Artist, writer, and photographer Donna James on Messages:
“But, I also found that the messages that I encountered were strangely encouraging to me, occasionally poetic, sometimes amusing, and often personal.”
April 2016
Come Out of Hibernation
The stuffed bear in the store window, nudges me.
Encourages me…time to wake up, venture outside…seeing anew
Time to start wandering the city streets…time to begin…again…to pay attention.
Copyright © Donna James
What do you love?
Sunday morning on my way to buy the New York Times.
The window knows the question to ask, the attention getting “psstt”, that stops me, at the florist window reflecting back at me.
The question raises the bar, a touchstone for my creative pulse in this 1st quarter of 2016.
Whatever the answer, I should be spending more time actively loving it.
Copyright © Donna James
Pooh Advice – Reflected
I love Pooh advice …
The wisdom of Pooh and my reflection … hmmm. I consider myself more of an Eeyore character, but it doesn’t matter really, because I’m always open to gifts from Pooh.
Copyright © Donna James
October 2015
During my morning walks to work my attention floats, not really landing anywhere specific; a form of moving meditation.
Copyright © Donna James
Walking with a close friend along Wellington Street we share our current preoccupations, for her it’s her family, for me it’s thoughts about moving and wondering what the benefits, if any, would be. I would be disrupting my world for some longed for quiet; the magnitude of a move after 18 years overwhelms me and I wonder.
Copyright © Donna James
The following week, I return to the same neighbourhood hoping the bus stop sign is still there, it is. Rather than wait for a bus at that stop to return to my neighbourhood, I walk to the next bus stop.
Copyright © Donna James
In a shop window a pillow with a message sits on a chair, intrigued I look through the window inside the shop, messages are everywhere. My eyes bounch from one to the other, but I experience a dilemma: should I buy the sign with the message I want to photo or sneak a photo of it and leave? I look at the price tag and decide that I want to see that reminder every day, it needs to be hanging in my home.
Copyright © Donna James
Sometimes these messages are like a whispering presence, that abides with me through the urban streets. But I have to be quick, it’s so dependent on the route I decide to take, almost like a board game. Turn left instead of right.
Copyright © Donna James
Occasionally, I see questions, but recently, they are confidence filled declarative statements.
They push aside my doubt, and adjust my state of mind. Why would I argue?
Copyright © Donna James
The universe seems to be nudging me -all these positive confirmations at eye level.
These messages provide a virtual buffer against the micro-aggressions of living in the world.
Copyright © Donna James
Most of the following photos were taken during my habitual ambulations through Ottawa streets, though a few were taken on a recent trip to Newfoundland.
Newfoundland Welcome
Copyright © Donna James
Uprooted on the 215
Copyright © Donna James
Tourist Advice in Goobies
Copyright © Donna James
Not only are these signs a palpable evidence of the presence of other urban dwellers, but the signs I encountered weren’t self-referential, the “Kilroy is Here” type – quite the contrary, they were addressed to the public, the anonymous viewer/reader – like me.
Vanity affirmation
Copyright © Donna James
But I also found that the messages that I encountered were strangely encouraging to me, occasionally poetic, sometimes amusing, and often personal.
Cosmetic advice
Copyright © Donna James
I started to ‘read’ them as my private missives, encouraging my resilience; especially since I would encounter them in an happenstance kind of way.
Since they left these behind, I wonder what they needed
Copyright © Donna James
I would vary my routes through the city and walk at different times of the day. Often if I returned at a later time the message would no longer be there.
For Weary Empathizers
Copyright © Donna James
Sometimes I wouldn’t stumble upon one for weeks.
The Universal Truth has a Sense of Humour
Copyright © Donna James
This fallow period might have to do with where my attention was focused, although that remains only a theory.
Perhaps Faith is this Straightforward?
Copyright © Donna James
By Donna James
To see more work by Donna James please visit:
Fantastic! I love the words that accompany the photographs. An glimpse of our mysterious photographer. Overall the tone like a winding river, like the ambulations of the artist, gentle, deep, questioning, hopeful, eloquent. We can feel the stretches of time and the shifts they bring. But with sense of humour too – there are moments of words and images that made me laugh out loud.