I fight the urge every day between April and November.

Each day I fight it back by taking my lens and focusing on some other subject.

But, ala Brokeback Mountain:  “I can’t quit ya !”

I keep coming back.

Flowers, instead of cowboys, in my case, but it’s all the same: men and these obsessional objects of artists .  They tempt in the early or late hours.  They sway unconsciously or swagger deliberately, leaning on my creative buttons tailored only to their charms.

I grow my own art on my porch (which makes dating my obsession ever so much easier) in window boxes and containers and in a small front garden that surrounds my condo door.  I occasionally wander into a neighbor’s garden or go to the pond for the Queen Anne’s Lace, but the bulk of my subjects are less than 20 feet away from me at all times.

I could post two photos a day easily that I find out of the ordinary.  Not just good photos, mind you, but ones that knock me out for one reason or another.  But, I fight the urge though I swagger a bit, too.

Narrative is part of this blog so my obsession with the inner world of flowers must be reigned in.

Except when the narrative is about artists and obsessions like today.

Artists’ blogs I visit tell me I am not alone.

Chris at smallformat, his sweet spot is architecture and if it has rust on it, all the better.  The boy earns my gifted eye award every time he posts a building, inner or outer.

(Tonys?  Oscars?  Nah, The “GE” is what I hereby call it)

Bonnieluria, a painter who lives in St. Croix earns my GE for her paintings of the human figure– not in heroic pose but simply bending down to pick something up or playing an instrument, leaning up against a fence or gathering vegetables or even collapsing in grief.  She is drawn to the unconscious moment in our lives.

In the same locale is Donald Diddams whose GE is earned by his color obsession.  He usually folds it into a form but I think his true calling is abstract forms swirling within color.

Dave at Photos4u2c is a pilot and one might think his aerial photography is his sweet spot as he surely produces some spectacular shots from his co-pilot seat or for his photos of his daughter, Ella.  I think she challenges his creativity and his equipment in ways The Rockies do not.  And, yet, I give the GE to Dave for composition.  I think wherever he goes in the world, he responds to the sum of what is before him, not just each part.   I call it composition for lack of a better term.

Tipota at spacesbetweentrees and most recently viewed here should get the GE for breadth of talent alone.  Video, Photos, Music, Words.  Her latest is called “suffering”.

A GE also goes to epicurienne– when she describes a meal, I reach for my fork.  Of course, she eats things that passeth beyond my understanding, but love her you will.  Her travels, her meals, her words.

A GE goes to planetross in Japan.  (He already received my “Big Meanie” award last year)  He’s a tall Canadian driving a ridiculously narrow van.  The award really should be renamed The Gifted Ear for the cheeseman because he hears words in about as many positions as an Olympian gymnast.

I’m NOT giving a GE to pomeroy because all he does is bring the goofy to Facebook and neglect his blog.  The man has more obsessions than neurons but still the funniest human on the planet.

And, lastly for this post, is Mr. Razzbuffnik who deserves a GE, at least for the times he has been able to defuse a volatile and likely violent situation by sheer cunning and animal instinct of self preservation.  He once sent me a youtube video of a fellow aussie telling the world to “harden the f up”.  I’m still laughing, and still grateful.  I’ll give him the GE for life experience alone.  Now, if he’d just write a screenplay, we’d have him on DVD.

These are just a few of places I visit regularly and make note of how they love their subject into creation.

For unlike obsessions in the clinical setting (and sometimes artists I’m not crazy about as well) which are less about the object itself, and more about the inner needs of the obsessed, the artistic focus that I can celebrate is about the selfless love of a form, a gesture, a streak of light.  It exists outside of the artist first and only after the act of creation does it exist within as well.

After 64 years, I know when someone is more about “I” than “Thou” in my personal life and, in my creative life, I can also tell when an artist is simply 100% besotted with an aspect of their world that only they see.

Their first order of business?

They want to share it.

Uh. Oh.  What’s that noise?

10 Bugles sound.

Attention, world! (Sound of throat clearing)

I am pleased to present…

“I call the photograph (taken this morning) at the beginning of this post, “Zinnia as Palm Tree!”

(She said swaggering slightly as lovers tend to do)

©Pat Coakley 2009

PHOTOGRAPHS CANNOT BE USED WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION

(If you feel someone worthy of ” The Gifted Eye” award, pass on their websites in an email and I’ll give them the GE ‘look’.)