Here’s what I love most about this photograph, named THE LANTERN. At first, it doesn’t look like much, but the more you get to know it, it’s amazing! I need things to help stop me in my tracks, and shake my first impressions. This one is a reminder to me……..a lantern to my sometimes nearsightedness, and shortsightedness.
This is a photograph by Seiju Toda, a Japanese artist that I acquired in 2003, and honestly, as time went by, I started to forget why I first loved it. So, I even started to regret having it, for something more flashy.
Toda trained as an architect, and although he never made a building, he constructed all the forms in the photography exhibition to refer to long lasting functional pieces, like lanterns, alters, shrines and windows. Then he destroyed them after, like they were a temporary dance.
The “Heian” project was about his interest in the fleeting moment. It took amazing patience and effort to make something that looks so simple really, after awhile……..almost forgettable. It is hard to believe, but it took about a year to make 4 pieces and there were 33 in all.
The plain wood Japanese cedar, called hinoki, is so responsive to sun and humidity that it rapidly changes color and cracks. The green on the white wood on the above image are insects called erucas. They were alive when photographed and will metamorphose into a butterfly. Other pieces have fish, birds or reptiles. Vickie Goldberg, in HEIN, an essay on his compositions says, “Inspired by performance art and the power of subtraction it is an attitude to art that involves finding the way to beauty with the barest of means.”
Each of the live subjects were chosen as embodying life and change. Each photo was taken on a cloudy day at midday when there were no shadows. (It has been impossible for me to get a good photo of this to upload to you, so that by itself is telling. That moment has passed).
The images leave much room for the imagination. However, Toda did have a theme in his work. He hoped the simplicity of the images would raise awareness of environmental problems and the overarching need for peace and a continuation of life.
One of my favorite books this year, a great read with similar themes: Jenny O’Dell’s, How to Do Nothing.
More in photography:
Rinzi Ruiz, @rinzizen, has been a photographer in Los Angeles, CA for many years. I think his work is poetry in motion. His photographs are meditations on place and moment.
Brad Dunning, @braddunningintueor, posts architectural pictures past and present that are art and history. Some are in danger of being overlooked others may already have been destroyed for newer, shinier versions.
Be well,
Marlene
*Please support Independent Bookstores