© Stacy Oborn
I am a photographer and a writer. I write to wrestle things out in the open from a place from within, and also to keep myself honest (when I get blocked it’s only ever because I’m not ready to see something difficult and true flatly stated). I photograph because I can’t stop staring at the world or at some of the people in it, because other people’s eyes for things knock me out and I’d like to be able to answer them in kind (I’ll see your bird in mid-flight and raise you one reclined nude with a terrific braid of hair), and for all the loaded phrasing, I still believe in beauty.
I read and listen and look widely. As much as my means afford me, I will always travel to see great art. I thrive most when carried away by lofty obsessions. My current obsessions include contemporary Japanese photography; the divide between Eastern methodologies of visual investigation versus Western; new media and performance work; anything that has the ability to stop me cold and make me think, and images of birds.
This space is the pre-verbal second draft of my interior monologue. I often wonder about specific things and concerns for long periods of time, let them percolate, and then figure out what problems or questions they are presenting me. Oftentimes questions lead only to more questions, seldom ever any concrete realizations. I find that I am more at ease with a bagful of questions than with a bagful of answers.
For new readers, I’ll say here what I said first when I returned to writing after having put it away for a time:
for anyone out there that might be new to me: welcome. there is a pull-down menu of categories to the right, and it offers a good representation of my aesthetic whims, and how i attempt to get them out of my system and into the world. i should let you know, in the interests of full disclosure, what this site is not:
- not up-to-the-minute reviews of currently exhibited work
- not principally a place of massive linkage to other sites, artists or projects
- not about a way to convince you of anything or an attempt to sell you something
what i have endeavored to do and will continue to do is to write and discuss topics that i’ll let percolate for some time, done some research and deep thinking about, and think interesting enough to put down for others similarly inclined.
it’s not all defined and worked out, nor is it probably ever meant to be. i’ve a long list of things i want to dissect and discuss, and hope you’ll follow me as i try out my new skin here at the-space-in-between.
My name is Stacy Oborn and I’m glad you’re part of the conversation.
“My feeling about technique in art is that it has about the same value as technique in lovemaking; that is to say: heartfelt ineptitude has its appeal and so does heartless skill, but what you want is passionate virtuosity.”
(John Barth)
