The show this post is about is titled “The Mind of an Artist.” But that’s a little too boxed-in for me. So I took of “the” and added a question mark. Because what I submitted that did get invited into the show certainly might tell you something about at least one of my minds, but it’s far from “The Mind” of this artist! Yes, I’m quarreling over semantics, but as also a teacher of writing, my mantra has long been “Words have meanings; each and every one either works for you or against you.”

The call for this particular show used some artsy language about creative process that led me to conclude that the show’s curators wanted to see works that were related and/or showed a pattern or theme. So I picked three from a collection of works I call #EarthAbstracts. These are closely observed patterns found in natural phenomena, and I truly love looking for and making them.

Leggiero is sand, just sand, but sand that has been interacting with water in the form of tide. Legato is just water, but shallow water over sand. Sand and water interacting make some amazing patterns and textures. In fact, Leggiero and Legato are both musical terms, because sand plus water equals music. At least that’s how this mind sees it!

Lotus Fractal, on the other hand, is the back of a dead lotus leaf, and “fractal” is a mathematical term rather than a musical term. But then.., math and music are deeply interconnected. Some (like my piano teacher) say music is math. And the plant world is also a really good place to learn some math. I’m sad that no one told me back in grade school that I could study math by playing music and looking at plants. I’d have a lot better history of math grades if I’d known that!

In any case, the curators at Sims Contemporary art gallery of Chelsea, NY, liked this little peek into my mind and put all three of these work in their online show, which you can see here. Scroll down past the images to find each artist’s statement about what they are up to. The show closes the 30th of November, so don’t delay to check it out. And remember, this is only one of many things I do photographically.

BTW, I started to define each of the terms in these titles for you and then, again, reverted to another of my writing-teacher mantras: Grow your vocabulary! Look them up yourself! And then feel free to comment: How did I do picking terms that work with the sensibility of the image? 🙂