Praise Song for the Day: Women Matter: Vivian Maier: Bold Choices, Quiet Life
Wednesday, March 24, 2021
To have an impact on anything in life, bold choices must be made. Whether it’s competing in a downhill ski race event or starting a company, the timid and the meek tend not to stand a part from the crowd.
It can be argued that some people have stood out without benefit of the loud and the brash. For instance, look at the life of Emily Dickinson. She never really strayed far from her Amherst home. Similarly, the recently discovered photographer Vivian Maier who, like Dickinson, quietly went about her work without a great deal of fanfare or acclaim. In many ways, both Maier and Dickisnon prove the point that choices that align with their life themes and intentions will almost always be bold choices. In many ways, it’s the only choice.
Because she was intensely private during her lifetime, not much was known about Vivian Maier who photographed a number of street scenes in and around Chicago. Her fame came when a real estate agent purchased the abandoned storage unit that contained much of the work that people now see.
So many of us live lives outside of the glare of social media and selfies. Discovering lives lived quietly and without much outside interrogation is an act of self perpetuation as opposed to self-promotion. Both Maier and Dickinson must have known that. Discovering and celebrating the lives of the unhearlded, especially women whose lives were led decidedly so, helps us to understand our own need to be seen, heard, and valued. These people make statements to themselves or to the universe that nutured them along their way.
Of course, only time will tell if Vivian Maier’s work will stand the test of time, but she certainly produced amazing photographs that document vistas that we rarely see, training her keen eye on viewers going about their daily lives, or even turning the camera inward on herself as she went about her work, seimiscally shifting what we see and what we know, for the greater good.
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Like a daily gratitude practice, Praise Song for the Day will be a way of appreciating what we know we know in a different and perhaps even profoundly deeper way. This column takes its name from a poem of the same title by Elizabeth Alexander called “Praise Song for the Day,” delivered twelve years ago at the Inauguration of the 44th President of the United States. Clap back if you dig the piece.
