AT-BATS

By MICHAEL PERKINS

ART IS AN ACT OF FAITH, an affirmation of everything we hope the world to be. To make art is to make good on every gift we’ve ever been given, re-circulating the fresh air of the inner soul through our nostrils and back out into the world through the breath of creation. Art is never merely talent, nor craft; it is far mightier than those things, powerful enough to transform shadows into sunlight, despair into prayer.

Art is the sustaining nutrition of the soul.

Photography, among other arts, has always had the power to transport me somewhere beyond my immediate cares, beyond the arbitrary agendas of any outside authority or regime, indeed beyond time itself. With my eye to the viewfinder, I feel at one with every other act of Creation that has preceded me. I also feel at one with the twelve-year-old version of myself that first picked up a cheap plastic Imperial Mark XII camera (retail cost: $7.00, with flash attachment) and yearned for better results. That yearning has never stopped, nor has the desire to begin afresh from nothing and make something, hopefully something honest.

And so, on this Thanksgiving Day in 2024, I continue to be grateful for every new chance to take my at-bats, to again face the pitcher. Because ideas are limitless; opportunities to capture them are infinite; and because I live in a world where most things, most truly important things are a gift. In the words of the old song….

The moon belongs to everyone
The best things in life are free
The stars belong to everyone
They gleam there for you and for me

The flowers in spring, the robins that sing
The moonbeams that shine
They’re yours, they’re mine

And love can come to everyone
The best things in life are free