Last weekend I found myself attending the MICA BFA shows so we could send off some of my husband's students in style. This piece was outside of the station building and was hands down my favorite in the show. Sadly, my efforts to track down the artist have been unsuccessful.
Clever pun on our relationship to the natural world aside, there were two things I really loved about this piece. I've always been drawn to the marks that lawnmowers make. When I got to baseball games I don't care about the game, for me it's all about the hot dogs, lights, and argyle pattern drawn into the grass by the lawn mowers. Also, I love that this piece won't last. If my backyard is any indication I'm sure it's gone by now. Each day the grass will grow higher and the contrast between the letters and negative space will get slightly closer in tone and the edges will get less crisp.
Before I went to Memphis in March for my show at Material and lecture at Rhodes I gave a practice talk for Carolyn, Ann, and Susan A. here at Park. Afterwards Carolyn asked why I hadn't talked about how ephemeral my work is. That's why I love having another set of eyes o my work, it's one of the things I miss most about being in school. Mr Tillman and I have matching studios across the hall from one and other but it's not the same. Sometimes you just have to have someone spell stuff out for you.
That's one of the things I like about photography. It can capture things that don't last, a smile on the beach with the light just so, the basketball player almost flying in mid dunk, or the rainbow hovering just so over the city. In the classroom Terry is a big proponent of Henri Cartier-Bresson's decisive moment, and while I certainly see that I also think about photography's documentary potential. Photography can bring the viewer something that the viewer couldn't otherwise ever see, Abe Lincoln sitting with his family, my grandmother when she was my age, or what stars look like light years away. I like to think of this project as a little in between the two, the images will capture something ephemeral, but also make it portable and permanent.
