Alchemy
making magic in the sandbox
Hello my dear readers,
What happens when you look in your compost bin and see something that isn’t there?
Like mold…from a photograph created months earlier.
And what happens when I let their colors, shapes and textures play together?
Do you see the synergy - - or am I crazy? Comments welcome!!
For me, there’s something powerful happening, not just because they’re all about decomposition and beauty found in unexpected places…but because I didn’t anticipate seeing these connections, much less putting them together here.
How cool to see yesterday’s pomegranate skins play with a month’s old image from my Meandering Mold series - - The creation of something new by combining what seems distinct - - alchemy - - loosely defined as a seemingly magical process of transformation, creation or combination, though in medieval times alchemy was the forerunner of modern chemistry, involving the transformation of matter, particularly with attempts to convert base metals into gold or to find a universal elixir.
Alchemy is a word that works for me - - how could it not, given my passion for all things related to compost?1
Anyway, I’ve heard the word a lot this week. In preparation for our final “Circle Back” with the Kinship Photography Collective, my Re-imagining Loss & Grief Practice Group gathered last week to check in. During that conversation, my friend George used the word ‘alchemy’ to describe our group.
Part of a year-long theme, “Between Bodies,” our practice group wondered if there was a visual language for loss and how patiently dwelling with grief might also offer opportunities for nurturing community.
While we each had something specific that triggered our grief, either before or during our practice group, our individual experiences continued to reveal universal truths. Images of broken eggs, the chaos in our ‘junk drawers,’ or chairs invited conversation and reflection on generational trauma, family fracture, anticipatory ecological grief, and our deep connections to the places we each inhabit.
I was inspired to start this group because I knew our move from New Hampshire to Vermont, from the house where we raised our children to a condo, would be traumatic and that I wanted companions who, like me, process their lives through image and word.
Whether intentional or in our subconscious, we influenced one another in an unspoken call and response: One person’s vulnerability inviting others to let go; another person’s way of seeing inspiring new perspectives. Honestly and bravely we kept messing around in our collective ‘sandbox,’ letting the grit and grime that is loss and grief transform within, between and among us.
It turns out that in the process of visually representing our losses, photography invited us to reframe our relationships to our grief, allowing us to make friends with it (in a companionable kind of way), just as each week we built trust in ourselves and each other.
The synergy we experienced was indeed magical.
I wonder, was that because we celebrated our synchronicities in the spirit of play?
This is the first time I’ve played with making diptychs from my more official portfolios and with other images from my life.
It’s so fun to play…to let go of expectation and see what happens, whether on a single Substack, during a conversation with friends, or a year-long practice group.
As we contemplated bidding farewell to our group, we considered the idea of alchemy in the context of group dynamics in general and how the act of participation, in whatever form, changes us. But in saying goodbye to our particular shared ‘practice,’ we also welcomed the possibility of what might yet emerge both individually and through future collaboration.
My colleague George Lottermeiser wrote a Substack about it: Art, Practice, Groups, Alchemy and The Participation Mystique.
Interestingly, as we ebbed and flowed with the seasons of grief, we questioned if it is even possible to re-imagine what we can not see…and if it is even relevant to associate words with images that need none.2
“Play in the sandbox” has been my mantra all week as I prepared for portfolio reviews in New Orleans as part of Photo NOLA 2024.
So you can imagine my joy when our reviewer for an online portfolio development class used the word alchemy to describe our various projects.3 In one way or another, all of our work dealt with the convergence of nature, humans and life’s cycles of decay and renewal - - All of our work exhibited alchemy - - the magical creation of something completely new from a variety of raw materials/subjects/ideas…and together the work spoke to each other as well - - large textured landscapes evoked aging skin, abstract colorful murmurations called out to gray hair among grasses.
And so here I sit, about the start my portfolio reviews. I’ll be sharing three separate bodies of work - - Compost Muse & Metaphor, Meandering Mold, and Green Life-Green Death.
Their shared theme: decomposition, transformation and renewal;
Their shared topic: compost of various kinds;
Their meta message: A celebration of the powerful reciprocity between us and the land, evoking Robin Wall Kimmerer’s statement that when we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us. It’s all about alchemy - - we just have to be open, ready to see connections and to let those synchronicities carry us forward.
As always, thank you for sharing your time and this space with me.
With deep gratitude for you being you,
Lyn
Compost necessitates 30 parts carbon-based materials (the brown stuff like cardboard, sawdust, shredded paper and leaves) to 1 part nitrogen-based materials (the green stuff like fruit and veggie scraps). Compost is pure chemistry - - but there’s an art to it as well - - sometimes there’s too much moisture, sometimes there’s not enough. It’s like a grandmother’s recipe for cookies “oh, sweetie, it’s just a little bit of this and little bit of that.”
Actually, those cookies and the compost are pure alchemy - - the creation of something magical out of a mix of ingredients, including love.
Again, my friend George was instrumental in elevating our thinking. Ineffable was the word he used when looking at our work. Ineffable: too great or extreme to be described with words.
I’ve been working with Susan Burnstine for years - - She has helped me define all of work, starting with my compost portfolio back in 2021. This online review occurred at the end of one of her fall Alumni classes. By offering the word Alchemy, our reviewer, Pilar Law, invited us to see our collective work as just that, a unique collection that until then we had all seen individually. Our synergetic conversations at the confluence of nature, humans, spirit and time became self-evident only in the context of this shared gathering. Alchemy as work.
Thank you for bring a little alchemy into my life .... and my compost. And in such a gentle and beautiful way.
…i follow you for your unique perspective—it never disappoints ❤️