When I began taking pictures, the problem I encounterd most often was one of organization and articulation. I found myself seeing an organized image in the world before the camera, and trying to understand how to use the camera to apprehend that organization. The difficulty of arresting my ideal of interested vision, using the dumb instrument of the camera, flowed through my every endeavor and was of greater importance than any of the whims that generated the particular content of my images. I think that as my skill and familiarity with the problem increased, I became able to use the medium actively as a way of organizing my understanding of the world visually . It strikes me that the camera, as it becomes a useful tool, also becomes a handicap. Perhaps I mean that I am able to see certain ideas much more clearly by participating in the language of the photographc image, but the same language limits my horizon of understanding, or the kind of things I am able to understand. Does the adoption of a complex and specialized grammar offer advantages that outweigh its laibilities? I think the question should rather be how do I cooperate with the chosen language to overcome limits to my thoughts and understanding; for I am unable and unwilling to use any other form.
In making the work for My Method of Diagrams, I feel that I have just begun to master some methods and ideas which open up the process of imagining to some kind of scrutiny. It has been my intention to articulate the imaginary in terms of my own experience, my emotions, my history. This has necessarily meant configuring images, objects, and ideas from entirely disparate realms in a reflection of the nature of the imagination in an individual. Having completed this work it is now obsolete, and I only look forward to making new work using what I have learned here. I have just barely begun to suggest to myself the depth of work which I am interested in making.
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