Helping Preserve the "Bullock Family Photography Archive"

"Light to me is perhaps the most profound truth in the universe.
My thinking has been deeply affected by the belief that
everything is some form of radiant energy."
- Wynn Bullock (1905 - 1975)

As I have written many times on my blog throughout the years, Wynn Bullock holds a special place in my heart. Although (sadly) I never had a chance to meet him, everything that I have learned about him - whether through his own writings and images, what others have written about him, and/or memories that one of his daughters, Barbara Bullock-Wilson, has kindly shared with me - makes me want to step into some alternate reality where he is still alive. I see myself pulling up a chair beside him near a cozy fireplace, settling in with a hot cup of coffee and just reveling in his presence, chatting away into the night about art, photography, science, the magic of light, and whatever else moves our spirits. 

My correspondence with Barbara began shortly after I received an email from her about a blog entry I published in Jan 2012 discussing my "discovery" of her dad's magnificent color light abstractions. Barbara has recently informed me of a crowdsourcing effort she's organized to help preserve this masterful work (that continues to inspire me, and, I suspect, all others that come across it and/or just see the works - or their reproductions - for themselves!). The goal of the "Bullock Family Photography Archive" project (recently launched at UC Santa Cruz) is to raise at least $30,000 to help UCSC acquire the rest of the Wynn Bullock Color Light Abstraction traveling exhibit as well as add a few black-and-white vintage photographs to their Bullock holdings. IMHO, this is an important effort that doesn't just enhance the Bullock collection at the University, but helps preserve Bullock's legacy for future generations! The crowdsourcing homepage includes a formal description and includes a short promotional video you can watch. I gently urge all of my humble followers to take a peek, and consider donating to Barbara's effort.

Postscript. The image at the top of this blog entry was captured in (what, for me, is typically) "serendipitously synchronistic" fashion, given the topic of this blog entry and Bullock's own close association with light and pattern: as I was walking past my eldest son's room while going to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee to jump-start my brain prior to writing this blog entry, I was struck by the "Bullockian light patterns" dancing across my son's bed. Of course, I had to rush back to my study and get my camera (heck, it was so mesmerizing, I even forgot to get my coffee)! It is as if Bullock himself reached out from that alternate reality in which he and I are schmoozing about life and art to gift me a bit of "light" to accompany my text 😊

Skeleton of Truth

"So there it is in words
Precise
And if you read between the lines
You will find nothing there
For that is the discipline I ask
Not more, not less
Not the world as it is
Not ought to be –
Only the precision
The skeleton of truth
I do not dabble in emotions
Hint at implications
Evoke the ghosts of old forgotten creeds.
All that is for the preacher
The hypnotist, therapist and missionary
They will come after me
And use the little that I said
To bait more traps
For those who cannot bear
The lonely
Skeleton
of Truth"

- Gregory Bateson (1904 - 1980) and Mary Catherine Bateson (1939 - 2021)

Angels Fear: Towards an Epistemology of the Sacred

Abstract ETCs

"Irrespective of the possibility that the Galileo Project may discover additional, or even extraordinary evidence for ETCs [Extraterrestrial Technological Civilizations], at a minimum the Galileo Project will gather rich data sets that may foster the discovery of — or better scientific explanations for — novel interstellar objects with anomalous properties, and for potential new natural atmospheric phenomena, or in some instances terrestrial technology explanations for many of the presently inexplicable UAP."

- Galileo Project, Harvard University

The Simplest Thing

 "Even the simplest thing
is as important as the
things we consider important.
I consider a fallen leaf as
important as the Grand Canyon.
It's all important;

it's all connected.
One couldn't be
without the other."

- Ruth Bernhard (1905 - 2006)

Unclouded by Preconceived Ideas

"Watching as things arrange
themselves in the changing light,
the photographer with unobstructed
vision sees them as they are.
Appropriate images appear without
struggle, moving with the flow of light
like leaves in a stream,
to be immediately reflected in
a mind unclouded by
preconceived ideas."

- Benjamin Hoff (1946 - )

Chain of Connection

"In considering the study of physical phenomena, not merely in its bearings on the material wants of life, but in its general influence on the intellectual advancement of mankind, we find its noblest and most important result to be a knowledge of the chain of connection, by which all natural forces are linked together, and made mutually dependent upon each other; and it is the perception of these relations that exalts our views and ennobles our enjoyments."

- Alexander von Humboldt (1769 - 1859)
Cosmos: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe

Admiring Light's Beauty

"Look at light and admire its beauty.
Close your eyes, and then look again:
what you saw is no longer there;
and what you will see later is not yet. "

- Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519)