My husband Tom is a great photographer but we have very different ways of seeing the same item. We went for a drive last weekend, mostly dirt roads with just a little bit of highway up north east to Fort Morgan. This amazing tank was standing in a field. We both loved the color with its intense yellow green and bold rusty orange. Tom saw it as its whole entity, I saw it as a series of circles.He photographed it how he saw it then let me orchestrate the shooting, angles etc. while he took the photos that I wanted. As soon as I saw it, I imagined mixing the images of the circles, transferred to canvas with lots of thread painting, thread sketching and rusted metal.
Here's the photo that I love best. It was taken on the backside of the white and red tank. I love the rust and the wear and the blue shadow. But mostly I love the circle. It's an opening or a valve shut off or something useful like that. To me, like all circles, it signifies the powerful female. The continuous world. The whole shebang! I will print the large circle, work on it with the machine and thread then probably add metal.
Maybe this will work it's way into a new series!
How do you see? Can you look past the whole and see just the parts? Can you look past the color and see the texture? Can you look past the meaning of the thing and just see it's essence? Can you break something down and see it's value?
Heather
2 comments:
I love viewing circles as being the powerful female! You have such an eye and I love hearing your thoughts on the world around us.
How do I see? Not always well or thorough enough, but I am working on it! I understand the value in being able to see a whole as a series of parts; that it is important to be able to see the underlying things as clearly as the obvious ones. Maybe being aware of this will help me head in the right direction.
Hoping to get to your studio to see you soon, I miss you and your positive energy!
I can't say as I thought of the "female" perspective, but I, too, enjoy the parts more than the whole when considering art - I love texture and contrast, which is often lost when one looks at the whole, rather than the parts up close. I would definitely have stopped to photograph it as well! I look forward to seeing how the art quilt turns out. Perhaps some wire would also add flavor - and then hang the quilt from a metal pipe, instead of a regular type of quilt hanger?
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