Shadows #3: Lost In Translation

© Chromeheart

Somehow I've accidentally made a hobby of attempting to translate the quotes on the Italian photo blogs I follow into English; this usually works by pasting phrases individually into three different online translators and combining them into whatever makes the most sense.  Sometimes it's spot on; sometimes it's... not.  Every the quote is famous enough to have an English translation out there, it's completely different from the translated meaning.

This poem is a case in point.  It was supposed to be a fragment of "Conversation with a Stone" by Wislawa Szymborska.  The official English translation is a poem about a nosy woman pestering a stone to see the inside of its house.  A few choice expressions that got lost in translation resulted in a completely different poem... a poem more meaningful to me than the original.  Maybe the Italian translation from the original Polish was faulty; who knows.

My Shadows #2

These sketches and poetry are about forgetting what I learned, and remembering what I forgot. It's easy to (for)get lost, when you've got all pins and no needles.

© Chromeheart

Someone once told me to forget everything I learned in art school.  At the time, I thought he was an imbecile.  Now, I'm not so sure.  A lot of things have changed since then.  I'm beginning to think there might have been something to it.  Might have.  Somewhere in the vein of coulda, woulda, shoulda, &etc.

I want to forget when art making evolved from an expression of myself into an expression of what I thought others wanted from me.  I want to forget how my sketchbook was depersonalized into a graded homework assignment.  Most of all, I want to forget how important it was to be good.  To be as close to the best as you can.

© Chromeheart / Oscura Photography

I stopped enjoying art when I started thinking about good.  If the professor would see how hard I tried to be a good artist, a good student, and give me a favorable mark.  If my classmates would hate my drawing and rip me a new one over too much this or not enough that.  My art wasn't mine any more; it was everyone else's except mine, in the name of good-ness.

What good is "good" if I'm not enjoying myself?
Maybe it's not so important after all.

My Shadows #1

© Chromeheart

Out of the inky 54th Massachusetts blue, the drawing bug bit me.
I'd taken an extended break from the blogosphere to write my novel--which, at my anticipated length of 95,000 words, is only 2/3 of the way done.  I'm a slow writer, but that's okay.  I write for me, not for anybody else.  Being that, I may as well savor the writing experience.  The familiar friction of pen to paper, every word a lonely fragment of a half-remembered dream.

© Chromeheart / Oscura Photography

As I've mentioned before, I mainly use facebook to follow a few dozen Italy-based photo blogs that post lovely images paired with poetic quotes for the better part of the day.  None of it's in English, but if I like the photo enough, I'll bung a functional translation and 'share' the whole shebang.  Often times, the quote pairing lends a depth of meaning to the photograph that I otherwise wouldn't have noted.  You can follow me on facebook as A Chrome Heart.

That's part of what I'm getting at here.
I know what this picture means to me, but that's a secret.  A shadow.  Oscura.  Chiaroscuro.
What does it say to you?  (you may reply in the comments, if you wish)