{"id":135,"date":"2012-08-04T01:36:33","date_gmt":"2012-08-04T01:36:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sienafallsmedia.com\/callandresponse\/?p=135"},"modified":"2012-08-04T01:36:33","modified_gmt":"2012-08-04T01:36:33","slug":"essential","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sienafallsmedia.com\/callandresponse\/essential\/","title":{"rendered":"Essential"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Call: Still Life with Chocolate \u2014 Cheryl<\/h6>\n

What is essential to life? Looking at the question academically turns up some obvious, but mundane, answers: water, proteins, air, shelter, food. My list of essentials goes beyond the basics. The books were the first items I collected for this still life, as I can’t imagine life without them, and frankly, get rather depressed when I enter a house and find fewer than two dozen or so volumes. I could live without the coffee and the tea and the chocolate, but I don’t want to. Those particular items are important to me more for what they represent than for what they are: a little time to myself, often spent writing. The flowers symbolize beauty; the bib, the ones I love; and the Rosary speaks of God and faith.<\/p>\n

“… Sweet fire the sire of muse, my soul needs this; \/ I want the one rapture of an inspiration. \/ O then if in my lagging lines you miss …”
\n\u2014 Gerard Manley Hopkins, “To R.B.”<\/p>\n

\n

\"Sunset<\/a><\/p>\n

The Response: Sunset Over the Loundoun Valley or the Road Home from Camp — Jessica<\/h6>\n

When I began teaching, many years ago, Texas had just passed a curriculum reform package that required teachers to tie all lesson plans to a detailed list of “essential elements” developed by educational experts. These many years later, when I hear the word “essential,” I still immediately think of “elements.”<\/p>\n

But then what a good question: What are the essential elements of photography? Light, of course. But also shadow, without which the light would have no dimension. And vision. Without which you cannot tell a story. <\/p>\n

Light, shadow and vision. The rest is all details. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Call: Still Life with Chocolate \u2014 Cheryl What is essential to life? Looking at the question academically turns up some obvious, but mundane, answers: water, proteins, air, shelter, food. My list of essentials goes beyond the basics. The books were the first items I collected for this still life, as I can’t imagine life […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[15,21,22,20,16,14,19,17,18],"class_list":["post-135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-books","tag-chocolate","tag-coffee","tag-faith","tag-flowers","tag-gerard-manely-hopkins","tag-rosary","tag-tea","tag-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2D42d-2b","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sienafallsmedia.com\/callandresponse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sienafallsmedia.com\/callandresponse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sienafallsmedia.com\/callandresponse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sienafallsmedia.com\/callandresponse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sienafallsmedia.com\/callandresponse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.sienafallsmedia.com\/callandresponse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":148,"href":"https:\/\/www.sienafallsmedia.com\/callandresponse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions\/148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sienafallsmedia.com\/callandresponse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sienafallsmedia.com\/callandresponse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sienafallsmedia.com\/callandresponse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}