The Muse of Change

01.20.09 -- Let's Get to Work!, © 2009 Jeane Vogel Photography. Hand-altered Polaroid Photography

01/20/09 -- No More Excuses, © 2009 Jeane Vogel Photography. Infrared photograph

In classical Greek mythology, there are nine Muses -- the sisters of creation. 

Artists, especially women artists, are part of the larger sisterhood that is guided by these Muses.

There is no identified Muse of Change or Muse of Hope or Muse of Promise, but those women visited me in the studio. Not surprisingly, they came during the rebroadcast of Martin Luther King's speech at the March on Washington in 1963. I'm old enough to remember it. I'm old enough to believe in it.

I was working on a new series of "game" images. Games are important in our lives. Children learn from playing games. Adults work out frustrations or find new solutions to problems from games.  Like art, games might seem frivolous, but are vitally important to our mental health.

As I was working on setting up the first image I planned, the Muses took over. Just so I could have some control, I decided to shoot in Infrared --spectrum of light the eye cannot see -- and hand-altered Polaroid.

The set-ups are similar, but the messages are different.

The hand-altered Polaroid uses the new film, which has very different qualities from the old but is still wonderful. The color balance is skewed a bit, but I can make it work. The dark lines on the image represent the barriers to success -- we are not naive to the difficulty of what needs to be done. 

The second image is an Infrared photograph. In this image you can see the unplayed tiles. What will happen next? Those tiles are in darkness. We don't know what comes next, but we have hope and power. The edges of the tiles are lighted brightly. There are possibilities here.

We never know when the Muses will visit. All we can do is listen. And respond. And create.

No more excuses. Let's get to work.