Big Mind, Big Picture

Advanced Photography Class at HCC, 2010, Frank Ward Photo

Every now and then I learn something. I’m teaching three courses and I would hope that my students feel they are at least learning something every now and then. As you can see by the above picture, I try many strategies while teaching. What I learned this week was to keep my receptors open to whatever is out there.

Twin Dish Receptor (Stereo?)

Alterazioni Video has created a love story with images gathered from Google. This is just a piece of the story I found at I like this art.

Also from I like this art:

From the Art Fun Club

Our relationship to textbooks is changing. The world’s relationship to books is in transition.

Lily, 2008 by Melanie Bonajo

Melanie Bonajo is the Big Mind, Big Picture photographer I was thinking of when I started this post. She’s from the Netherlands and has studied at the School for Visual Arts in NYC. We tried something like her above photo in class. The book jackets were so slippery that the model could barely sit on them. Our picture is at the bottom of this post. I didn’t want to have to compete with Melonie’s brilliance by putting my class picture close to hers.

I like her titles for her projects. Below is from “Modern Life of the Soul.”

Healing Machine, 2008 by Melanie Bonajo

Melanie’s “Furniture Bondage” series resonates with my idea of a Big Mind Big Picture:

Hanna, 2007 by Melanie Bonajo

I learned about Zen Buddhism in high school by reading Philip Kapleau’s Three Pillars of Zen. This picture reminds me of a quote from that book. “I once carried the weight of the world on my back, then I turned a somersault and swallowed it.”

The real inspiration behind this Big Mind, Big Picture post is Genpo Roshi, a zen master born in Brooklyn and raised in Southern California. I participated in a workshop of his yesterday at Smith College. He cleaned my clock, so to speak. I feel like I did 35 years ago in Bodhgaya, India when the Dalai Lama performed the Kalachakra Tantra initiation. The security guards saw my camera and thought I was a member of the press. I was placed a few feet in front of His Holiness with thousands of lamas and monks at my back.

Monks and Lamas at the Kalachakra Tantra, India, 1974, Frank Ward Photo (Original in Color)

I thought I knew so much back then. Now that I know I am ignorant, I’m a teacher. Here is my picture inspired by Melanie Bonajo. I’m sure one of my students made a better one.

Book Sitting, 2010 by Frank Ward