At the Bellagio book signing on October 15th 2005,
I presented you with a tube containing several photographs some of sunlight
trapped in stained glass and a 13x19 print of the Montaj that I call Gold.
The Gold Montaj has been given to Archbishop Donoghue on 2005.1.10,
Archbishop Gregory on 2005.3.20, Shinedown on 2005.11.28, Jermaine Dupri on 2005.12.12, and you on 2005.10.15.
http://www.lynchphoto.com/gold.html
At that time you signed your Projects book for my mother,
and I asked you to sign a photograph that I created at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens,
"A New Species of Art", exhibit using three of the Macchias.
http://www.lynchphoto.com/barbara.html
I asked you to sign the front, but you said that would imply that the work was yours instead of it being my work, so you signed the back.
When I showed you an 7x10 print of the Gold peace,
I said that you inspired me in the creation of this peace..
You looked up at me and said, "How?"
In response to your question, I smiled and said that it would take me about an hour face to face to explain.
I am available to met with you anytime just let me know when.
Until then I will give you a glimpse at just how I stumbled into a new species of art.
My life changed on April 1st 2003 after a fifteen year relationship dissolved in a short two months.
Knowing that I was going to experience a great deal of anguish, for I thought that I was doing everything right,
I started to keep a journal to help me focus on a day to day basis.
During the first few months, I began to exercise relentlessly using dumbbells
as I listened to rock music on my small car priced audiophile system.
Getting in to shape to get back out on the market became goal number one.
As I worked with the dumbbells, I would swing the weights with the beat of the music.
At first just arm curls, but as my strength grew I would actually use the weights in a kind of waltz with my strong arm causing me to spin more then my weak arm...
On father’s day 2003, my father told me that he had discovered that we are related to the standard revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara.
That explained a lot to me about my writing style and keeping a diary.... In the below link, Che is on the left and I am on the right.
http://www.lynchphoto.com/rosa.html
In July of 2003 at Stone Mountain part a local radio station had a free concert
where Shinedown, Seether, Our Lady Peace, and 3 doorsdown all played.
At that show I had an epiphany. I slipped into the moment....
I am writing a book revolving around that concert, so I will not go into the details of that day.
Stuck in the moment, I kept writing in a journal, then creating a database of just pure thoughts typing as fast as I could..
For months I would frantically type trying to get the thoughts out as they came...
Then on September 16th 2003, it happened. I snapped.... back to June 19th 1977..
The date of a serious car wreck that took the life of a close friend... In that accident, I had a death experience.
The best doctors that Emory had to offer all told me that my memories were not possible.
Asking me what books on out of body experiences I had been reading...
I said that I do not read books and that if this is in books, then BLeave them....
On that September 16th 2003 night, I entered the outer limits...
Knowing that this was a special point in my life,
I grabbed my Nikon D-100 and asked my son in law to take some images of me..
When I picked up the camera, I clicked the shutter by accident passing the open shutter by a blue rope light..
My son in law looked at the image and said that it was neat, and he asked me to make a few more..
I did, and then I asked him to take images of me in this moment...
My son in law, Jeff, started to take images of me.
He tried to imitate what I had done by moving the camera.
He took this image of me writing in my journal.
http://www.lynchphoto.com/book.html
That night, my writing on the computer became fluid. So fluid that I did not remember what I wrote.
At times my emotions filled my eyes with tears that even if I tried to read what I was writing I could not.. My body was electric....
I started to look at the images that we had taken that night, but something in me had clicked...
I started to see not only images, but words... That night I created my first Montaj.
http://www.lynchphoto.com/apairofdimes.html
On the left is breadcrumbs, or abstracts, complexities of the day...
The central section is the point at which you become aware trying to relate to what you hold to be known.
The right is positive times and negative times.. So from every moment that you are alive, you have both
positive and negative abstracts hitting you at the same moment, but it is up to you to choose... I pick the positive...
For three days, if anyone asked me anything, I would respond in a rhyme.
"A Pair of Dimes this,,,,, A Pair of Dimes that,,,,,,"
I told two of my friends that I think that I am going insane... Only good thing is that I have documented it....
I started to take images of the blue rope light and a light bright... Taking almost 10,000.
Actually I took images until I broke my D-100...
I called Nikon to tell them that I broke the lever that lifts the mirror, the lady on the phone laughed...
I told her that I have been on the floor swinging the camera with such velocities
that as the camera tried to lift the mirror; the lever broke from the g forces....
Here is a small chunk of the 10,000 images of me painting music.
http://www.lynchphoto.com/firstknowell.html
While my camera was in the shop, November 2003, I started to wonder what other targets can I use for this type of creation....
I wrote in my journal, that I wish that Dale Chihuly would do one of his exhibits in Atlanta like he did in Venice...
Months passed and only a few images talked to me like the first night when I created a pair of dimes. Like this moon rise.
http://www.lynchphoto.com/then.html
This Montaj marks the point where I started to write a story about a
Cherokee Indian that came to warn my family about the coming civil war, but no one would BLeave
my great, great, great, grand father because the Indian's name was church. Everyone got confused between the place and the person..
There were a series of four eclipses that started in 1821 that come together on the Georgia Alabama line.
I use this as the sign that the Cherokee saw telling of war..
http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/SEatlas/SEatlas2/SEatlas1821.GIF
War did come to Atlanta, and my family was here when Sherman came to burn it down,
but my family did not leave as ordered. Thus protecting their homes from the pyro maniac.
My family also was instrumental in protecting several churches from the torch.
The Immaculate Conception Shrine in downtown Atlanta rests on stones quarried and placed by my family.
However on August 6th 1982, the day after my father's birthday, Hiroshima day, the Immaculate Conception Shrine nearly burned to the ground.
On May 17th 1984, the Immaculate Conception Shrine reopened,
but the Catholic Church did not restore the original story in the stained glass..
That original glass was placed by dedicated followers of the catholic faith that stood up to the Union army.
That is no way to honor their memory by not restoring such a historic church to its original state...
The story that the glass told is preserved in photographs and could have been recreated. It must have been just a budget question...
So burning inside me is this story that I write called, "Looms".
The story was so complex and consumed me that I had no real way to keep track of the inspirations.... It all came so fast....
Till you came to town.. Chihuly's New Species of Art......
I would go downtown to just sit and marvel in your creations... I had been writing about gravity waves...
I would sit and look at this world passing through your structures. Like the wonderful peace in the fountain...
http://www.lynchphoto.com/jami.html
I would hear tones, chords, wa wa wongs,,, hard to describe in simples words.... Maybe I have snapped..
Since I had lots of experience moving the camera to music, I started to move the camera to the tones that I heard from your work...
I created hundreds of images as I let the camera flow to the moment... People would come up and ask me what I was doing.
I would show them, and they would start telling me what they would see in the images.... Like an Arizona sunset...
I created this Montaj, the smaller images are all photographs...
http://www.lynchphoto.com/glass.html
Then it happened.... I saw my future in an abstract created from your glass.
http://www.lynchphoto.com/blackcreek12.html
From that base image, I saw myself recreating the stained glass of the Immaculate Conception Shrine in real time.
http://www.lynchphoto.com/amelia.html
Using a projector, a computer, and a Canon digital camera. I could create a mosaic of the stained glass in Photoshop,
and then walk around the Immaculate Conception Shrine with glass works like yours in a multitude of colors.
A friend operating the computer could tell me that he needs a blue abstract...
I go to a mostly blue peace of glass and create an abstract image that he puts into the Photoshop mosaic that is projected on the wall real time....
The canon will shoot the image seen round the world.... Post Civil war history restored by the same blood that stood years ago to preserve the Catholic Church...
Kind of epic... I will only be in shape to do this for a short period of time, so getting interest in this project is unlikely.
I have been writing about how close I did get... It my story, I write that I actually get to do it...
That is just me wishing for a positive instead of the negative....
I approached your company a while back and was immediately sent to the legal department warning me
not to use any of the images that I had taken of your work.. That the alterations of your work do not constitute original work
and that you still retain the rights...
A small victory for me is when you would not sign the front on the photograph that I presented to you at the Bellagio...
You said that it was my work....
In response to your legal department, Ms Trubia in particular,
I created a peace that I call Chihuly Pa Tu. In that peace I spit an image of the Comet Hale-Bopp that I took on April 1st 1997.
http://www.lynchphoto.com/trubia.html
Then the image spoke to me as well..
http://www.lynchphoto.com/lord.html
I had asked Ms Trubia to present the Amelia peace to you, and to ask you to separate the art from the artist.... But I bet she never even made you aware of me...
http://www.lynchphoto.com/amelia.html
At the Bellagio before your arrival, I asked Paula Jacobson if I could present you with some art..
I told her my name, and she recognized me from some of my work that I had given to the guys that dismantled the Atlanta exhibit...
I followed them around for about an hour while they were taking the exhibit apart...
I walked up to them and said thank you for putting together such a great display, and I gave each of them a print that I created from the glass works...
According to Ms Trubia, those images that I gave to the guys are illegal... Also the image that I gave to Mary Pat Matheson is bootleg as well..
Destroy the prints, but you can never take back the memory of Mary Pat looking me in the eye and telling me, "Oh, so, Creative.."
Thus I march on, creating and documenting the story of my life...
One day hopefully enough positive will be collected in one place that my dream of recreating the stained glass
of the Immaculate Conception will leap out of my written journals and Montaj and project itself upon the walls of the most historic church in Atlanta.
I hope to see you there.
So three terabytes of art later, here is to good dimes.... May we all have a pair of them...
Like the pair of eclipses that are soon to come, 2017 and 2024, making an X on the heart of our nation....
http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/SEatlas/SEatlas3/SE2001-25T-2.GIF
Thank you for your time, a face to face meeting would be nice....
http://www.lynchphoto.com/john.html
Best wishes,
David