Monday, December 12, 2011

Curtain

The curtain falls.
The end.
The green gossamer hides
the view of the watery canal beyond.
The light shimmers through
the gauzy thin silk, the view hidden.
The cascading folds, delicate.
A thing of beauty.
Reminiscent of a beautiful ball gown you once wore.
And now, a goodbye, without closure, without resolution.
A gradual disappearance.
One can only imagine the future beyond, and the vista.
Goodbye.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

presence



absence

photography & absence

A friend came to see me in a dream.
From far away.
And I asked in the dream.
"Did you come by photograph of by train?"
All photographs are a form of transport
and an expression of absence. John Berger

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Thursday, June 30, 2011

the human parade


"There is no way back now.


I am going to take you on journeys


you've never dreamed were possible."


Alexander McQueen

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Friday, April 8, 2011

Monday, March 21, 2011

the moon by sappho

the stars about the lovely moon
fade back and vanish very soon,
when, round and full, her silver face
swims into sight, and lights all space.

long live the king!


Saturday, March 19, 2011

who was mary hillier?

Mary Hillier was one of Julia Margaret Cameron's favourite models.
In her biographical statement Annals of my Glass House, Cameron wrote that Hillier
'has been one of the most beautiful and constant of my models,
and in every manner of form has her face been reproduced, yet never has it been felt
that the grace of the fashion of it has perished…The very unusual attributes of her character
and complexion of her mind…are the wonder of those whose life is blended with ours
as intimate friends of the house'.

mary hillier, portrait by julia margaret cameron


Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Friday, February 25, 2011

my son loves rilke and so do I... (i echo him here)

And you inherit the green
of vanquished gardens
and the motionless blue of fallen skies,
[...]

You inherit the autumns, folded like festive clothing
in the memories of poets; and all the winters,
like abandoned fields, bequeath you their quietness.
You inherit Venice, Kazan, and Rome.

Florence will be yours, and Pisa's cathedral,
Moscow with bells like memories,
[...]

Sounds will be yours, of string and brass and reed,
and sometimes the songs will seem
to come from inside you.

[...]
And painters paint their pictures only
that the world, so transient as you made it,
can be given back to you,
to last forever.

RM Rilke

Thursday, February 24, 2011

a hint of lilac


photograph as trace

Unlike any visual image, a photograph is not a rendering,
an imitation or an interpretation of its subject, but actually
a trace of it. No painting or drawing, however naturalist,
belongs to its subject in the way that a photograph does.
John Berger

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

what we forget...

All photographs are there to remind us of what we forget.

In this -- as in other ways -- they are the opposite of paintings.

Paintings record what the painter remembers.

Because each one of us forgets different things,

a photo more than a painting may change its

meaning according to who is looking at it.

John Berger

Monday, February 21, 2011

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

on seeing

Seeing comes before words.
The child looks and recognises before it can speak.
But there is also another sense in which seeing comes before words.
It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world;
we explain that world with words,
but words can never undo the fact that we are surrounded by it.
The relation between what we see and what we know
is never settled. John Berger

hermes flowers


Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

what is a photograph?

A friend came to see me in a dream.
From far away.
And I asked in the dream:
"Did you come by photograph or by train?"
All photographs are a form of transport and
an expression of absence.

John Berger

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

drawing room


a note to my son, stefan

what is interesting is that we are intersecting!
you have grown up and are writing about art.
i, who started my career late in life, am producing art.
i went back to school when i was 50, 13 years ago.
you and anthony were in shock that i would leave my
careet at the NFB! i remember.
i just wanted to immerse myself in photography and went
on to do my MA in visual arts.
and now, you are doing an MA in Art History.
and able to write about my work with somewhat of an objective eye
having watched me rebuild a career and evolve in
my photographic expression, stepping into a world that
is kind of a fictional narrative...
having come from a documentary film background...

every moment is two moments. Anne Michaels.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

looking glass


sotto, acqua


of time, lost now at Art Mur in montreal

In of time, lost, Montreal-based photographer

Ewa Zebrowski reflects upon the suspension and deterioration of memory.

Evocative and mysterious, Zebrowski's quiet yet poignant images plumb

the depths of a desire for the past. The collection, shot in Italy and France,

belies its medium - the photos shimmer, as if submerged just below the surface.
Stefan Zebrowski-Rubin


of time, lost will be at At Mur in Montreal until February 26, 2011.