"'T was the same little house her father had built him when he was a bachelor, with one livin'-room, and a little mite of a bedroom out of it where she slept, but 't was neat as a ship's cabin. There was some old chairs, an' a seat made of a long box that might have held boat tackle an' things to lock up in his fishin' days, and a good enough stove so anybody could cook and keep warm in cold weather....Joanna had done one thing very pretty. There was a little piece o'swamp on the island where good rushes grew plenty, and she'd gathered 'em, and braided some beautiful mats for the floor and a thick cushion for the long bunk. She'd showed a good deal of invention; you see there was a nice chance to pick up pieces o'wood and boards that drove ashore, and she'd made good use o'what she found. There was n't no clock, but she had a few dishes on a shelf, and flowers set about in shells fixed to the walls...."
---Sarah Orne Jewett, The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896)
In this section of Jewett's The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896) we hear the painful story of Joanna Todd, the cousin by marriage of main character Almira Todd. Jilted by her fiance, Joanna is so distraught over her fate that she determines that she can no longer reside within the community. Relocating to "Shell Heap Island," she takes up residence in her father's bachelor house, were she lives as a hermit until her death. As she explains, her extreme bitterness and complete loss of "hope" not only make her "want to be alone" but make her unfit for social life. Joanna's makeshift efforts at domesticating her home, as recorded above, evidence her innovation, but also the loss of the true creative power which is inextricably tied to hope--the idea that the future will be better than the past. Joanna understands such hope as a prerequisite for community life.
Joanna's island home is a dream home not because it represents something utopian, but because it represents something universal. When the narrator of the story makes a pilgrimage to Shell-Heap Island, decades after Joanna's death, only a foundation of stones from her home and a few flowers from the garden remain. Yet as her commentary suggests, this kind of island home resides in all of us in the more figurative sense: "In the life of life of each of us, I said to myself, there is a place remote and islanded, and given to endless regret or secret happiness; we are each the uncompanioned hermit and recluse of an hour or a day; we understand our fellows of the cell to whatever age of history they may belong." Our fellows of the cell....love that, Jewett.
Showing posts with label hope. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hope. Show all posts
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Monday, January 4, 2010
Anxiety, Hope: Bruijn's Images
"Ansel Adams once said that the principal attribute required of a good photographer is knowing where to stand. But he and Brynn know that, even standing in the perfect place, the photographer must, in a split second, capture that special moment while also noting a multitude of issues, including light, shadow, composition, shutter speed and focus.
Brynn's photographs are illustrative of her mastery over these complexities. Look, for instance, at her exquisitely eloquent composition Still Waiting. In this image, where the sun is just beginning to push away the night, workers wait in the cold early morning darkness to be selected for that day's field work. Some have already been chosen and are lining up for the bus that will take them to work; those not selected sit huddled while trying to keep warm with coffee or stand with their hoods up and hands jammed into their pockets. The stark dualities of the moment are powerfully captured--the contrast between day and night, work and idleness, inclusion and exclusion, hope and uncertainty. Instead of a dawn ripe with possibilities, Brynn helps us recognize in this metaphorically brilliant image that, for these individuals, each new day begins with the same overwhelming anxiety."
---Michael Culver, Director and Chief Curator, Naples Museum of Art, Exhibition pamphlet for "Images of Hope: Immokalee--Looking Forward, Looking Back, Photography by Brynn Bruijn" on exhibit December 1, 2009--February 7, 2010.
Michael Culver's close reading of this Brynn Bruijn photograph suggests that the technical competence and artistry of the photographer resides in his or her sense of perspective in the physical/geographical as well as the narrative sense of the word. In this exhibition, Bruijn captures the tensions inherent in the lives of the residents of Immokalee, a town of 25,000 whose population "expand[s] to 40,000 during the agricultural season" (Mary George, President and CEO of the Community Foundation of Collier County.) With grossly inadequate housing--with respect to quantity and quality--many of Bruijn's photographs document the physical interiors of impoverishment. Indeed, about half of these families live below the poverty line.
But as Culver acknowledges, Bruijn's perspective also exposes the psychological interiors of Immokalee's citizens, whose struggles, anxieties, and desires are not so easily discerned. Currently on exhibit at the Naples Museum of Art--a mere 30 miles from Immokalee--the discordant environs of wealthy and luxurious Naples throws Bruijn's subject matter into relief. Yet her work evokes deeper thinking more so than pity and elides the simpler dichotomies that we might be inclined to ascribe to it. In this sense, Bruijn's work as a photographer also shifts our perspective as viewers, drawing us in, mandating our reflection on where we reside in relationship to the people featured in these images.
The curation of this exhibition supports this end. For example, one placard informs the visitor that 70% of all vegetables consumed between late October and May are produced in southern Florida. We begin to reflect on what we consume, whether it was touched by the photographic subjects--whether they are a part of us--are actually sustaining us. This is only the beginning of this line of thought, which takes us to an uncomfortable place in which we are prompted to acknowledge the arbitrariness of our own good fortune and (perhaps) the essential insecurity of our own position. Yet, we ultimately turn back in fascination at the subjects themselves whose anxious hope is so painstakingly rendered. "Hope" is not a simplistic term to describe this state, but one that captures what it means to be unsettled---in every sense of the word.
Brynn's photographs are illustrative of her mastery over these complexities. Look, for instance, at her exquisitely eloquent composition Still Waiting. In this image, where the sun is just beginning to push away the night, workers wait in the cold early morning darkness to be selected for that day's field work. Some have already been chosen and are lining up for the bus that will take them to work; those not selected sit huddled while trying to keep warm with coffee or stand with their hoods up and hands jammed into their pockets. The stark dualities of the moment are powerfully captured--the contrast between day and night, work and idleness, inclusion and exclusion, hope and uncertainty. Instead of a dawn ripe with possibilities, Brynn helps us recognize in this metaphorically brilliant image that, for these individuals, each new day begins with the same overwhelming anxiety."
---Michael Culver, Director and Chief Curator, Naples Museum of Art, Exhibition pamphlet for "Images of Hope: Immokalee--Looking Forward, Looking Back, Photography by Brynn Bruijn" on exhibit December 1, 2009--February 7, 2010.
Michael Culver's close reading of this Brynn Bruijn photograph suggests that the technical competence and artistry of the photographer resides in his or her sense of perspective in the physical/geographical as well as the narrative sense of the word. In this exhibition, Bruijn captures the tensions inherent in the lives of the residents of Immokalee, a town of 25,000 whose population "expand[s] to 40,000 during the agricultural season" (Mary George, President and CEO of the Community Foundation of Collier County.) With grossly inadequate housing--with respect to quantity and quality--many of Bruijn's photographs document the physical interiors of impoverishment. Indeed, about half of these families live below the poverty line.
But as Culver acknowledges, Bruijn's perspective also exposes the psychological interiors of Immokalee's citizens, whose struggles, anxieties, and desires are not so easily discerned. Currently on exhibit at the Naples Museum of Art--a mere 30 miles from Immokalee--the discordant environs of wealthy and luxurious Naples throws Bruijn's subject matter into relief. Yet her work evokes deeper thinking more so than pity and elides the simpler dichotomies that we might be inclined to ascribe to it. In this sense, Bruijn's work as a photographer also shifts our perspective as viewers, drawing us in, mandating our reflection on where we reside in relationship to the people featured in these images.
The curation of this exhibition supports this end. For example, one placard informs the visitor that 70% of all vegetables consumed between late October and May are produced in southern Florida. We begin to reflect on what we consume, whether it was touched by the photographic subjects--whether they are a part of us--are actually sustaining us. This is only the beginning of this line of thought, which takes us to an uncomfortable place in which we are prompted to acknowledge the arbitrariness of our own good fortune and (perhaps) the essential insecurity of our own position. Yet, we ultimately turn back in fascination at the subjects themselves whose anxious hope is so painstakingly rendered. "Hope" is not a simplistic term to describe this state, but one that captures what it means to be unsettled---in every sense of the word.
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