bouncing around in my head

I thought it would be fun to include Rodney's first blog posts ever in our month of blogs. You'll catch a little bit of his philosophy, his passions, and his personality. Enjoy!

First things first, this is the first time I have ever blogged and as such I have really no idea what I'm doing. Secondly, my wife is out tonight and I have the kids in bed so I'm asking myself what the heck I'm doing blogging and not doing something useful like watching a movie or something especially because the only person likely to care enough about what I'm thinking is probably my wife and I could just save myself the time and tell her directly when she gets home, but here I go.

Just one more disclaimer before I go into my thoughts, if you came here to read perfect grammar and spelling than kindly head on over to my wife's blog. If you wish to correct any of my grammar or spelling, before doing so I will have you know that I really don't give a rat's smelly end so please save your time.

That being said I spent the day today working on my studio, the job really quite a sucky one, trying to chip the mortar off of the chimney that goes through my future lobby. You see when the building was built the brick chimney was plastered with about half to three quarters on an inch of mortar so that no one would ever see the beautiful job that the builders sometimes did. As I was standing there chipping the old mortar off of the chimney breathing in all of the mortar dust and being assaulted by the chips of mortar that came flying off the thing I was asking myself the question, "Why do we hunger for beauty?" really, why the heck is it really important to us how we look, or how the people or things around us look?? Why not just go with ugly, it's much easier!!

You see I capture beauty for a living, I photograph women in such a way as to capture the beauty within and without, or so I hope; but why really is beauty important to us, and why do we strive so hard to get it. Why did I spend the whole day chipping away at the chimney when I could have just slapped a coat of paint over the mortar and left it at that?

I have a theory, God created beauty, God Enjoys beauty and being made in God's image we too enjoy beauty and creating it. I know that is over simplifying it just a tad but it's the best I can come up with. You see first God created the world, he (I'm not implying that God is male, the English language just limits how we can communicate making us choose a gender) said that's pretty good. God then decides to make the animals and says, wow, that's really quite good. God then proceeds to create Man, he say's "holy camoly, I think I'm probably done!" Then as one last act God creates woman, she and the man are still there in the garden naked and what is God's response to his creation, probably something like this "Hot damn, it doesn't get any better than this, I'm done!!!"

Everything was beautiful and perfect. Fast forward however long it took to get to now and God has trumped me, I have a desire to create beauty, but the world is already created, the animals are also created, people are around, and I have a mere fraction of the power and creativity of God so what can I do?? Well after years of asking this question and a little dumb luck I have come to the conclusion that If I can't create Beauty, I will try to capture or restore it instead. Here enter two of the things I really enjoy doing, Renovating my new studio (an old building in the north end that was paid no attention for decades and was in need of a little (read huge) facelift. The other thing I really enjoy doing is Photographing. It seems I will photograph almost anything if I can make it look good, but when it comes right down to it my favorite has got to be photographing the last of God's creating, Women, the way God created them, that is nude.

That is a little of what I spend most of my life doing, and why, I'm not really sure why my passions end up offending so many people but when it comes right down to it, as I said at the beginning, I can't control the thoughts of others and we are all entitled to our own opinions. As for beauty, I'm amazed at how beauty can lift the spirits and warm the soul. When I'm in a bad mood there is very little that can turn it around as much as my beautiful little princess coming up and giving me a hug, just looking into her beautiful face, seeing her adorable smile, and touching her as she hugs me can make me so happy I just want to cry. By the same token, seeing an amazing sunset, a crop of sunflowers or the crisp beauty of a park with hoar frost on all of the trees speaks so much of beauty to me that it can just lift the soul to new heights.

So I ask again, why do we hunger for beauty?? Why do you hunger for beauty (if you are really out there??) I think if we all just spent a little more time thinking about the beautiful things in life and a little less time dwelling on the ugly, the world would probably be a better place.

So long all you blog readers, have a beautiful day or night, for beauty is not God but it is definitely from God.