Seeing Up Close and Far Away

By Ellen Blum Barish
Posted on April 7, 2014

Our near vision blurs as we age. From what I’ve read it’s because our lenses thicken

and become less flexible. The less elastic the lens, the harder for the eye to focus up close which either leads to fuzzy vision or …. bifocals.

I’ve tried bifocals, twice – being able to see up close and far away so clearly does lure – but I just can’t bear them. The vision lines are too confining. I’d rather see less distinctly but have the ability to move between close up and far away more swiftly and with more fluidly than have to keep my field of vision within a tiny, prescripted space.

I think that’s what draws me toward photography which has taught me about three-layered seeing.

1) There’s what my naked eye sees.

2) There’s what my camera captures.

3) And finally, the resulting image that may contain elements I didn’t see at first.

Since late last year, I’ve been revising a series of older personal essays. I’ve been reframing and restructuring them and it’s very powerful work. It’s been grounding to be taking pictures (generating new work) during this process of taking what’s already written (working with what’s been captured) and then, in the revising, discovering a new layer or making something wholly new. What I’m learning is that the pieces that feel complete are doing what the eye was made to do: they allow us to see close up and far away at the same time.

I urge you to try out this three-tiered approach to your creative process. Create something new. Revise something old. Blend them together to make something entirely different or to highlight something you didn’t see before.

Dig out those old essays or stories that call to you, dust them off and enter them again to see what they have to tell you. Turn one into a poem. Or find that poem and write it as an essay. Take your short story to write it as a personal essay. Find a photograph you took and write what comes to you as you look at it.

Mix, match and make your mark!

Photograph by Ellen Blum Barish, 2014.

Thaw and Bud

By Ellen Blum Barish
Posted on March 21, 2014

Thaw with her gentle persuasion is more powerful than Thor with his hammer. The one melts, the other breaks into pieces.

Henry David Thoreau

Thaw with her gentle persuasion is more powerful than Thor with his hammer. The one melts, the other breaks into pieces.

— Henry David Thoreau

Thaw ….

and bud …

Photographs by Ellen Blum Barish

You Write, then You Erase. You Call that a Profession?

By Ellen Blum Barish
Posted on March 13, 2014

The Nobel and Pulitzer prize-winning author Saul Bellow was reported to not get along very well with his father. Some of it had to do with his father’s disdain for Saul’s career choice in which he is famously quoted as saying, “You write, then you erase. You call that a profession?”

Bellow was a graduate of Northwestern University’s English department, and arguably one of its most famous fiction writing alums. I recently had the pleasure of interviewing six more recent fiction-writing graduates of the university’s creative writing program – you can read the entire feature profiling them in the Spring issue of Northwestern Magazine – and I found myself wondering if Saul Bellow’s father might, today, change his mind about what constitutes “professional.”

My foray into the lives and minds of these writers dramatically altered the way I think about writing genres. No matter what we are writing, it is just plain hard work. Though we can always learn so much from sharing our processes and our work, I was struck by the unique challenge of the fiction writer.

Like the words they string together and deliver to us in lines that are written, rearranged, erased and revised, the fiction writer’s work doesn’t find its way to the page in smooth, linear fashion. The path of a short story or novel is punctuated with productive sprints followed by curves and bends and rejection that slows progress and, eventually, hopefully, leads to redemption through publication. An appropriately meandering route for a profession with a mission to create entire universes out of life and imagination.

The novels and short stories by Karen Russell, Dan Chaon, Leslie Pietrzyk, Sean Enright, Cristina Henriquez and Veronica Roth bring something to the page that may not be teachable: a melange of writing talent for sure, but also intense sensitivity and curiousity for character positioned in a storyline. Making that believable and authentic and interesting – over many pages – is really a stunning acheivement. Yes. I’ll say it: I’m in awe of the fiction writer.

I learned so much from these wonderful writers and I’m sharing some of their writing wisdom below. What was confirming for me though from a writerly perspective is how just as the sun will encourage a bud to unfurl, for all writers, pen, page and keyboard calls. We can’t get enough of the words that dance around us.

Bellow understood this potent relationship and this may have prompted him to write that “a writer is a reader simply moved to emulation.” Exposed to good writing (and skilled teaching, too, in the case of these alumni) these writers flowered in their craft, providing the world with stories and voices that the next generation of writers may well want to emulate. Or, at the very least, read.

As for a few pieces of writing advice:

Try writing in the voice of another writer to free your own writing voice.

Read poetry because it encourages you to slow way down.

End the story in the middle

Think about punctuation in a musical way.

Find jobs that allow you time to write.

Surround yourself with people who think what you are doing is very important.

Consider self-publishing.

Many thanks to google images for the photograph.

Put in an hour of writing even if you think it is stupid and terrible

Think about punctuation in a musical way.

Dan Chaon

Find jobs that allow you time to write.

Make use of attention and kindness when responding to written work.

Leslie Pietzryk

As a teacher of writing, I try to say that little thing that I hope will encourage.

Surround yourself with people who think what you are doing is very important.

Sean Enright

Consider self-publishing.

Teach somewhere great.

Spiraling Toward a Creative Goal

By Ellen Blum Barish
Posted on March 4, 2014

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about the creative process, it’s that it’s so not linear.

Certainly the process can be broken down into steps. And those steps can be taken one at a time. At your own pace. In a very organized way, if you so choose.

But that’s about it, as far as planning goes. Those steps aren’t the mere up and down variety. More like the spiral staircase. Once in, the process takes over and your best bet is to try not to look down or up – you may get dizzy – and simply go with it.

The piece you thought you were writing somehow goes in another direction. You put it aside, go for a walk or see a movie, and a connective thread comes to you, maybe a theme. You decide to try a different approach. And it feels better, sounds better. You read it out loud and you don’t like it. You put it aside again and pick it up later to read it and you see something in it you didn’t before. Perhaps it’s in there already or there’s a space for it, calling to you to fill it.

The process is so unlike the rest of what we do in a day. Or is it? We may be washing breakfast dishes but then get distracted by a phone call or something on TV. Or we may move from one room to another completely forgetting what we left for.

I think that day-to-day life is very much like the spiral of creative process. Some days it may feel more like non-connecting circles, which may feel repetitious and not very meaningful. But imagine what a bunch of balloons might look like in the sky. Now there’s a bunch of non-connecting circles! Lovely, right? Even, maybe artful.

Writers with whom I have worked, or whose work I have reviewed have had their essays or memoir pieces published in The Sun, More magazine, Shambhala Sun, North Shore Magazine, Blood Orange Review and have aired on WBEZ/Chicago Public Radio. Many have also had pieces published in essay anthologies or self-published books.

Photograph by Ellen Blum Barish.

A Picture’s Worth

By Ellen Blum Barish
Posted on February 10, 2014

“Red Skier,” Thompsonville, Michigan, 2009, $35

I took some time off from this blog for a few months to put my energy into some personal writing projects – stay tuned for more on that – and also, to prepare for my first photographic exhibition.

Hanging photographs in a public space was never an intention of mine. I’ve mostly thought of my photography as the source of images that dovetail with the content of my blog or as a way to share parts of my life on Facebook. But as I think about the loveliest turns of events in my life, I’m reminded that best ones came by surprise. Just like this did.

And I’m pleased to report that social media, often the subject of much criticism, seeded this. My friend, Lori Dube, who provides the great energy and communications for a delightful cafe known as Curt’s Cafe on Central Street in Evanston, has liked many of my photographs on Facebook. A few months ago, when I was in the cafe ordering my favorite green drink (a pineapple-kale concoction that is utterly delectable), Lori asked, “When are we going to get your photographs to hang here at Curt’s?”

Here are my photographs on the wall at Curt’s Cafe

Amazing how motivating it is when someone you admire urges you on, offering you space to do your thing. That began my journey to connect with this thing I’ve been doing for many years, a skill that came with writing and editing for publications with little or no photography budgets. I went through hundreds of photographs, selected ones that were frame-worthy and meaningful and then purchased affordable frames. When pulled them all together, I was delighted to discover that there was an actual theme connecting them. And voila! A small collection I’ve called “Building, Bark, Leaf and Light” that zeroes in on the texture and light of tree bark and root, plant petal and leaf, building, sculpture and even household items like a kitchen colander. How much these images are like human skin, acting as beautiful boundaries separating them from everything else.

All of the photographs, except the one above, were taken with an iphone camera. About half of them were enhanced with boosts to exposure, saturation, definition or sharpness.

I hope that those of you who live in the Chicago area will take a ride over to Curt’s to get up close to see them and then stay for the yummy homemade soup or a cappucino. The exhibit will be up through March.

“Tree Tufts,” Sarasota, Florida, 2012 $65