, he finally tired and rested in the wilderness. Lying on the open ground, he placed his head on a rock for a pillow, and dreamt a dream of cosmic proportions. He saw the heavens opened, and messengers of God ascending and descending on a ladder– a stairway extending from the earthly plane on which he lived and slept to the heights of God's abode in unapproachable light above. Though he was fleeing for his life, he was reminded of God's promise to both him and his progeny. God's Invitation was extended to Jacob to enter into and receive the promise.

The image toward the west I have called OPEN PORTAL. Although there are numerous parallels and congruencies between this view and the other, the change in subject, perspective, and sense is dramatic. Where the eastern view was primitive and mystical in nature, this view is refined and accessible. The crudeness of the rough hewn beam in OPEN WINDOW is countered here by the finely conceived and crafted stone carving of the portal. The geometric symmetry between the two images is echoed by the two palms in terracotta pots flanking the portal. Overall, this setting, while still old by present standards, seems much closer to our own century than the view to the east.

This image recalls for me another "Invitation." In an era later than Jacob's by nearly two millennia, another young man was flying like the wind from his own city to a foreign place. This Saul, however, was not in flight for fear of his own life, but he was driven by his determination to hunt and chase down others to the point of their destruction. But his plan was interrupted by a vision as overwhelming as Jacob's had been.

Fully awake and filled with violent intention, he was knocked from his mount by a surrounding light that was far brighter than the noonday sun. The intensity of the brightness and the realization of the sad truth of his own life not only instantly struck him blind, but profoundly changed the course of his life. The LORD of Life, Whose followers this Saul had sought to destroy, had sought even Saul, and invited him to follow Him and receive His promise.

These two Invitations, though separated by a score of centuries, are, yet, fundamentally the same. And this Creator of all life continues to extend His Invitation even to this present age. He still reveals Himself through dreams, even violent visions if necessary to capture our attention, and calls us to receive the priceless promise he offers.

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These photographs are available in Very Limited Editions of only 10 copies each, printed and mounted archivally on special canvas. A special discount is available when purchasing the pair as a diptych.  The full, framed size is about 72 by 20 inches.    Call now to reserve yours— 210-241-6132.

The Grasshopper and the Gardner (Part 3)

Ralph and Laurie Cordero have been dear friends for well over a decade. Ralph is a talented photographer, and the two have appreciated the art of E. O. Goldbeck for even longer than myself, so I thought it would be of interest to interview Laurie about her experience of meeting the man and about his art.

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Bill:
Laurie, I've been exploring some of the uniqueness of Goldbeck's art here on the Revealing Light Photography blog . You actually met Goldbeck many years ago– what were the circumstances of your first contact with him?

Laurie:
Around 1985 I was at an art and photography shop near downtown San Antonio, Texas. While I was there this spry old man in his 70s (turns out it was Goldbeck) came into the shop and the owner tells him he needs to sign a pile of photographs. When he was done she told him "Here's another one.." and then "here's another one..." and "here's another one." She kept putting them in front of him and he kept signing them. I don't think either one of them was keeping track of how many he was signing. I don't think she was even paying him for signing them. It was obvious to me that he was really interested in the photography itself, and he wasn't really interested in the money.

When he was finally finished signing the photographs he left the shop and got into his little blue Dodge Dart (or whatever it was) that was parallel-parked in front of the shop. It was obvious that the cars in front and in back of him were way too close for him to get out– but that wasn't a problem for him. He just banged! into the car in front of him and then banged! into the car in back and then banged! into the car in front again, until he had enough space and then he just pulled out and drove off– just as happy-go-lucky as he could be!

Bill:
You mentioned that this took place about 1985- since he was born in 1891 or '92 that would have made Goldbeck about 93 or 94 years old at the time.

Laurie:
Are you serious?! He sure didn't look it...I would have guessed he was in his 70s! That's amazing! He was the fastest moving "grasshopper" you ever saw!

Bill:
So how did you end up meeting him a second time?

Laurie:
Well, it just made me mad that the shop didn't seem to be paying him for his signature, so I thought I'd try to call his studio and buy some photographs directly from him. I looked the phone number up for his studio and called him up. I said I was interested in getting some of his work and he said: "Well just come on over to my house!"

He lived down in the "King William district" (of San Antonio). His house was a big old colonial style place, built pretty high off the ground with a flight of steps going up to the front door. I knocked on the door and he came to the door and said: "Yeah...come on back to my studio and I'll show you a bunch of pictures."

He was just so happy and personable– he was just the sweetest thing! But once he took off from that front door through his house, he was running! I'm telling you what– it was everything I could do just to keep up with him! His studio was behind the house, so he ran down the flight of stairs in back of the house, and then ran up two flights of stairs to the upstairs studio. He was taking those steps two and three at a time, and never slowed down-- he was flying! After the first flight of stairs going up, I was huffin' and puffin,' but he was just all chipper and talking a mile a minute. I've never seen anything like it. He was so full of life!

Goldbeck just loved photography and loved life. He wasn't in it for the money, he was just in it for the photography. He just loved it!

We got up to his studio, which was plain and simple, and it was absolutely filled with piles and piles of photographs. He showed me photos of this and that– he' d been all over the world– you'd think he might have been kind of prideful of all that he'd done, but he was just as personable as you could imagine. He just wanted to take me around the world by showing me his pictures. He was just full of life.

Bill:
So, did you end up buying some of his work?

Laurie:
Yes, I bought a "bathing beauty" shot for my Dad, one of the Alamo for Ralph, and one of the Big Bend area.

ALAMO PLAZA, 1916, San Antonio, Texas, © E. O. Goldbeck, 1916, all rights reserved
(green rectangle highlights detail of gardner shown below)

Bill:
Didn't you once mention to me that Goldbeck told you an interesting story about the Alamo photograph you have?

Laurie:

detail of Goldbeck's ALAMO PLAZA, 1916,
showing gardner in hat tending landscaping
© E. O. Goldbeck, 1916, all rights reserved

Yes he did. He said that he took numerous shots of Alamo Plaza from the building across the street, about once every ten years to record how the Alamo and things around it were changing. But he said that although these photographs spanned several decades, he got to noticing that a gardner, wearing a hat, showed up in every one of them, tending the flower beds and such. He showed me every one of them and there was the gardner in each one. In one of them he was kind of working and moving– and kind of blurred due to his activity. In another one he was down in a corner of the photo. But in each one, there he was!

Bill:
Was this always the same gardner?

Laurie:
That's what he implied.

Bill:
What do you appreciate about Goldbeck's work in general?

Laurie:
It's all about life. And he was all about life– he had a fullness of life, he had a love of life, and it came out in his photography. He loved people, he loved landscape, he loved architecture. He loved the changing scene around the Alamo– he loved the new and the old. He wasn't stuck in one era or one thing. He loved all of it. And he had definitely discovered the "Fountain of Youth!"

The Art of Discovery (Part 1)

The OPEN PORTAL image continued to grow on me for a few days, and I was very much looking forward to sharing this view of Mission San Jose (and more) with those who would attend the Hill Country Invitational show in Boerne.  But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that something was yet missing.  The image itself continued as a high point for me, but it seemed I was still waiting for something more to come.

Looking Further Up

I wrote earlier that I encountered interesting surprises as I began my preparations for the fall show in Boerne, Texas.  No matter how much I think I have prepared ahead of time for an upcoming show, things always seem to be somewhat of a moving target and the last few days I am usually found scrambling.  This show has been that and more.

Learning to Expect the Unexpected

Recently, as I was preparing images for exhibition in the fall Hill Country Invitational show, I had some surprising, but not totally unexpected experiences.  In my previous post, I mentioned the serendipitous nature of the particular photographic arts that I have been pursuing.  I have seen enough of this that I have come to expect the unexpected.