"Go to extremes," an ideal of art urged me. Grief took me to the extremes where I made the images you see here.

In July 2001, my sister, mother, and father had all died within the previous three years, two within the year, one just days before, leaving only me. Many summers in my youth, we four had often gone climbing on The Baldfaces in the White Mountains (New Hampshire). At its most dramatic stage, the trail crosses expanses of granite, The Ledges. By hiking alone that summer of 2001, I was conducting a memorial service.  

Soon after I stepped onto the steep sheets of bright rock, grief hit, making me heave with tears for I don't know how long.

When they subsided, I was perceiving differently. Photographing, which normally requires mental midwifery, had become compulsive because everything visual appeared so fresh as to hurt. In every surface, crevice, shadow, lichen, or scrub, I saw not merely objects but suggestion, significance, as if everything consisted of signs. Stone could move as if billowing in a breeze. An overhanging sheet already cracked must one day fall, but I could feel and see the tension now. Two faces of rock could kiss across a crevasse. Although spelling out nothing, these shapes, tones, and colors intimated anything.

This intensity converted itself into severity of vision. Simple forms like lines, ovals, triangles, or waves forced themselves on me, although no circle, as if, when facing death, only vitals will do, but perfection must wait.

On the Ledges that day, I ventured onto peaks of visual experience. I fear and hope for more.

Technical note: I made all these images starting with digital cameras, edited them using “Picture Window Pro,” and printed them with an Epson printer and paper (“Water Color”).

You can view more of my portfolios at http://www.smgilbertportfolios.com/