I want my photographs to say: "Look-there's this thing you haven't seen that you should see."
Emmet GowinTwentieth-century art has allowed me to see things in a cryptic way. I love the butterfly's wings, which disappear when folded and when open leave this brilliant, intense pronouncement of nature, 'Here I am.'
Emmet GowinWe tremble at the feelings we experience as our sense of wholeness is reorganized by what we see.
Emmet GowinI feel that whatever picture an artist makes it is in part a picture of himself - a matter of identity.
Emmet GowinI need to say to you. There are things in your life that only you will see, stories that only you will hear. If you don’t tell them or write them down, if you don’t make the picture, these things will not be seen, these things will not be heard.
Emmet GowinIt might take us a lifetime to find out what it is we need to say. Most of us fall into where our feelings are headed while we're quite young. But the beauty of all this uncertainty would be that in the process of exhausting all the possibilities, we might actually stumble unconsciously into the recognition of something that's useful to us, that speaks to a deep need within ourselves. At the same time, I like to think that in order for any of us to really do anything new, we can't know exactly what it is we are doing.
Emmet Gowin