Raw Materials
more meanderings about stuff...
Is there anything more beautiful than a compost cake to celebrate an exhibition of compost photographs?1
Or what about food waste becoming an image and that image becoming an object that becomes art on a wall in a gallery?
But what about those other objects, discarded and reframed at the landfill…
or thrown into the ocean, that then end up on a beach?
It’s amazing, really. This blue glass, that once was sand or this wooden frame or these logs that were once a tree.
Raw materials, transformed into sofa, chairs, tables, and printed photographs in frames on the wall.
Ten years ago, when I first claimed I wanted to ‘be a photographer,’ my vision was just this - - compost, on walls, for all to see and celebrate.
But one thing leads to another, and I wonder about the form of an object and its function. Layers of dried food waste, mixed in a glass box, becomes a different kind of ‘compost art.’
And maybe compost art is a thing that composts and that a person can touch?
I wonder, why can’t we touch the art on the wall, just as we handle other raw materials, like a silk dress or birch bark ‘paper’? Why are these objects so precious, anyway?
Don’t get me wrong — I love seeing my work on a wall in a gallery and watching people interact with it the best they can; But it’s even cooler to witness people touching those same images, exploring the nuances or color, texture and shape.
I guess that’s what I love about puzzles, whether the puzzle of creating nutrient rich soil or a vintage puzzle for rainy days in Maine — they are tactile problem-solving opportunities. So very cool.2
But now I wonder about this puzzle of materiality and photographs and all that stuff.
I’m not clear where this is going, but I wonder if my compost images want to be traditional prints hanging on a wall, or something else entirely.
Given this uncertainty, if you are interested in having one of my images hang on your wall, message me and we can talk.
Like Lilly standing on this rock by the river, I’m ready to take a leap…maybe not into cold running spring water, but something. Stay tuned.
With gratitude for you being you,
Lyn
Charles Umpleby baked this cake in honor of my first solo Compost “Compositions” show at AVA Gallery and Art Center in the fall of 2019. Many of my images resulted from food waste from Umpleby’s Cafe & Bakery in Hanover, NH. I still can’t believe that over four years I composted 10 tons of food and coffee scraps from one cafe.
I absolutely love this puzzle, Songbirds. It was painted especially for Springbok Editions by Don R. Eckelberry in 1965 and is one of Springbok’s Puzzles in the Round. I don’t have a subscription to the New York Times, but if you do, here’s Eckelberry’s obituary from 2001. I’ve been thinking a lot about how my compost photographs as puzzles…
As always, such a cool mix of poetry and pragmatism. Thanks for the photos and the philosophy! And a special shout-out for the compost cake … so clever.