curving back on dappled

curving back on dappled

skin -- distorted asian pear 

sculpted by scab

ICON gallery's Black & White Photography show opened Friday evening during Fairfield First Friday. The exhibit features 100 black and white photographs submitted by 27 photographers from Fairfield, Iowa City, Des Moines and beyond, and runs from 3 June to 23 July. I have six photographs in the show, all displayed, two by two, in the entrance area of the gallery.

Convoluted Pear, 17" x 14", 2013: an Asian pear from our small orchard, resting on a raffia mat. We do not spray with chemicals, so our fruit are sometimes distorted by various diseases or insects, often pecked by birds or hollowed out by wasps and beetles. I have long been a fan of Edward Weston's voluptuous green pepper series, and I thought many of our pears looked like something he would photograph, beautiful in their perfectly imperfect convolutions.

Grass Bent by Snow, 14" x 19", 2015: grass stems bent in an arch, anchored on both ends by snow. The dark lines of the curved grass stems against the snow are repeated in the dark shadow underneath the bridge of grass.

These two photographs were both taken on a visit to Japan in 2013.

Ichiku Museum Spiral, 14" x 17", 2013: a large wooden ornament set into a wall made of Okinawan coral and limestone at the Kubota Ichiku Art Museum near Lake Kawaguchi in Japan. The museum and gardens were designed by the artist, Kubota Ichiku, who revived the lost art of Tsujigahana silk dyeing, used to decorate elaborate kimono during the 14th to 16th centuries. The museum houses a number of his kimono creations and the grounds display artworks from Asia and Africa.

Japanese Tea Cabinet, 18" x 14", 2013: a close-up of the front door panel of a tea cabinet. I took this photograph when I was visiting my friend Hiroko Goto, a tea ceremony and calligraphy master. To me, the light and dark wood grain looks like dragon clouds over a rainbow.

These are both still life photographs, but one was made by a human, found in the hall where we meet for English country dancing, and one was made by a bird, found on our property and set up in my home.

Speckled Egg in Nest, 17" x 14", 2011: a single egg in a nest I found on our property. I don't know what kind of bird laid this egg, but the oval shape nestles perfectly in the hollow woven from curving grasses. 

Shade Cord Shadows, 14" x 17", 2011: a knotted and looped cord to a Venetian blind with shadows falling against the stuccoed wall. I was intrigued by the repetition of curves made by the cord and two different sets of shadows.

wabi sabi pears

wabi sabi pears --

convoluted, capricious,

curving back inside

Among the four baskets of perfect pears, it's the wabi sabi pears that catch my eye. Marked by asymmetrical concave curves on their convex surfaces that look like eyes, mouths, dimples, belly buttons, these random quirks give them far more character and charm than their unmarred companions. 
          My attraction to the natural imperfections of these unique pears reminds me of Edward Weston's fascination with bell peppers, especially his most famous black and white image, Pepper No. 30. In Daybooks, II, 225, he comments: "I have done perhaps fifty negatives of peppers: because of the endless variety in form manifestations, because of their extraordinary surface texture, because of the power, the force suggested in their amazing convolutions. A box of peppers at the corner grocery hold implications to stir me emotionally more than almost any other edible form, for they run the gamut of natural forms, in experimental surprises."