"A lucky child, I was allowed to run naked through silken mud puddles, and then shower in summer rain. I learned to identify woodland flowers before I could read. I climbed to the tops of trees to feel them sway and quake in the wind. Sometimes, reclining in the uppermost branches of my favourite climbing tree with a book, I escaped into an evergreen-infused world of adventure. It might not be necessary to do such things as a child to connect to the natural world as an adult. But if you are lucky enough to be touched by the land — be it prairie, desert, old growth forest, mountain, valley, freshwater lake or salty coastline — you know the elemental need and hunger this connection feeds". Honey Blacklock - Introductory essay to A Voice Within.
We often ponder what it's really all about, this wonder we call life. In spite of it all too often being marred by sadness and pain, we understand there's something astonishing going on here - it's an extraordinary place we inhabit in the midst of an astounding universe which both theology and science inform us* really cannot be here by chance.
Nature's glory is truly a masterpiece, writ large, which invites us to partake in something very special. The heavens, wrote David in the Psalms declare something vital - the sheer significance of the one behind all of the splendour, and as we contemplate the magnitude and the majesty, we are invited to not only acknowledge but encounter the one in whom we live and move and have our being, as the Greeks wisely put it. Behind the stillness of a star-filled night or glorious sunrise, is one who eternally expresses such glory, who invites us through such spectacle to draw near and discover the maker of such beauty.
In my last piece here, I sought to convey something of the importance in distinguishing between the 'naturalness' of human nudity in Eden, and the poverty of the nakedness which came upon us in our fall from such grace, and how God Himself sets out to aid us in our fall to restore what we had lost. If we understand this, then whilst our engagement with art will always be made in the context of our present malady, it will also seek to look beyond that - back to the garden, and forward to a complete creation, and that's the real point in faith and life in general. We are not here to complete a virtually disassociated series of actions through childhood into becoming an adult until we die and, well, that's all there is - we're here to build relationships, with a God who is Himself a community (Father, Son and Spirit) and with each other - it is eternal communion, marked with the true significance of existence, which should mark who we are and what we do, and that is most certainly true when it comes to our endeavours in the arts.
Honey Blacklock's story resonates so deeply. When she first met a photographer who was looking for a model to work with over many years to create a collection of natural nudes, she couldn't envisage herself ever fulfilling such a role, but as she pondered the idea, 'the voice within' of days when she had innocently enjoyed being amongst the natural world began to prompt and argue with her, and shortly after that, her life was changed completely by becoming involved in the project. Christ talks about essential reality in the same fashion - we cannot afford to loose that essential ingredient we have as children - that sense of wonder as we engage with life - because only then will we have the tools to truly begin to unpack and value the charm and grace which surrounds us... we all know it's there, it's just so easy for us to spend most of our time too busy to hear it's still voice or catch the hint of its amazing fragrance - truly living means taking the plunge, and that can be an unnerving, even scary prospect much of the time.We all would like life, perhaps even art, to be 'safe' - somewhere we know we can apply certain rules and everything will be predictable, measurable, contained, but reality is overseen by something glorious and as wild as the deepest romance - a story of unimaginable love, and we are caught in its magic. We can seek to detach from that and live in our safe, hopefully restrained worlds, or we can embrace the dream, become the romantic fool, and love deeper than we ever thought possible. It's dangerous, we're warned, it's nonsense, some chide, but what of that... what a world awaits those who carry such passion!
My days behind the camera are married to my days of embracing all of life - the one fuels and sustains the other. It is the only way to create something which, in a manner however small, seeks to convey something of the splendour of it all.
Images: Echoes of Eden. Model: Nicola. Sea Sprite. Model: Magenta. Naturally sensuous. Model: Lisa.
You can see the superb 'A Voice Within' images by Craig and Honey Blacklock here.
And read Honey's wonderful essay on the project here.
* Sir Fred Hoyle's amazing work into the existence of Carbon in the 1950's really opens the door regarding the very nature of the existence of the Universe itself. Years later, he wrote:
"Would you not say to yourself, "Some super-calculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly minuscule." Of course you would . . . A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super intellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question". In more recent times, one of the world's most prominent atheists, Anthony Flew, reached a similar conclusion. In the last few years of his life, he wrote that the continuing unfolding of the integrated complexity within both the essential physical structure of the universe and particularly within biological systems had overwhelmingly convinced him regarding the existence of a designer and made prior philosophical arguments against this mute.
