Linda Plaisted | Thinking About Photography

Linda Plaisted

How the Light Gets In

I use my art practice as a therapeutic form of self-expression and create every day as a visual journal of my life and a response to the cultural zeitgeist. Experimentation is a voyage of discovery for me; a way of finding meaning through the process of play and practice. I think my willingness to show up, try new things and fail on a daily basis is what allows me so much space to flow into whatever comes next. I think Picasso said, "Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working." No wild tangent is off the table as long as it stays true to my overarching mission statement- to be a champion of women and mother Earth.

I created my series How The Light Gets In in response to a good friend's terminal cancer diagnosis, which landed like a grenade amid the constant bombardment of dark and disturbing imagery we have all been subject to over the past several years. Shattered, I was looking for a way to express my own grief and society's collective despair while also searching for some small pinpoint of light in a dark time.

I heard an old Leonard Cohen song one day and his words inspired creative experimentation.

"The birds they sang
At the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don't dwell on what has passed away
Or what is yet to be
Ah, the wars they will be fought again
The holy dove, she will be caught again
Bought and sold, and bought again
The dove is never free
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in"

Ancient peoples once believed that the stars were holes in the sky where departed loved ones looked down on us from above; eyes shining. Knowing that my friend would soon be among those stars, I found great comfort in this simple idea. Layering my original photography, vintage found photos and collected paper ephemera, I then applied a hand-painted dot pattern on top of the natural elements to represent the tiny cracks in everything where light and love can get in and shine out. In this series, the trees and animals represent our eternal connection to the natural world, while the distressed paper scraps- the fragile and fleeting passing away of all things. I am in the studio now further collaging these finished prints onto cradled birch panels after (quite literally) painstakingly poking each image full of hundreds of tiny holes, then finishing the mixed media pieces with paint, encaustic and cold wax medium. It's a multi-step, multi-disciplinary process that synthesizes my studies in photography, fine art, psychology and mythology to alchemize dark materials into light. There is nothing perfect about the work- but this experimentation is my offering to my now-departed friend and to the weary, wounded world.

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