Connecting – Then and Now

August 06, 2020

The previous blog post explored connection in life and work. For me, in photography, that signifies connecting with subjects and valuing their voices, be they the voices of people, animals, trees – or light. Last fall, my work was in a show with several levels of connection, one of which was to connect me with my work from over thirty years ago, offering the opportunity to reflect on its through lines.

The show was called Musing Women and was at FSCJ, the Florida State College at Jacksonville. Musing Women was in part homage to Kalliope, a unique art and literary journal that thrived in Jacksonville from 1979 – 2008. Curator Lynn Lewis brought together recent work from artists who had been in the journal with work from new artists and writers, richly connecting – and celebrating – past and present. What a gift to gather with artists and friends like Nofa Dixon, Louise Freshman Brown and Phyllis Delaney – in person! I was honored to have had my work featured in the January,1982 issue of Kalliope, with the writing of Marge Piercy.

In those early images, though different from my work since in many ways, the themes of both connection and its possible loss present themselves.

The young woman with her dove is an image of trust and connection. I remember the dove exploring our house: beautiful, gentle and curious. This image appeared again this spring, as a blueprint in the new and excellent Jill Enfield’s Guide to Photographic Alternative Processes and is in the Harn Museum collection. The image Absent reminds me of my early engagement with photography itself, from vintage cameras and tintypes to the convention of deckled edges on snapshots. But it is the figure who has been peeled from a photograph who still exerts a visceral effect, bringing to mind people with whom we have lost touch.

“Alas for Those Who Never Sing but Die With All Their Music in Them” grieves those places where we fail to connect – with one another or with our true work. The quote is from Oliver Wendell Holmes and appeared, hand-written on an envelope, in Bill Hutchinson’s treasured ephemera collection. The lost identities of the subjects and photographers of those vintage pictures shares a sadness with many inherited boxes of family photographs, including my own. There is perhaps some solace when they are witnessed again, encountered in new times and settings.

The porcelain figures in Connected by a Thread were foreground at the time I made the photograph. Now, it is the intimate pincushion circle of tailors/seamstresses that stands out for me, mending and making whole, trying to connect the figures with a fragile silver thread. The thought of healing presence connecting with those who are isolated resonates more than ever.

Let’s meet in the kitchen! Tomato Place Setting and Side of Eggplant are from a longer series of “vegetable place settings”, foreshadowing my vegetarian future. The series referenced my love of cooking for and being with family and friends, gathering around the table to cook, dine, converse, laugh – and maybe play some cribbage or Mexican Train Dominoes afterward. Zoomsotto chronicles a version of gathering with dear ones for these cloistered times.

Above, at the beginning, is Baby with Cabbage, an image from the time, one I still sometimes give to friends welcoming infants. The serious, sweet child on the tintype spoke to me, does still. I remember trying to explain to our lovely baby sitter why I was carving a cabbage into a frame for him. It’s a playful response to a perennial question, of course. In welcoming children, our joy and wonder are renewed, as is our connection to and responsibility for the world we share and steward.

Books Breathing – Connect

July 16, 2020

While the previous post considers an overlooked picture I almost didn’t take, this one considers a scene I loved that became Books Breathing – and another one nearby. Right there, surrounded by the breathing books, sat a boy deeply absorbed in a video game. This image is from 2015, in Rome.

I explore images of books in an ongoing series called Volumes. (Volumes will reappear on my website, probably in a new iteration of Galleries.) These particular treasured volumes are from the library of a great friend and were being aired to deter pests. They were – to my eye – beautiful to behold, off the shelves, gathered companionably, unfurling their antiquarian pages. The nearby presence of an intently focused video gamer evoked several familiar thoughts: on the impact of our constant access to digital media, nostalgia for what may have been simpler times for children and my own preference for connecting with the people I photograph. That being said, the world has been enriched and delighted by the decisive Paris moments captured for all time by Robert Doisneau, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Willy Ronis. I also love their work that partners with the subjects, like Doisneau’s The Boy and the Dove and Cartier-Bresson’s work with Matisse (more doves!)

One of my handmade concertina books is called Book Time. I wrote in the Preface: “Our time, when print is challenged by pixels, is a fitting time to consider books, their weight and presence in our worlds. Each book is a full experience; in addition to the dense life of the writing itself, there are textures, colors, design, dimension, typefaces, papers, sound, scent and heft in the hand. Our home – and places we feel at home – is lined, stacked and piled with books. Meetings with family and friends are graced with books quoted, considered, discussed, noted, recommended and gifted. Christmas baskets and boxes are packed with the year’s favorites and “the one that made me think of you”. Departures are delayed while the right books for the journey are pondered and enfolded into hand luggage. Subjects present themselves; vision persists. Along with images of thresholds, waters, shadows, reflections, Sandhill Cranes, trees and gardens, I found I was taking pictures of books, seeking out places where they gather. These photographic reflections were becoming a series for further exploration – and to share.” (Book Time, Diane Farris, 2013)

Below are a few more book images that dwell in the Volumes series. I love seeing children engaged with books, and Museum Reader happened as a young reader was both touring and drawing in a museum with us, yet understandably determined to finish her book from Colfer’s Land of Stories series. In solidarity, young women in a nearby painting look up from their book. On a walk in St. Augustine, I asked the young woman in Beach Reader if I could photograph her reading. Of course, she said, and we exchanged emails; she subsequently connected with a friend of ours in her field of study.

Minor White said, “One should not only photograph things for what they are but for what else they are.” Essential to “what else they are” for me is connection – to the baby waving Eric Carle’s Very Hungry Caterpillar, to the young woman engaged with her book, to the friend stewarding rare books and the friend whose mirrored tray reflects the books of the generations she loves and honors – and even to the neglected encyclopedia, given years ago, a great treasure to be discovered by a beloved child. DF

Book Time, Handmade Concertina Book — *Book Time*, Handmade Concertina Book

Listening to Light

June 26, 2020

Photography is, of course, part of my work in this cloistered time: making pictures, thinking about pictures, writing about pictures, organizing picture files. This image from two years ago appeared, and I remembered the delight of encountering the play of reflections over Carlo Maratta’s 17thcentury portrait of Alexander VII, the light giving the subject both an open mind and clear speech. And I remember debating whether to take the picture at all.

The portrait is at the fascinating Palazzo Chigi in Ariccia, where I’ve been fortunate to have had the opportunity to photograph several times. There was a show of my work there in 2018 and 2019, which I called “In the Light of the Present” (Nella Luce del Presente: Imagini dei Colli Albani). It was comprised of over forty images from the Palazzo Chigi, the Villino Volterra and Rome. Though I totally overlooked it when putting the show together, this small image literally embodies the show’s chosen title.

In a recent dream, I was happy to have stopped to take a photograph of a blue, wooden building that didn’t fit an idea of “my work”. A friend with whom I shared the dream remarked “ But surely that doesn’t happen to you after all these years in photography”. It does; perhaps even more as time goes on. I have encouraged students to attend to those things that speak to them, especially those speaking quietly. I hope I didn’t give the impression that it would be easy.

There is challenge in dwelling in the light of the present, one of the many temporal challenges recent months have brought into focus.

In the present, I have a new awareness of how light moves through our house and over the land each day. Rothko Window is an image that has come from that appreciation. Today, local light has been inflected by dust from the distant Sahara. Sheltering in place, we experience the deeply connected physical world – its beauty, bounty, flowers and weeds, power and fragility, grand gestures and microorganisms…

As an image, this figure with its layer of light evokes a spacious mind and authentic speech. Those elements bring to mind the explorations into signed and spoken language by friends Penny Boyes Braem and Virginia Volterra. They bring light, clarity and reflection to their important research in communication.

Here is the new Rothko Window, which concerns layers of light. It is accompanied by a picture from years ago (taken from a publication – maybe the current bout of organizing will turn up the original). In the latter, light makes its certain and delicate way through a paper pattern at architect friend Nan Plessas’ Berkeley window. I recall the feeling of making that picture – on film, without hesitation – with delight.

(There is more information on the people and places -and some links- at dianefarris.com)